All right.

Good morning.

June 18th, 2026 meeting of the Select Committee on the Seattle Transportation Benefit District will come to order.

It is 9 32 a.m.

I am Rob Saka, Chair of the Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

Councilmember Hollandworth.

Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lynn.

Here.

Councilmember Rink.

Councilmember Rivera.

Councilmember Strauss.

Chair Saka.

Chair, there are five members present.

Slim margin on the quorum side.

Must be uh the day before a long weekend, but uh the council members who are not currently here are excused until they arrive.

So thank you.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is hereby adopted.

Good morning, colleagues, uh, members of the public, welcome.

Uh, thank you all for being here today.

Exciting day.

It's a talk about transportation, more specifically transit.

Exciting times, times to rally, celebrate, and uh get this going.

But before we begin, I want to take a moment to acknowledge something exciting and unique happening in our city right now.

Seattle is hosting the FIFA World Cup, and people from all around the globe are experiencing our welcoming and vibrant city right now in our neighborhoods, in our communities, and they're also experiencing our transportation system first hand.

Proud to share that Sports Illustrated recently ranked Seattle as the number two of 17 North American host cities for FIFA, number two, and the first in the United States.

Based off of factors including walkability and transit, so we're the best World Cup host city.

That's something.

That's something to celebrate and be proud of.

Going after that number one next time.

So, like many Seattleites, I'll share that I often take transit to major events, whether it's to a Mariners game, a storm game, or now to a potential World Cup match and soto or a fan zone experience along the waterfront.

Transit is often the easiest, most efficient, and most affordable way to get there.

Certainly the best from an environmental and climate perspective.

One of the most important aspects of our work, colleagues, begins today.

Our governing partners at the executive have completed their work on developing and transmitting a proposal.

Now, the council takes the next step of carrying out its deliberative body mandate that's effectively enshrined in our legislative branch of government.

Through committee meetings, public comment, central staff analysis, and amendments, Seattle residents will be able to see this measure carefully examined, debated, refined, and enhanced, all in real time.

As a coequal branch of government, we have a solemn responsibility, colleagues, to thoughtfully evaluate this proposal and ensure voters ultimately receive the strongest possible measure.

I'm sure the executive our partners at the executive would like to see their proposal passed by this legislative branch in a completely unmodified form with no amendments.

Spoiler alert, Madam Mayor, if you're watching, ain't gonna happen.

Don't count on it.

But I appreciate the work from uh the mayor and the executive in getting us to this important stage because over the next month, this committee will consider one of the most consequential transportation measures Seattle has considered in years.

The decisions we make together will help shape transit investments and opportunities in our city for the next decade.

Made no secret about the fact that I've been personally uh riding transit for most of my life.

Growing up, my family relied heavily on transit, oftentimes because we didn't have reliable alternatives.

Today, as a council member, I still proudly ride transit regularly.

That experience has helped shape my view that transportation, including transit, is ultimately about opportunity.

It's about connecting people to jobs, schools, health care, community, and economic mobility.

It's also about affordability.

At a time when many Seattle residents are feeling squeezed by the rising costs of housing and everyday necessities, we have a responsibility to carefully evaluate any proposal that would ask voters to approve additional taxes, especially a very regressive one, like a sales tax.

We also must ensure that every dollar delivers meaningful public value and advances clearly defined public goals.

That is an important reason why today's discussion is so vital.

Last session, we welcome our partners at the executive to present their proposal firsthand.

Today, this morning, our own council central staff experts will walk us through a detailed analysis of the proposed Seattle Transportation Measure renewal.

Their memor memorandum, circulated yesterday and attached to the agenda, highlights several important policy questions that deserve thoughtful consideration, including the size of the proposal, the proposed tenure duration, the allowable spending categories, spending limits, accountability and oversight mechanisms, and the long-term transit outcomes we all hope to collectively achieve.

Now, as we carefully consider these questions, I hope we keep a broad perspective in mind.

We know that transit trips do not begin when someone simply boards a bus or a train.

Begins when they leave their home, and it ends when they safely reach their destination.

That is why conversations about accessibility, safety, rider and operator experience, uh, and connections to transit are so essential to these discussions.

That is also why I believe we should remain focused on outcomes.

How do we improve mobility?

How do we improve affordability?

How do we improve safety?

How do we improve accessibility?

How do we ensure public confidence in the investments that we make?

Those are the strategic questions that matter most.

Today's meeting represents an important milestone in this process, but it's only an important next step.

Council members who wish to pursue amendments should work with central staff over the coming days.

Proposed amendments are due to central staff by noon on June 24th.

Amendments will be published prior to our July 6th meeting, where we will begin reviewing and discussing them in detail.

Ultimately, if council members have amendments, of course.

Ultimately, this committee will have the opportunity to shape a proposal that reflects our collective judgment, values, and hopefully earns the trust and confidence of Seattle voters.

I want to thank central staff in advance for the work on today's analysis and thank my colleagues in advance for their thoughtful engagement throughout this process, including during that first committee meeting we held.

Again, unlike the proposal development phase, the next phase of our deliberations will take place in public, in plain sight, in full view of the people we serve.

And I, for one, couldn't be more excited about that opportunity.

That said, let's continue our vital work together.

All right, thank you.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda.

And within the purview of this committee, Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair, we currently have 19 in-person speakers signed up, and there are four remote speakers.

Excellent.

Each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

Where it looks like we're under the 30.

Uh so each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

And we will start with in-speaker or in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they're registered.

Speakers will alternate between sets of in-person and remote speakers.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Following Greg will be Noah Williams.

Good morning, Chair Sakwa and distinguished city council members.

My name is Greg Woodfell, president of ATU 587, representing around 5,000 transit workers in our region, many of whom earn family wage jobs.

We operate and maintain the bus system, the light rail, and and your uh streetcar system.

Those wages directly feed back into the community.

Our union is fully in favor of the STM renewal legislation and wants to thank Chair Saka for initially introducing it with asking for the full three tenths taxing authority, and we encourage all city council members to support that.

We do recognize how difficult it is politically to vote to raise sales taxes.

We get that.

Unfortunately, that is the mechanism that we are stuck with if we want to continue investing in public transit.

Every dollar invested in public transit generates an estimated five dollars in long-term economic returns.

Let me repeat that.

Every dollar invested in public transit generates an estimated five dollars in long-term economic returns.

Seattle won't reach its full potential without vibrant public transportation without a vital public transportation system.

It won't meet its targets on equity, mobility, and or climate.

The message from the residents of Seattle are clear, they want more safe and reliable public transportation.

Our union appreciates the decades-long support of Seattle residents and the Seattle City Council.

Please vote yes for utilizing the full taxing authority for public transit and please try to limit the amount towards capital spending.

The public wants more service.

Thank you.

Thank you, local 587.

President Woodfill.

Our next speaker will be Noah Williams, followed by Bill Benner.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Noah Williams from the Seattle Transit Riders Union, and I'd like to start by thanking Chair Saka and the Transportation Committee for doing this important work and introducing this legislation today.

We have before us an opportunity, as my friend Greg put it, to reduce the cost of living, fight traffic, and fight the climate crisis all in one.

This measure goes big, doubling the size of the last measure and adding over a hundred thousand trips per year, and thank goodness we badly need it.

Post pandemic, Seattleites need to get everywhere at every time of day.

With the Iran war crime kicking off, driving has become brutally expensive.

This measure adds a lot of service on nights and weekends, making transit a viable option for more people to go more places more often.

It more than doubles the number of free ORCA cards given to Seattle Housing Authority members, and it funds expansion of speed and reliability improvements, which help us make more efficient use of those service hours.

When now Mayor Katie Wilson co-founded the transit rights union in the early 2010s, Metro Transit was facing a fiscal cliff.

And the Seattle Transit uh the Seattle Transit Measure was the driving, no pun intended reason that we founded our union.

Like today, uh the need for funding is a moral imperative, is absolutely critical, and riders need it the most right now.

Please pass this measure and put it before voters.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Let the record reflect that council members Strauss and uh Foster have joined us in person.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Bill Benner, followed by Kirk Hoffenkotter.

Good morning, Council members.

Morning.

This is a little off topic, but this is a microphone.

Can you speak into the mic, sir?

Oh.

And and Renan, let's reset his time.

Are we working?

There we go.

Hang on, just a moment.

Go ahead.

Okay.

This is a little off topic, but this is the meeting that I was suggested to go meet up.

Use the microphone.

There we go.

My name is Bill Benner.

I've worked in the uh Seattle area for over 40 years.

I work for a company called Ventilation Power Cleaning.

We have a fleet of industrial sewer, storm, and hydro X trucks that work on the city infrastructure.

And we also, for the last 34 years, have operated a decamp facility that the city services uses on a daily basis.

Recently, I was uh told that the city of Seattle is looking outwards to put it in a uh at their West Seattle facility, a new decamp facility.

And they've gone outside of the city, actually outside of the country to look at equipment for doing this.

Um, and it surprised me because inside the city here we have the people, the infrastructure, and we've already been committed to operate a facility in Seattle for the city of Seattle for years, over 34 years.

And obviously, and then also we do have uh the city of Seattle that tour this facility, and they recognize that the gate decamp facility in Seattle is a as a operational and a very nice facility to go to.

Like I say, SPU uses it on a daily basis.

And uh in 2015, SPU asked us to uh do a 3P program for them, a uh person uh public private partnership.

Uh it didn't go anywhere, but now I think it's time that we look at that.

Um my question to the committee is is that we have the people here to do this.

Why would why would SPU look outside of the country for this for this service to have this happen?

And it's a multi-million dollar facility that's going in.

Uh, we ask that the SPU and the city council really look at this and take it from there.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Our next speaker will be Kirk Hovencotter, followed by Lorena Soriana.

Welcome, Kirk.

Chair Saka, members of the committee.

I'm Kirk Hovencotter, the executive director of transportation choices coalition.

Our organization was proud to help lead the passage of the Seattle Transit Measure in 2014 and 2020.

I would like to thank the chair for moving this proposal forward.

Since 2017, Seattle has added over 80,000 residents, but only 3,000 cars.

We need frequent, reliable transit to keep our city moving and keep our businesses strong.

The chair's proposal is a bold investment in transit service in Seattle.

It gives us the opportunity to envision the city we want to be, not just the city we are today.

With the opening of light rail, people who live and work in Seattle want to get to our light rail stations with frequent and reliable transit.

The council has been building towards this moment since April 2024.

It was this council that approved the Seattle Transportation Plan and shaped the Seattle Transportation Levy that received 66% of the vote from Seattle voters.

This Seattle transit measure proposal furthers the goals in both that plan and that levy.

The chair's proposal will mean hospital workers in First Hill will not have to wait as long to get home at the end of their shift.

It'll mean uh the worker at the restaurant in the Roosevelt neighborhood can get back home to their kids sooner.

This proposal will also make our city more affordable.

The average cost of car ownership in Washington State is over 12,000 a year.

The fastest way we can put 12,000 back into someone's pocket is to make it easy for them to live with one fewer car or without a car.

And this proposal does that.

And the only thing more regressive than a sales tax is not having bus service to get to your job or get to opportunity.

I want to again thank the chair for this proposal and your leadership on this.

We look forward to working with everyone in the council on uh their amendments and bringing this forward to voters.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Kirk.

Our next speaker will be Lorena Soriana, followed by Nick Sattel.

Welcome.

Hi, I have a friend named Betty.

She lives in Seattle, loves the Pacific Northwest, transit, and indoor climbing, amongst other things.

She's fortunate to have a climbing gym with three locations, but two that make sense via transit.

One is in north of Seattle and one is south of Seattle.

The first gym that's closest to her is 1.8 miles from her versus the 3.7 mile one.

However, when looking at transit time, the first is an average of 25 minutes, and the second is 26 minutes.

So comparable.

Now here's where things get interesting.

She has three transit options to get to the one that's the first gym.

Lucky Betty, right?

However, the three routes pick up at different points, and each route comes with either every 20 minutes or every eight to 10 minutes.

The second gym, the furthest one, with similar transit time, only has two routes to the gym.

However, one comes every four to eight minutes, and the second comes every six to ten minutes.

But both routes have the same pickup point, which means transit is coming every three to five minutes.

Dear council members, my name is Lorena Soriano.

I live in District 3, and Betty is me.

When the two-line connection opened, those of us living and going to where both lines pass instantly got more frequent trains.

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm at the point that I no longer check when the trains come.

I'm also fortunate to live where a rapid line is basically in my front yard, and I'm a few blocks away from other rapid lines.

This access to frequent buses makes it so that I don't have to worry about when to leave or when the next bus is coming because you already know that the next one is right around the corner.

Now, the thing that I didn't mention is that while both of the climbing gyms are about a 25-minute transit time, driving would still be would only be six to eleven minutes respectively.

Frequent transit is still not the same as driving, but gives us the closest comparable opportunity to rival.

I'm here to ask that you keep the Seattle Transit Measure proposal intact and allow thousands of Seattle commuters to be the to have the opportunity that I have because you shouldn't have to live in downtown to have frequent.

Our next speaker will be Nick Sattel, followed by Jason Lee.

First off, let the record reflect that Councilmember Rivera has joined us uh online, I believe, and then Vice Chair Rank has joined us in person.

Welcome.

Hello, council.

Uh, my name is Nick.

I help co-lead fix the late, and um I'm here to support more transit service.

Um, I want to thank everyone here on council and Chair Saka for all the work you put in on this.

I know this is a very complicated issue, it's very convoluted, and the concept of having a transportation benefit district that's a different body than the actual city is gets very complicated.

But we need more transit service, and I'm glad that the mayor's proposal is doing that.

Um I support the increase in the amount of service that this uh that the city will be funding to increase the amount of frequency that we have on our buses.

We just heard how having more frequency is so powerful, making it easier to get around by transit and changes the calculus against driving.

I want to call out though that this body has set so many goals over the years.

The Seattle Transportation Plan is part of it, the frequent transit network.

Our goals on climate change, our goals on Vision Zero, there's goals on X, Y, and Z.

For the transportation levy, we've funded many of those goals to see them, see us make progress on them.

But we didn't fund the frequent Transit Network.

We didn't fund all of the goals that lead back to having more transit.

Making uh a dent on our uh climate emissions leads back to transit as well.

This is the time we have to fund transit and make it more frequent, make it faster, make it reliable to actually achieve all of these goals.

I asked you to dedicate more money to transit service and frequency the way that the mayor's proposal is doing it, and to fund it citywide.

You know, people need to get around the entire city.

And I want to call out that this proposal makes Seattle more affordable.

Even though the median two-person household will pay $29 a year as part of the sales tax increase, that's only a couple gallons of gas now that we have this uh crisis.

Um, and it's also only a, you know, a couple of hours of parking.

Uh, now the parking is is expensive.

Um, and as the cost of owning a car and the cost of having insurance skyrocket too, as we heard, it's a thousand dollars a month to own a car.

If this is the nail in the final nail on the coffin that gets people to drop their cars, this is the most affordable thing we can have.

An extra thousand dollars a month, that's money going back into our economy that we're spending more on going out and having fun and exploring the city the way that we're seeing people are doing with the World Cup.

And that's the way I want the city to keep going.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Jason Lee, followed by Avery.

Good morning, Council.

Good morning, Sher Saka.

My name is Jason Lee.

I'm here to speak in favor of the proposal proposed by Chesaka.

Right now, um, like Nick mentioned, we have a lot of really ambitious goals in Seattle, but we're moving in the wrong direction.

According to the latest Commute Seattle report, the rates of uh people commuting to work by driving alone has increasing for the first time in a decade.

According to the Seattle Times in 2024, we added more than 13,000 new drivers commuting alone to work in just one year.

We've spent so much time and effort to get ready for the World Cup and the fans that it will bring, but we're doing that as a temporary measure.

But by the end of this tenure measure, um, if these trends continue, then we would have added enough new drivers on our roads to fill Lumen Field or sorry, Seattle Stadium to capacity twice.

So everyone goes everyone right now that's worried about the World Cup traffic will experience even worse on an everyday basis, and we can't have a construction pause for the rest of Seattle's life.

This needs to change, and Chair Saka's proposal would do exactly that.

So thank you, Chair Saka for introducing this legislation.

I think this goes in all the right directions.

Uh, it's really bold.

I'm really excited to see this transit measure um get passed the voters and then for voters to pass it because and I'm confident that it will pass because transit is popular in Seattle.

Um hopefully that's the message you get today, and that's the message I want to send is that you just really want more buses, more transit service, and I hope you keep that in mind whenever you're considering adminments, um, because this is what is gonna fix uh uh fix that trend and get us back on track to meet our goals.

And transit is so popular in Seattle, and I know at this point this is a couple weeks stale, but um transit is so popular in Seattle and people are so excited to get on transit that a couple weeks ago a driver forgot to get out of the car first before trying to get on the link.

Um, yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Lee, I remember that.

Yeah.

Our next speaker will be Avery, followed by Darcy Gould.

Welcome, Avery.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Avery.

And I hope we will allow everybody who wants to take the bus to be able to take the bus from wherever they want to wherever they want, whenever they want.

That's what freedom looks like, and that's what accessibility looks like, and that's what a progressive city should do.

And that thank you for proposing an amendment that will uh measure that will do that.

I'm extremely excited that my fellow Seattleites and this council have been willing to tax themselves to get this freedom for everybody to travel freely, and I know we will vote for it again.

In other places, like Bainbridge, they're upgrading their fleet to electric.

But most of their people drive.

So they get traffic, low coverage, and low frequency, which results in, of course, low ridership.

In Seattle, we're doing things right.

Let's get the frequent transit network built, get people out of their cars and onto the bus.

And when we've built the frequent transit network, we can spend any extra money on the nice to haves like trolley buses, electric buses, or upgrading our high ridership lines to light rail.

But let's be real.

Seattle shouldn't be the only city with more service.

Our neighbors shouldn't be, shouldn't also be individually taxing themselves to get service only where there is sufficient wealth and willingness.

Metro is a county-wide agency, and I hope you'll commit to stepping down this tax in Seattle when the county gets their act in order and increases the base service levels.

But I hope you'll demand that Metro keeps the frequent transit network fully funded in Seattle, even if we have to pay a little bit out little bit for it.

If the county doesn't want to tax themselves, we can always tax the suburbs, suburban people with congestion pricing and fund more transit that way.

Thank you for proposing this measure.

I'm excited for us to be able to vote for it.

Thank you, Hillary.

Our next speaker will be Darcy Gould, followed by David Hill.

Hi, my name is Daisy Gould.

The mayor's proposal is exactly what this city needs.

As much transit as possible.

So going through the amendment process, I just wanted to emphasize the importance of a couple things to this council.

The first thing is the first hill streetcar could be on the chopping block because Sound Transit, it it funded the first hill streetcar as a mitigation to cutting the first hill station, and that funding will expire this year.

So it's vital that the city steps up and continues operating the streetcar, and we must do so if we ever want to expand it in the future, which we do.

Seattle passed the last Seattle transit measure by 80%, and that was during the pandemic when people were famously isolating and staying home.

For every one dollar invested into transit, somebody said this earlier, but it's true.

The local community and uh economy gets back five dollars, uh, which makes it one of the best things to spend regressive tax money on.

The reality is this city only has a handful of funding levers for transit, and with a 0.3 increase, we're reaching the upper limit of taxes that can legally be spent on transit.

So the city is going to need to work with state legislators to unlock new funding mechanisms for transit um for future transit measures to increase service, um, and especially inevitably to continue operating existing service at the bare minimum to get ahead of inflation.

And so, lastly, uh a reminder to the council uh sidewalks and public transportation are from two different budgets.

They each have different sources of funding, and any attempt to put sidewalks into a transit measure um would unfortunately take away service from buses, which is just how that works.

Thank you.

Thank you, Daisy, and uh super dope fanny pack, by the way.

Love it.

Our next speaker will be David Hill, followed by Jonathan Gonzalez.

Good morning, council members.

My name is David Hill.

I'm a car-free Seattle resident of 15 years and a member of the transit riders union.

True and the Mass Coalition would like to thank Chair Saka for moving the Seattle transit measure forward.

And we are calling on the council to approve this measure.

When the 2020 initiative passed with a staggering 80% of the vote, it proved that Seattleites have an immense, undeniable appetite for transit investment.

Reliability and transit times dictate whether people can choose transit, and with 20% of Seattle households owning no car, robust bus service is a strict necessity, not a luxury.

This proposal nearly doubles city funded bus service, expanding our network from just nine high frequency routes towards a target of 30.

And as someone who has had to wait 30 minutes or more for a bus to get home from downtown after a concert, you can imagine how that resonates with me.

Crucially, the measure also expands subsidized access for low-income riders and shifts investments to nights and weekends to match post-COVID travel patterns.

While we remain deeply critical of relying on regressive sales taxes that squeeze working people, we simply need this measure today.

We urge you to pass this measure, and we will continue organized to transition our city towards the progressive funding mechanisms our working families deserve.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, David.

Our next speaker will be Jonathan Gonzalez, followed by Blair Barry.

Hello, my name is Jonathan Gonzalez.

I'm an organizer of Say Ballad Rail.

I want to thank Chair Saka for all the work he and his staff have put into this measure.

Today I rode the 28X to get here for public comment.

I try to take um try to take public transit as often as I can, but I still get a little anxious when I try to take the 28X.

If I miss it, or even worse, if it doesn't show up, I go from hopefully being on time to being incredibly late to whatever I'm planning for.

Ballard is the only regional center without a plan.

Light rail stop.

We need frequent transit.

We don't need it tomorrow.

We don't need it next year.

We need it now.

The Seattle transit measure will help get us there.

And while I'm happy to advocate for progressive revenue in Olympia, we've got to work with our options.

And that means unfortunately a sales tax increase.

So let's work together to get this measure on the ballot in November.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Our next speaker will be Blair Barry, followed by Lisa Walters.

Good morning, Council members.

Morning.

I'm Blair.

I'll make this short and sweet.

I believe this ballot measure should be put to the people because it will be an important step to freeing us from the tyranny of the car.

Cars become tyrannical when they are the only practical way to participate in society.

Freedom increases when there are multiple workable mobility uh choices, and this gives us thought.

Thank you, Blair.

Our next speaker is Lisa Walters, followed by Rita Holzmann.

Good morning, Chair Saka and members of the committee.

My name is Lisa Walters, and I'm here on behalf of the Seattle Housing Authority and the 38,000 low-income people we serve in Seattle.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment today.

Since 2019, SHA has been proud to partner with the city to provide residents in SHA housing access to free ORCA passes through the Seattle Transit measure.

Many of the people we serve have to make difficult decisions every day on how to spend unlimited budgets.

The free ORCA passes have made a tremendous impact for these families, alleviating one of those choices by opening the door to reliable and affordable transportation options that meet their needs without an added cost burden.

With these ORCA cards, low-income families, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities that we serve can access essential services and reach medical care, get to jobs and navigate our city safely.

We are thrilled to see the proposal before you continues to support free access to transit for these households and proposes expanding this critical benefit to more low-income households living with a housing voucher.

We look forward to continuing to work alongside the city to deliver this essential program for low-income people, and we're available to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Lisa.

Our next speaker will be Rita Holzman, followed by Justin Two.

Good morning.

My name is Rita Holzman, and I'm here today to talk about traffic safety.

I'm a lifelong resident of West Seattle, and a little more than two years ago, I came before this committee to speak about the need to prioritize safety for the most vulnerable people using our streets.

I spoke then about the loss, devastating loss of my husband, Steve Holzman, who was struck and killed by an oncoming motorist while cycling in our neighborhood in December 2023.

I spoke because as a former cyclist myself, I know how vulnerable vulnerable bike users are when they must share the road with cars.

I spoke because I feared that what happened to my husband could so easily happen to someone else in our neighborhood.

This past Monday, that fear became reality.

Another cyclist was struck and killed just half a mile from where my husband lost his life.

If my own experience is any guide, it will be likely be months before the investigation into Monday's fatality is complete, and we understand fully how the cyclist was fatally injured.

But what I can tell you right now, without any uncertainty, is that another family is grieving.

Another family is asking how they could lose someone they love so suddenly and senselessly, especially after the passage of a major transportation levy in 2024 that included nearly 200 million dollars for safety.

I understand that many of the improvements funded by that levy are still in planning or just beginning, but I am here today to ask this committee to work closely with SDOT to ensure that meaningful safety improvements are made at the site of Monday's fatal crash and that they are made without delay.

Until Seattle reaches zero traffic-related deaths and serious injuries, we cannot honestly say that this is a safe and livable city for everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Olds.

Holtzman.

Our next speaker will be Justin Two, followed by Lakeisha Jones.

Good morning, Council.

I would like to thank Chair Saka and Mayor Wilson for their uh throwing their support behind the uh transit levy of the 0.3% over 10 years as a solid foundation to boost bus service and frequency for the city and has also saves us money.

Have you known as a valor resident uh and also everyone probably have noticed Uber and Lyft has become very expensive?

A ride that used to cost $20, might be $30 or $50 uh nowadays, and that's just maybe a two-hour ride from your home to the nearest light rail station or to the restaurant, and that's really bad on our bank accounts.

So uh more reliable buses and transit services would not only is not only sustainable but also saves us money.

And for me personally, uh, as I uh as I am a Ballard resident, I rely on the 17 and the 40 bus uh to go across uh Seattle, and uh I think uh council member Strauss would also appreciate more buses around Ballard as well so he can uh leave the car at home, uh so to stay on gas, to save on parking fees, and just to uh be able to enjoy the neighborhoods without all the hassle and the extra costs.

So I urge the council to please support the transit measure.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Justin.

Our next speech speaker will be Lakeisha Jones, followed by Wendy Kimball.

Uh good morning, council members.

On behalf of SDOT's transportation equity work group, I am here to support the mayor's proposal to renew the Seattle transit measure, while a 0.3% tax increase is not our preferred funding approach because it places a greater burden on lower income residents.

We recognize the constraints of current state policy and available funding tools.

Given rising transportation and infrastructure costs, the proposal is necessary to preserve existing services and expand support for the communities that rely on them most.

We strongly support maintaining and expanding the transit access program, which now provides ORCA subsidies to more than 22,000 Seattle residents, more than double its previous reach.

We also support adding 100,000 bus service hours in equity priority areas, and at times we reduce fair riders depend on transit the most.

These targeted investments are critical.

Communities of color continue to be displaced farther from the city center.

At the same time, our older adult population is growing rapidly with many living on fixed incomes.

Youth, people with disabilities, and the immigrant communities also depend on affordable, reliable transit to access jobs, education, health care, and essential services through the transportation equity framework and racial equity toolkit.

We know that prioritizing these communities helps offset inequities, including the those created by regressive funding mechanisms like sales tax.

This proposal provides a stable funding source for the next decade.

However, sales tax is not a sustainable long-term solution, and we are already at the state cap.

We urge the city council, the mayor's office, and our regional partners to pursue more progressive, durable funding strategies that meet the needs of a growing and changing region.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Lakeisha.

Our next speaker is Wendy Kimball, followed by Jack Nash.

Good morning, council.

Good morning.

I'm standing here as a private citizen.

I'm old.

I had a medical emergency that basically changed my life.

Ma'am, can you speak in pause?

Pause.

I have to work and speaking.

Okay.

I lost mobility, I lost communication, but I haven't lost feistiness.

And Mr.

Strauss can attest to that.

I am from Bloard.

I end up at Providence at least three or four times a month for check-ins.

There is no way that I can have an appointment at that place and not schedule two hours to get there on time.

I think that there is a problem in the city where there are transportation deserts where the elderly who have gotten outside of the peripheral of the access bus transportation because we can pass certain tests, have to take or drive, take the bus or drive.

I drive.

Yesterday I had to walk up basically from 33rd 3rd Street by Guard Field to Providence because of parking.

Okay.

Doctor was a little excited about the blood pressure.

We need to look at what we can do to provide good transportation to these deserts so that the elderly can get to their physicians, not lose their appointments, not get into a lot of anxiety, and they can protect their health.

I have an example of all the bus sessions going to Providence.

There is none there for Ballard.

There's none there really for West Seattle, and there's none there for upper East part of the city.

But beyond that, I think that's a good question.

The literature in our box and that will be on the record and available for all of us to review.

Our next speaker will be Jack Nash, followed by Greg Cannon.

Good morning, council members.

Thank you for your attention and focus on this important measure this morning.

I'm here today for two reasons.

The first is to ask you to support the Seattle Transit measure with the full point three percent sales tax.

I also don't like higher sales taxes, but this is really important critical services that families across Seattle rely on.

And when we are combining investments, so we are improving connections to light rail stations with bus service, we are getting even more value on these big investments the city's already made.

I live in Ravenna.

Uh there's no light rail station in Ravenna, but there's one in Roosevelt, so I often take the bus to Roosevelt, except it doesn't come very frequently.

So when I'm in a rush, I often just walk the mile to the station.

I much prefer to take the bus.

So these investments in more frequent connections to our stations have a big impact.

The second reason I'm here is because the transportation benefit district only has a couple ways that we can really fund this work.

Uh the car tabs and the sales tax, and as councilmember Saka pointed out, both of these are regressive.

So I ask you to work with Olympia, prioritize that work with Olympia to expand the options we have to fund our transportation benefit district.

Um by the time the next STM rolls around and we have to renew it in 10 years, we need to have some new progressive tools in our toolkit for funding it.

So, in short, I ask you to fund this STM with the 0.3% sales tax and work so that our next one, we have some new tools on the table to fund it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jack.

Our next speaker is Greg Cannon, followed by Andrew Liu.

Good morning, City Council.

My name is Greg Cannon, and I'm hailing from District 7.

I want to provide more testimony on why bus frequency specifically really matters.

In my own life, me and my girlfriend regularly take the four bus between our two apartments, but the 30-minute frequency on nights and weekends is brutal.

Every time we want to go between our apartments, it's a dice roll of is there a four anytime soon.

Around half the time, the wait is 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, and that's just not usable in our use case.

We end up needing to always have a backup plan whenever we want to go somewhere, like scootering or driving.

Our transit system needs to be there for its riders 100% of the time, not only sometimes if there happens to be a bus anytime soon.

When someone's leaving a bar in Capitol Hill, they need to know that there is a bus to get them home without waiting for 30 minutes in the cold.

When someone who's car free in Columbia City wants to go to the grocery store, they should know that there is a bus to take them there and back.

And when they're shopping, they shouldn't have to constantly check their watch and check the schedule to make sure that they can get home without a long wait.

As other people have mentioned, Seattle has set a lot of goals, including the 2023 climate goal to reduce car trips from 66 to 45% and increase transit from 11 to 24.

If we want any chance of replacing car trips with transit, people need to know that they can get to where they go without advanced planning.

Car drivers don't look at bus schedules, car drivers don't do advanced planning of getting home exactly on the hour to catch their bus.

So high frequency is very important.

And the last thing I want to say is that the stakes are very high, even more than just our climate goals.

Every car that's off the road means less of our friends, parents, children, and community members dying in car crashes and pedestrian collisions every year.

We've had numerous incidents recently, including the biker that was killed in ID, and we need to see less of that, and that means we need to get cars off the road.

So I think we should back this measure for the climate, for our safety, and to make a more pleasant and connected city for everyone who lives here.

Thank you.

Greg, thank you.

Our next speaker is Andrew Liu.

Then we'll switch to remote callers.

Our first remote caller after Mr.

Liu will be Brandon Derblader.

Good morning, Council members.

My name is Andrew, and I'm a high schooler in the greater Seattle area.

I regularly use transit in the region and travel into Seattle.

I'm here to provide a new perspective on the issue.

Students, I know firsthand just how much we care.

On my city's youth advisory board, the first issue that was brought up was public transit.

Obviously, we care.

And here, I want to bring up two main issues besides costs and everything that was talked about before.

First is traffic.

We all know how bad traffic is in Seattle, and that's due to the sheer amount of cars we have.

It's ranked as the seventh most congested city in the US, and public transit directly addresses that.

Second, the environment.

As young people, we're going to inherit the transportation system that gets built today.

Investing in transit means cleaner air, lower emissions, and a more sustainable future overall.

Giving people a real alternative to driving is one of the best environmental investments a city can make.

We are students and we care deeply about the future of our region.

I urge you to support the measure.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Andrew.

We'll now switch to remote callers.

Our first caller will be Brandon Derbladder, followed by Cecilia Black.

Brandon, please suppress Star 6.

I want to voice my support for Mary Lilton Seattle transit measure.

Hence the announcement.

I don't know if you've heard a lot about how sales taxes aggressive, but you know what else is aggressive?

On average, it costs about a thousand dollars a month to own a car, which is too expensive for a significant portion of our neighbors in Seattle, as health included.

Our options are walking, biking, and riding transit.

It's vital to not only return to but surpass pre-COVID levels of transit, including higher frequencies, so accessible the amount of free order cards we provide to our neighbors in need.

It's estimated this tax will cost lower income folks under $40 a year.

That means if this tax saves people one or two Uber rides or three or four line rides a year, they will already break even.

It will likely save people much more than that.

And they even enable some people to go car-free, saving them hundreds of dollars a month.

When more people use transit, our air is cleaner as cars cause over half our carbon emissions in Seattle.

So our residents will be healthier and require fewer medical resources.

Increased access will connect people to businesses that are strengthening the local economy.

In addition to all these benefits, increased bus service will make more progress toward vision zero.

So far this year, at least five people have died from automobile collisions in Seattle.

We need frequent and reliable alternatives for people who leave their cars behind.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brennan.

Our next caller will be Cecilia Black, followed by Lynn Drake.

Cecilia, please press star six.

Um good morning.

My name is Cecilia Black, and I'm a wheelchair user and a sidewalk organizer with Non-Drivers Alliance.

We're a grassroots organization of non-drivers and people with disabilities.

And I really want to thank uh Chair Saka for the proposal you put forward.

We are so excited that the council is considering not just maintaining the transit service but expanding our frequent transit network and urge uh council members to pass this transit measure with a 0.3% uh sales tax that is focused on transit.

Um at least 25% of Seattle residents are non-drivers, and this includes people with disabilities who are disproportionately do not have access to a car.

The availability of transit dictates so much of our lives that only 53% of Seattle lives within walking distance of frequent transit.

Um people who are transit dependent pay with the uh pay for this gap with their time and access to opportunities, and uh like previous callers uh said, um, you know, medical appointments and health.

And so as you amend and pass this transit measure, I hope that you will think about all the trips you make from the commitments you've needed to get to on a schedule to trips after peak hours, whether it be a concert or friend's house or urgent care after peak after urgent care.

Um these needs don't change when you don't have access to car, but they can't be impossible if you live outside Seattle's frequent transit network.

Um, and as a sidewalk advocate, I have to mention sidewalks.

Um, people with disabilities, we depend on uh frequent rideable transit that is connected by safe and accessible sidewalks.

And both systems, our sidewalks and our buses are in desperate need of dedicated funding.

And so I just want to emphasize that as you move forward, uh, we cannot build an accessible transportation network by defunding one critical service to pay for another.

And so, as much as I uh hope that we will have new uh sidewalk uh funding, especially as the city is investing 1.5 million dollars in this new transportation funding task force.

I urge the council to keep this transit measure focused on transit um so we can uh.

Our next caller will be Lynn Drake, followed by Alberto Alvarez.

Before we get to Lynn, uh, thank you, Ms.

Black, for joining us remotely.

Congratulations on your new role.

Look forward to connecting again soon.

Your presence is missed here in council chamber as well.

Thank you.

Uh Lynn, please press star six.

Hi, good morning.

Um, I'm Lynn Drake.

I'm a resident of Al Qaeda Beach.

Um, I'm asking you to fully support Mayor Wilson's proposal for a sales tax increase for more buses more often.

Um, and Alcai, our transit unfortunately is not always fast frequent and reliable.

Um, tomorrow night, me and three uh neighborhood friends are going to the symphony, and it's not usually a problem getting there, but at home, coming home at around 10, 10 30 at night uh from Venaroya is we often take uh the light rail, but sitting at that famous bench in Soto uh for maybe up to 30 minutes waiting for buck 50, or if we take the C and wait for it for 30 minutes in the junction.

Most uh businesses are closed.

It's a little nerve-wracking at night.

So the option is most people do not want to take transit.

They want to use their cars, unfortunately.

So I'm asking for um something reliable for Al Qaeda residents, and this uh transit measure uh will do that.

So I really thank you for taking consideration of this, and anything without a transfer or anything that's more reliable would be much appreciated.

Thank you so much for your consideration.

Thank you, Ms.

Drake.

Our next caller will be Alberto Alvarez, followed by David Haynes.

Alberto, please press star six.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Better funding with car tabs and parking fees.

Traffic gridlock causes delays in bus service.

More people out of their cars and into transit.

A responsible funding mechanism should address both.

It's not just about building it, and they will come.

Ridership remains low because the balance of driving a car outweighs taking two or more bus routes to the places people need to travel to.

A tax on car usage itself would be a more equitable way to fund our transit system.

Wealthy households own multiple cars.

Drivers from the suburbs can be taxed when parking on our streets and commercial lots.

There are better ways to tackle the issues of low ridership and unreliable bus routes.

I would like council to draft amendments that will alleviate the impact of a tax hike and also entice people out of their cars and into buses.

We are stuck with regressive taxes, casting the wide net of a sales tax for limited improvements.

Responsible spending should inflict costs with care, while also targeting the gridlock that slows down bus service across all bus routes.

Thank you all and have a good day.

Thank you, Mr.

Alvarez.

Our final caller will be David Haynes.

David, please press star six.

Low ridership originates from criminals and the COVID concerns about sick people that are space spraying inconsiderately on the bus, sneezing in front of you as the bus pulls away rapidly.

The concern, you know.

The thing is, perhaps if there was more frequent service, there wouldn't be so many victimizations and vulnerabilities waiting at the bus stop for too long.

The thing is, it doesn't matter how much you catch and spend virtue signaling how you're doing people at favor driving a bus right up to their living space when there's sketchy, unsafe, creepy criminals with behavioral crisis that are camouflaging their underworld participations within and around transit-oriented world, and it's unsafe for kids.

You want to give a bunch of free passes to people and leave them vulnerable to being victimized and raped behind the bus stop.

It's a concern, you know.

The thing is, we need to end the abuse of the bus union who thinks that they're entitled to get off work 30 minutes early at the end of their route away from base, and then they drive past us at six o'clock hauling ass during rush hour down the like bypassing every stop just so they can get home without worrying about taking the bus system.

Because they've acknowledged that our bus union has acknowledged that they cannot take the bus like we have to take it because it doesn't work for them because it takes too long, and yet we got all this money being spent on supervisors who sit on their smartphone acting like they're keeping the bus drivers' timing schedules honest while the bus drivers are stopping two stops before they get to the transit to make sure they don't show up in time, and by the time they get there, the supervisor's not paying attention.

The other bus that you needed to transfer to takes off, and the only way to communicate is to honk each other.

They need to like have radio.

Say, hey, bus such and such.

Hold up for 20 seconds.

Chair, there are no additional registered speakers.

All right.

Uh we will now move on to our first item of business.

Will the committee clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one briefing and discussion on council bill one, two, one, two, two, six, an ordinance relating to a sales and use tax providing for the submission to qualified voters of the city at an election to be held on November 3rd, 2026.

A proposition to collect a sales and use tax to fund transit and related transportation programs in Seattle and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

Alright.

Looks like our presenters have uh joined us at the table.

Welcome in a moment.

Please introduce yourselves and begin your presentations.

But before we do that, uh, want to share a quick update.

We'll might learn a little bit more about this in the central staff presentation.

Um, but my office uh work closely with the mayor's office to negotiate a uh a slight revision to the mayor's proposal on as it relates to accessibility and um on one of the provisions there and making it easier for for folks to safely access transit uh and resulting in I think a five million dollar per year uh like total up to that amount versus the original baseline proposal of three point five million dollars, which both of which both numbers, the original and the and the revised number, still effectively reflect a cut to both the legislated legislative maximum amounts or the or the actuals that were spent on average every year for the same category, but but regardless, I think more reflect a a better more balanced approach, and made offsetting reductions to the transit service instead of 57% the the uh of expansion, the back of the napkin math that the mayor's office worked out was 47 percent, um, which is still effectively doubling the level of service and providing more dollars uh so people can safely access transit.

Um, so all is to say, want to thank the mayor's office for their partnership and collaboration on on that and their agreement and their alignment on there.

Uh and then today again for clarity, we are considering the mayor's proposal.

That is an element um that we worked on together, but this is this is our our executive's proposal.

We're gonna learn more about it today.

So, central staff, welcome again.

Please introduce yourselves and uh begin your presentation.

Good morning, council members.

Calvin Child, Council Central Staff.

Good morning, Amanda Allen, Central Staff.

So, council members, thank you for having us.

Um, I have a memo that was circulated earlier this week, it is on the agenda.

I'll be speaking to it very briefly today.

I'll try to preserve some time for your conversations, but I want to make sure that I covered some of the high points of how we got here.

So uh I wanted to start with just a reminder of what the transit measure started from.

It it has a longer history than just the Seattle transit measure.

It started in 2014 when King County Metro was facing significant revenue shortfalls.

They went for a countywide um uh uh sales and vehicle license fee uh proposal that did not did not pass in King County but did pass within the Seattle jurisdiction.

Seattle voters approved a follow-up uh that just provided funding for Seattle transit uh in 2014.

So that was a.1% sales tax and a $60 vehicle license fee.

That measure took us through to 2020 when uh after uh COVID had started the lockdown, there was the proposal to extend it.

We had a lot less certainty about where transit ridership was going, what transit needs were going to be.

Um, and so there was a lot more uh shift in what that spending could include.

So there were a number of changes to what Seattle Transit measure um is allowed to spend on.

Uh so in addition to transit service uh metro service as well as our own streetcar, there was a uh category for emerging needs and COVID recovery.

Uh a large portion of this was used during the closure of the West Seattle Bridge to help deal with uh sort of transportation demand management and other options for getting people to and from um West Seattle during that time.

The extended the low-income transit access program.

We included city staffing for sound transit related projects, and in part because uh King County Metro was running reduced service and was having difficulty in getting coaches and drivers during the ramp up following COVID.

Um, there was additional money that we directed towards transit infrastructure, and the council took a number of uh proposals over that time to increase the spending to up to uh uh a legally authorized allowance of 16.4 million per year.

So the table one that I have up on top here is just showing what the 2026 spending levels look like for the existing Seattle Transit measure.

I wanted to highlight that um if you add up all the planned expenditures here, that is significantly more than the 0.15% sales tax that the Seattle transit currently funds raises in a year.

And so this does reflect some additional essentially fund balance that was built up uh as transit service was not ramped up as quickly over the the COVID coming out of COVID.

There were two other items that I wanted to draw your attention to that council took action on in last year's budget.

Uh there was the proposal to allow Seattle Transit Measure funding to be used to support uh private transportation services as well as public transportation services.

Uh the idea at the time was to really focus on the waterfront shuttle, and at that time or following uh that proposal um the uh the budget actually allowed for some spending from the Office of Economic Development to actually fund that service.

I understand that uh King County has actually taken over that service again as a sort of a pilot project for the next couple years.

So that is part of uh now it's part of King County operated service, but that is um that was something that the council wait on during the last budget.

In addition, the council uh approved allowances to use the Seattle Transit Measure funding for transit safety and security efforts, specifically to fund a chief transit security and safety officers in SDOT, and to implement recommendations of the King County uh transit safety task force.

That position is currently not filled.

Um, as I think was mentioned that during the uh mayor's and SDOT's presentation, the base cost service uh that we do pay for metro service does have sort of overhead costs that are related to metro's transit safety and security efforts.

Um estimates that for 2025, that's about 9% of the cost or about $3.9 million.

Um, the last thing I wanted to just call out about our existing uh measure is that we purchased service under a transit service agreement that expires at the end of 2027.

Uh that service agreement has uh conditions about how quickly we can ramp up and ramp down service more operationally for how quickly metro can respond to the city's uh needs.

If this measure is not renewed, there is uh sufficient funding to do the ramp down over a couple of service windows to meet our obligations under that contract.

If the measure were to pass, we would need a new um a new service agreement with King County Metro.

So a couple contextual issues I think are useful for the council members to think of.

Uh, one is sort of the changing nature of transit ridership.

Um, with COVID lockdown, uh transit ridership uh really came to uh was essentially halved uh countywide and has been increasing since, but we have not reached transit levels that we had uh prior to the pandemic.

Um I know there are more recent numbers, but the the numbers that I saw reported to the um to the federal transit administration said that we were still at about like 75 percent as of last year countywide in King County.

Both King County and SDOT have noted that the increase in ridership has not been sort of traditionally where our ridership has been.

So the first measure was really focused on overcrowding and reliability and focused a lot on our commuter service, and what we have seen is a lot of uh ridership coming back on off-peak hours, shoulder hours, weekend hours, sort of more all day service, and that has been reflected in some of the city's policy documents over the last several years.

The transportation um, excuse me, the Seattle Transportation Plan transit element did focus on this.

One other effort that's worth keeping track of is King County's uh restoration of service effort.

Uh they uh a couple years ago approved a plan, a guideline for how to restore service as as they were coming out of COVID.

They've done a number of service restructures related to um link light rail coming on board, and the next couple years they expect to do a focused effort around the Seattle service that also includes Vashon, but the vast majority of that service is in Seattle.

It's estimated to be around 100,000 service hours, so roughly the same level of uh service hours that's being proposed to increase with the mayor's proposal here, and uh that's probably going to be about a two-year uh effort that that has to be approved by King County Council.

Metro's operations are funded by a 0.9% base sales tax as well as um uh fare collections.

And I know there was uh conversation about revenue options under our authority as a Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

The two that we have used are the vehicle license fee, which is a a uh per license uh charge.

We have authority to charge up to $100 of per vehicle.

We currently charge $50 per vehicle, and that is used currently to support base transportation funds.

Uh, if we wanted to do anything beyond that, we would have to go to the voters to ask for their approval for the additional $50 million.

Uh it is not as um uh as has been discussed.

The car um, we've increased population more than we've increased car ownership in Seattle.

Uh $50 of VLF is projected to raise $22.1 million dollars this year for our existing um $50 VLF fee.

There are other options that are in embedded in the state legislation.

They are largely duplicative of authority we already have.

So this is things like the uh ability to issue bonds and ask voters for property tax to support those bonds.

Uh it's things like impact fees and one-year excise property tax levies.

Um, we generally have those powers through other means as well, and they're not particularly well suited for ongoing operational uh expenditures like transit would be there is the um authority to pursue vehicle tolling that does require approval from the Washington State Transportation Commission and would have to go to voters as well.

That is a much bigger discussion.

And then just to kind of highlight where we are with the mayor's proposal, the mayor has proposed a 0.3% sales tax to generate about 138 million dollars annually.

That's the average over 10 years, so not necessarily the first year.

Um, it's expected to increase the number of bus trips from about 180,000 currently to 280,000 compared to um uh what we're currently spending.

And the uh the the broad changes uh that council member um that the chair responded to there was an increase from what the uh what SDOT and the mayor's office uh showed at the last transportation meeting that increased the transit and accessibility infrastructure column uh from 3.5 million to 5 million uh and articulated clearly that accessibility is part of that category of spending.

So currently the mayor's proposal does um mandate well requires a minimum of 60% of the annual revenue raise to be funded for transit.

That is an increase from the current 50 percent that is in the existing Seattle transit measure.

It increases the amount of allowable spending on low-income transit access uh uh up to 12 million per year, and it adds a little bit more for the um uh city staffing for ST3.

This was the table that I was hoping to I was trying to put up.

Sorry, I got my um.

Uh so just to highlight again, there are a couple things that are not included in the mayor's proposal that were previously funded by a Seattle Transit measure, uh, a category for emerging needs that was intended to be flexible, and that was driven largely by the time of COVID and not knowing where we were going with transit, the issue around passenger transportation services, um, uh, and the issue around uh a separate line item for traffic safety and security.

I've just highlighted a very high level, a few considerations, knowing that there's a lot of different uh perspectives, um, the size of the proposal, which could include uh other sources of revenue um in that issue.

Um, the mayor has highlighted that a.223 percent sales tax is necessary to maintain the level of funding necessary to maintain what we're currently purchasing.

So that's uh one consideration.

The term is something you could consider.

The 10-year term is the maximum allowable term we could ask voters for.

The both the previous measures were for six years, and of course, the spending categories, the authority on spending and the allowable um uh legal amounts of spending that could be used for the different categories uh legally, this source of funding can be spent on any legitimate transportation need.

So this proposal is to ask the voters to ask to specifically focus on just the transit um transit-related needs.

And very quickly, um, next steps.

We do have uh number of uh uh following this meeting, there will be a July 6th meeting followed by a public hearing and then hopefully final action from the committee for July 16th.

That would give us two opportunities to have the full council discussion and vote.

Uh we would have to pass the final, excuse me, pass the final ballot measure, um get the mayor's signature and have the city attorneys uh write the ballot title in time to make the August 4th final deadline to file with King County to make the November ballot.

And as mentioned previously, the chairs asked that council members engage with central staff by next week, June 24th, to help facilitate uh development of amendments so that they can be published prior to the July 4th holiday.

And with that, we're happy to answer any questions.

Excellent.

Thank you, Cal.

Amanda, appreciate the presentation and the uh the memo here, the thoughtful memo as well.

Um colleagues, in a moment, I'll turn it over to you all, starting first with Vice Chair Rink.

Uh, for any comments, questions you all might have from your perspective, but first uh a few initial comments questions uh to help kick off the conversation.

So uh in a moment, Mr.

Chow asks you all what in terms of specific service hours that were promised or contemplated in the soon to be expiring uh Seattle transit measure, what was promised versus what was actually delivered and where we're on track.

Um, but I'll ask that in a moment before we get there.

Would would love to better understand or actually can you just clarify which specific transportation related investments are legally eligible or authorized under state law, but not particularly emphasize in the executive proposal?

Well, council member, it could be for anything that's related to our transportation system, any roads, uh asphalt, bridges, structures, stairways.

Uh it could be related to our signals system, it could do any of the things that our levy funding is going towards, or uh that can be um a tie to a transportation use.

Um essentially, it's the same restrictions that are on the state's gas tax um uh usage.

So it's very um very fungible for uh SDOT and transportation related issues, but we could not use it beyond transportation.

Thank you.

That's helpful.

Um can you help clarify whether so the transportation levy that was generously approved by voters in November 2024, crafted by our city and this council, um, included a total of nine million dollars for transportation safety and security.

And a few short months after a month and a half after it was passed by voters, uh King County Metro operator Sean Yim was tragically killed in the line of duty and serving our community uh on December 18th, 2024.

And so that those original investments one would expire roughly halfway through this if we continue at the clip of a 10-year proposal.

So that was an eight-year measure, roughly halfway through that would expire, and then you know, here's this.

So this is ultimately reflects the next opportunity um to to actually fund and invest in transit safety and security.

Uh and two, those original investments that the city crafted was before the broader issue of transit safety and security was was elevated not just as a city priority, but as a regional priority, and would ultimately result in the King County regional transit safety and security task force with comprised of experts from across our region and in various jurisdictions, all aligning on specific plans, strategy, recommendations, the the also aligning on the notion that transit safety and security is a shared responsibility, it's a responsibility that is shared broadly, not solely one born uh or or held by any particular transit agency or operator, whether it's King County Metro, Sound Transit, CL Street Car, whatever it is.

So, can you help me better understand against that backdrop?

Can you help clarify whether and I note that the executive's proposal and our partners when we're here last time around one of the slides indicated that roughly up to nine percent of the baseline of whatever we purchase for purely for transit service, uh, would include or likely include various investments related to transit safety and security.

Can you help clarify whether the current executive proposal provides any additional dedicated funding to improve transit safety and security on top of that?

It does not.

Thank you.

Um circling back to the original query about what was promised expressly in the legislation and or you know contemplated at the time in terms of total service hours uh that would be or could be delivered during the soon to be expiring transit measure, versus what was actually delivered, and or what we're on track to deliver very shortly.

Councilmember, I don't have those figures readily available.

I can point them out if you want to.

Uh SDOT just released their last annual report and they keep all those uh all that information available on the website that includes their detailed spending, so I'm happy to do that if you would like me to in real time.

Uh I would say that it's hard to say what was promised because the 2020 um measure happened right after COVID as we were as we were looking at the city being shut down.

So I don't know that I have a good explanation for what people expected in terms of specific service hours.

They knew the amount of money that was going to be spent.

Um clearly, we did not deliver as much transit service as we thought we were going to during that time.

We ended up spending a number of that on capital funding, um, partially because King County Metro was not able to ramp up service to meet Seattle's request for more service, both because of coach availability and potentially um getting drivers back following COVID.

So I'm happy to pull up numbers if that's useful to the committee, but I I think in terms of what was the voter expectation.

I think it was a little more um transit in general and trying to make sure that that uh there were still options to address the transit needs in an uncertain time.

Sure.

Now that makes sense, and I appreciate that uh initial kind of uh reflection and fair point all around, especially on the bit about the might not have been expressly promise, and that's why you know the fallback language I intentionally used there was contemplated.

There might not have been a specific target number that was that was like it I'll share that I reviewed the voters' pamphlet information and I don't I didn't I don't recall seeing uh uh you know it listed there.

I don't remember what was on the the you know the campaign election material at the time but regardless um no doubt there was something that was contemplated at least at a high level so yes uh offline no no need to do it live here and apologies for not prepping you in advance for that that question.

But yeah, yes, would would definitely appreciate clarity on what was again a probably a better term contemplated at least at a high level in terms of service hours versus what was actually or on track, we're likely to actually see delivered, and and which you preempted my next question.

You know, why, why like why the Delta, main reason coach availability, uh driver shortages?

Um can you help me understand?

So we'll chase down that information offline and because I think it's a very important data point.

Can you help me better understand, at least from central staff perspective, in your conversations with the executive and and you know, based off of what you know, how should members of the public and us be confident that those issues have been fully resolved and we're able to still roll out effectively a 50% increase in in transit service, 100,000 hours over 10.

How how should again how should members of the public and and this body be confident that those issues were sufficiently resolved and have confidence that we're actually going to be able to in well positioned to deliver on these new set of commitments?

Well, I think it's it's how it's looking at the performance over the last couple of years.

It's looking into see just how much service has been delivered um this year, and it presumably will be delivered through this service restoration effort that King County Metro is going through.

Uh, I think that's sort of the broader one of the long-term issues that we understand with King County Metro is that their long-term plan for service is not fully funded, and so they are looking at longer-term structural transportation funding issues as well that will have to be addressed, or they won't be able to deploy more service to meet their own needs too.

So I think there is transportation funding is everyone's under tight scrutiny with transportation funding and funding in general right now.

King County Metro is going through the same issues, and we'll be looking at some potentially new revenue options to help address their needs.

They have been able to respond to the most recent Seattle purchases.

The best judgment we can have of whether they can meet that that need now.

Um I understand that uh SDOT and the mayor's office have been working closely with Metro in terms of drafting this proposal uh to make sure that they would be able to support that.

Um, but it still remains to be seen how how they get back to a fully funded uh long-term proposal, and that probably isn't gonna be um I don't believe King County's gonna be able to uh sort that out in the next several years.

I think that is a much longer term uh concern.

Thank you.

Uh appreciate the clarity there, and then yes, uh please do follow up offline with the the requested information, um, but helpful context for now.

So really appreciate it.

In a moment, I'll ask about some nitty-gritty geeky, uh policy wonk-ish uh things related to fair box recovery ratios and um include some self-reflections about the recent King County transportation benefit districts uh for roads, but in the meantime, um I would love to turn it over to my colleagues for any comments, questions you all may have.

Starting first with Vice Chair Rink.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

Uh, first and foremost, I want to apologize for being tardy to committee uh this morning and provide a little bit of background because importantly, today workers at the embassy streets, embassy suites walked out on the job on strike, calling for a fair contract, better pay, and better health care.

And I joined those workers on the picket line and ended up staying a little bit later than expected uh over a dispute uh where people can protest, but I needed to stay to ensure that we protect everyone's first amendment rights to free speech.

So I want to provide that context and apologize to the uh public commenters whose public comments I missed.

I'll go back and watch.

Um, but thank you so much for coming out and making your voices heard on this important effort.

But I wanted to bring this up for a critical reason, because Unite Here Local Eight is our local hospitality workers union, representing thousands of workers across stadiums and hotels, many of whom are immigrant workers, and many of whom work non-traditional work hours.

These workers uh are really um those who don't just rely on our transit system alone, but rely on the late night bus service that this measure currently pays for.

So I want to center that in my consideration for the Seattle Transit measure.

This is the kind of service that we're talking about, delivering for working people across the city.

So I am centering workers just like those who are on strike right now when I'm thinking about our investments.

And my highest priority is to make sure we are delivering as much additional bus service as possible, because those workers deserve to go home at night without waiting in the dark for a long time, hoping their bus will come soon.

So delivering on a truly frequent transit network is not just how we reduce our emissions to meet our climate goals, which is tremendously important, but also how we create more affordable ways to get around our city quickly and safely.

Um, so with that, um, I want to thank central staff for the presentation for today.

Cal, I want to thank you for elevating the points about the King County transportation benefit district component in the memo.

And colleagues, I want to thank you again for signing on to my letter to King County Council to lift that arbitrary cap that would have only impacted City of Seattle, and a special thank you to Councilmember Lynn for your testimony at King County Council.

Um, together with our advocacy, we lifted that cap, which would have diverted about three million dollars of funding away from City of Seattle.

But now we have about five million dollars in new uh capital funding coming in for the city.

So I'm wondering if central staff can uh you help us understand uh a little bit on the process receiving those funds and what we can use those funds for.

Yes, it's a little unclear to me exactly how the administration of it works.

My understanding is that um it was it would be an application process that there would be essentially a number of I guess county-focused transportation plans, and and we would have to find projects that would be um eligible to support those programs, and then that money would be um provided to us.

Uh the idea I know that that for some smaller jurisdictions that may be difficult, and the idea is that if it's not if it does not um is not used by the local jurisdiction, then it could be used back by the unincorporated King County Roads Division.

Um that won't be a problem for Seattle uh in any case.

I think we will find projects that could make use of the money, and then that of course could free up other monies that could be used for other capital purposes.

Certainly.

So with the new process, we're learning um how we're going to be able to bring in those funds, but we do have uh funding and remind me the collections begin uh next year, so theoretically we could start uh collecting that funding 2027.

I believe so.

So it takes uh the uh the state a little bit of time to get the um tax in place.

So my understanding is that it starts next year.

Um, and I again I don't know quite what the what King County is thinking in terms of their administrative procedures for when that money would be made available.

Thank you, Cal.

That's that's really helpful.

Um, as we heard in public comment too, there's um a lot of appetite for capital projects, and there was um a note called out about our transportation levy and wanting to get those projects online.

So we are delivering on important capital improvements to create more pedestrian safety and safety for cyclists as well.

And on this point, um I'm wondering if you can speak in in broad strokes about um just the current investments in the transportation levy as it relates to capital, what we're spending towards ADA accessibility through new and repaired sidewalks, curb cuts, and other capital improvements.

Do not have those numbers uh at the top of my um uh available.

Um we do have uh a spending breakdown and requirements in that uh levy that went to voters.

So um I'm happy to follow up with you and with the rest of the committee to to um call out those specifics.

Thank you.

And um, as was noted earlier, there was a change um in what was initially proposed to the proposal before us, an increase of 1.5 million uh going towards capital.

Uh could you put in perspective um and just color that trade off a little bit more in terms of what 1.5 million gets us in terms of bus service hours?

Yeah, I think um, well, I don't know what the increment is, but uh the five million dollars gets about 15,000 hours of bus service.

5 million, it's 15,000.

15,000, okay.

Well, I'll do some quick math.

So hopefully we can get an answer here in committee to just translate that point.

Um, but I am uh just broadly speaking, um, a bit skeptical about increasing the capital budget in this measure, particularly if it's at the expense of service hours for buses or or low-income transit passes.

Um, and given the relatively high cost of our capital projects compared to purchasing additional bus service, um how should we be weighing in those trade-offs and achieving like greatest mobility benefit at this time?

And maybe this is for future committee discussion, and again, I'll do a little bit of math uh to figure out what 1.5 translates to in terms of bus hours, but how can um you help us understand a little bit more of some of those trade-offs?

Um I think we can help provide information on what the cost of service hours are, what some comparable costs of capital projects are so that the council members have some sense of what the options are, and and then it is your prerogative obviously to to direct us on on what your priorities are.

Thank you for that.

Um switching gears a little bit.

It's my understanding that while safety doesn't have its own bucket, um, it is an allowable use uh for the measure um and uh non-insignificant amount of uh funding is being spent on safety improvements by city and county.

Um, could you give us a bit of a lay of the status of our efforts on safety improvements for transit and bus stops?

Um I think that's something I'll probably have to follow up with the executive on.

Um I think there's uh certainly it's a lot of the attention is more on um behaviors and enforcement and cleanup and some other things that are not traditionally uh not necessarily have been transportation projects themselves.

Um I think a lot of the regional conversation has been around how to coordinate um law enforcement response.

Uh so uh a number of different efforts that really haven't been a part of um a lot of it has been sort of specific location specific, uh a lot of economic development efforts as well.

Uh so I I'd like to take this back and uh engage the executive a bit to try to get you a better answer.

Thank you.

Uh a lot to follow up on on this point.

Um, I'll I'll close with this note because now we have some math done.

So about 1.5 million is approximately 4,500 hours of service, um, just to put that on the record if our math is is right.

Um those uh conclude my questions for uh right now, Chair.

Um I might chime in with some additional questions just based on how our conversation goes during the rest of committee, but thank you for the time.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Uh any additional comments, questions, colleagues.

I guess starting first with Councilmember Kettle.

And first off, let me let the record reflect and note.

She joined us a while ago, but uh Council President Hollingsworth is here.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Go ahead, Councilmember Kittle, you're recognizing.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Central Staff for being here.

I appreciate the staff memo and the rundown this morning.

I just wanted to say a few things.

We'll be working this.

My team has been working with various stakeholders with your team chair on different aspects of this.

And there's there's all the various details that that need to be worked through, but just in a broad sense, I do believe in a strong public transit system, one that you know that needs to serve the entirety of the city to include its uh densest areas, of which obviously my district is the densest um area.

And I just wanted to note there's for example, there's no coverage, there's no transit uh west of Third Avenue.

Um, you know, right now we have a you know some agreements related to the waterfront, but long term we don't have a solution for that.

And you know, for the whole of the city, this goes for the different pieces.

Thanks uh to the lady that I met earlier before the meeting, uh, highlighting some of the areas like with Ballard, um, but it's not just Ballard in terms of having access and you know that connection, it's also happening here in District 7, particularly again west of uh Third Avenue.

Um because of the densest area, it also needs to serve the entirety of the city well.

And I bring this up in the sense it's not really covered, but I just wanted to raise it, is that um an impact for the greater downtown area, particularly in the D7 part, is that transit is not right sized for the district.

Um I see this again and again um in terms of essentially we have uh triple seven buses when we need some 737s uh for the downtown area, and then this plays out in terms of impacting uh overall transit, and I think this is something that at least should be raised and discussed, and you know, as an opportunity because the right sizing really helps the overall system, and then in turn that helps everybody.

Um big thing though, I wanted to kind of foot stomp what the chair's comment is that you know the service needs to be safe, and this is a little bit of a criticism, but the central staff doesn't talk about public safety.

You know, we we throw around the term COVID, and it's and COVID is kind of like this blanket neutral, almost like an act of God thing, uh, you know, in terms of like weather events, and obviously, this was um related to the pandemic.

Um, but there was a lot of decisions made during the COVID uh by the county by the city that really impacted the service of our public transit, it really impacted the safety on our our transit system, and so I don't think we can use the word general COVID.

We have to speak specifically to the public safety impacts of what's happened to our system because that's the reason why we've had lower um you know attendance you know ridership on the on the buses.

You know, I'm thinking about being at a a school event.

I was there for an hour and a half.

Uh we had uh Metro, but we also King County Sheriff, we had SPD, um, and some others uh there, and I was there listening to these these students who are primarily juniors and seniors, and they were talking about their experiences riding to the school as freshmen and sophomores, and it was horrific.

Uh initially they started with people reading testimonials from other students, but then the students started standing up and speaking, and these young women were talking about the experiences that they had to deal with the endure on our buses, and it was horrific.

Um, and even young men uh, you know, these students were talking about their experiences.

You know, so if we want to wonder why, you know, ridership dipped.

Yes, COVID is definitely a piece of that, but that's just one piece of it, and we need to account for the public safety aspects.

We need to have safe ridership.

We need a safe experience in a safe environment for everyone uh riding on our buses.

And I'll add, by the way, not just riding on the buses, but while waiting for the buses or waiting for a transfer, um, wherever it may be.

And and it's incumbent on us as a city to work with the county because oftentimes we hear about jurisdiction, like where does the county's responsibilities end and where the city starts.

We talk about this all the time, Chair.

We can little Saigon.

I've been down there a couple times recently with Councilmember Lynn on public safety walks.

And you know, you see the issues related to public transit there all the time.

And that's not just little Saigon, it's all over.

Obviously, we had a lot of talk about North Seattle.

Same thing.

Is that a safe environment for those using transit on Aurora?

No.

So that really needs to be added in and needs to be talked about.

And we also need to look back at the decisions made and make sure we don't make those mistakes again.

Then the last piece is, and I and this is point rightfully raised.

Like, hey, sales tax is regressive.

That's our only way.

I I understand that.

But there's a good governance affordability piece here.

And we need to be thinking, you know, as council members, we need to step back and think big picture as well.

And we need to step through these various aspects because we just had a meeting yesterday with Seattle City Light.

It's gonna be big increases uh from City Light in terms of rates.

Uh I used to be on the regional water quality committee, and so I have deep background on what's happening with SPU and water rates, future sound energy as well.

Obviously, property taxes, um, various other taxes that we've done, but also the county and the state, and uh we mentioned the county uh doing its thing.

Uh these are all cumulative, and who keeps the big picture.

I have nothing to suggest to me that the city and county and the state ever talk to each other and think about the impacts of what they're doing on the other levels of you know government and vice versa, because the cumulative is immense, and it goes to the affordability challenge, and we need to be thinking about these things.

And I say this as much as to really hone in on City Light or SPU or you know the other elements that we have, because at the end of the day, this I mean, we talk about affordability like it's coming from the outside, you know, from different ways, and you know, we can talk about the Trump administration and its impacts on inflation from you know, first the tariffs and now the Iran war and so forth.

But we you know, we have to be accountable to ourselves in terms of our role in creating this affordability problem as government.

And uh, Chair, I just wanted to highlight that's kind of stepping back from the transit measure itself, but to uh just just to highlight that because if you know the various lenses that we use to look at these bills, and specifically this one, we have to look at you know, from that kind of good governance um with the idea of affordability because you know the impacts on um everyone is is uh is is incredible.

So thank you, Chair.

Council Member Kettle, can I respond um to some of your comments?

Yes, of course.

Go ahead.

You're recognized.

Um so your your point about uh safety is well taken, and I would say King County Metro also shares your concerns.

They have um, I think, as was discussed earlier.

Metro has more than doubled the amount of spending on safety and security over the past few years, and not just in terms of um metro transit police and the transit security officers, but also with the inclusion of behavioral health specialists.

So that's a that's a a different way of looking at safety, so not just with a stick, um, not just with surveillance, but launching and expanding metros behavioral health specialists and ambassador programs to provide non-officer pref presence in the system.

If I could just add, I mean, we have spent that please do because I look at public safety holistically across the board, and and to include as you know, it's in our strategic framework plan, the scene the public safety, but also the public health, the housing human services.

So everything that I said speaking to that, I bring from that comprehensive way, not just with the surveillance pieces and the like.

So I just wanted to make that clear because the you know, you know, it's implying almost that I'm just speaking like SPD or King County Sheriff.

Council member, I think you've been very clear over time of your interest in public safety and how it affects all these different pieces and how they're intertwined.

I think the the you know the reality is that um past council action has directed some of these resources to uh transportation safe specifically uh how to uh uh piggyback on on King County's own efforts, but to increase the amount of enforcement or and uh uh supervise um staff support that's out there on the field to deal with these issues.

Um there is money in the levy to help address some of these things as well.

So this is you've been very consistent about about identifying that.

Um and I think what we can do is we can go back and make sure that we're able to answer the question of what does that look like, at what funding levels, what do we know that the county is doing, so that you have that information as you move this deliberation further.

Yes.

And I was speaking specifically to the transit ridership patterns on page three of seven, um, you know, that section, you know, in terms of my remarks on COVID.

And on what, yes, I'm well aware of what King County's doing or not doing.

Um, this is something that I work in partnership with the chair on.

And you know, at the end of the day though, you can go by the bus stops at Little Glycon or some of these other areas, and we you know, there's so much more work to be done.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle well said uh and appreciate uh Miss Allen your your comments and and sort of uh the additional clarity you added there on what King County Metro is doing, and they how and with respect to how they essentially double their investments and and I'm glad they're doing that and they need to do that, and maybe there's an opportunity to do even more.

What this conversation is about today is what are we doing, and this is our opportunity to invest more or not.

This is our opportunity to take another bite at the apple.

This is our opportunity to provide additional funding or not, on top of those baseline what Metro is already doing today.

Are we up for the challenge or not?

I I would like to think we are.

Responsibility is shared, all of us avoid the counterproductive finger pointing and deflecting a blame, and like we all own a piece.

So I'm glad King County Metro is doing that, and I know they're committed to improving the the experience of transit safety and security for riders and the workers, the operators.

I know they're committed to that work.

But we have a responsibility too.

Anyways, thank you, uh Councilmember Kettle.

Well said, Council Member Lynn, you are recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, and thank you to um the mayor's office, um to uh to all the um advocates and members of the public who um came to speak today.

Um, you know, this is an exciting opportunity as we um look at our things like our comprehensive plan and the need for us to reimagine sort of the future of our city uh making sure that we have strong transit investments that align with um our growth.

Um council member sh uh Strauss, I know that you've raised this issue the importance of making sure that as we uh you know focus our density in certain areas that we have transit um that aligns well with that uh to service that increased growth.

Um and you know, I've heard it a lot uh as people talk about um centers and corridors uh and making sure as as we look at increasing uh density along our frequent transit routes, uh, you know, members of the public are like, well, is this really gonna, you know, can we um be um confident that that there will continue to be frequent transit on this route?

Uh, because from time to time some of our transit routes change.

Um and so having a a 10-year um dedicated fund to make sure that we do have that consistent uh transit um I I think really helps us provide that confidence to to members of the public as we we do our comprehensive planning um you know we we know that this is critical for as as we heard people speak uh to for people to just get their basic needs met uh to get to the doctor's office to get to school and so much more it's necessary for uh for our climate goals um it's also good for drivers um as you know we know our roads are not going to get any bigger uh and as our population growth continues to grow um there's only so much room um and we've made great progress on growing our population without um increasing car ownership um and so just don't want to um ignore that thank you to to council member kettle to raising the the public safety I do think public safety on our transit is essential um and um I guess so one question is as we look at a 10-year kind of spending plan just wondering how much flexibility is there as circumstances might change I mean hopefully you know knock on wood we do not have another COVID type scenario um but I I noticed um I think we had to pass an ordinance that allow to allow for some of the um the dollars to go towards uh um security um a couple years ago could you just talk through sort of as as we are looking at a longer term measure um what flexibility is there or isn't there to anticipate changes um and I'll have a sort of a follow-up question on this uh in terms of the um revenues and looking at potential like a county uh wide transit measure but just in general what what how strict are these buckets and what flexibility is there or is it there and built in.

So there is um provisions that allow us to through a future ordinance to change the um change the allowances here and even the categories of what's allowable in the spending uh we have done council has done that in the past uh we have always stayed within the transit realm to make sure that we are still giving the voters what they you know what they requested but we have done things like uh uh off the top example is uh the initial measure to expand to give public uh see all public school um students uh transit passes that was not part of the uh the uh proposal at the time and it was expanded to include that until uh ultimately washington state took on that responsibility through you know um zero fare uh youth fair um youth riders so we we have that potential we've always wanted to stay true to the transit nature of it if that's what the voters approved on um and as a sales tax the council would have approval or does not need to impose that amount that full amount if for instance the county were to come up with a a substitute uh countywide tax um it we would have authority to impose up to but we would we could choose to impose less uh that specific issue has been highlighted in one of the sections of the mayor's proposed legislation just to make that explicit and clear to everybody that uh if the county does go forward that um we could reconsider and we could reconsider what the spending is for as well.

Thank you.

And on that point um I mean it specifically calls out so section four specifically calls out the King County transportation benefit district possibility in a potential countywide transit measure um that we reserve the right to to reduce it.

Are there other I mean could we reduce it if there is a different funding source.

So let's say the um you know in our conversations with the state legislature that we were able to find a statewide uh you know funding source for transit do we would we still have that authority in other circumstances yes I believe so okay thank you um just a couple um last points um so just getting back to a little bit on on the public safety I do think um you know um there are there are real concerns there uh I think we see sort of the the failures of our inability to to meet the needs of our community in terms of mental health and terms of substance use that sort of oftentimes play out in in our uh transit system which is a very public space and so you know on the one hand we we obviously there's a lot of work that we are doing to um to to address our mental health to address substance use uh um disorder needs um and at the same time while we do that work we I do believe that we we need to make sure that our transit is safe um but I also just want to call out that um public safety we see public safety in other ways with other transportation modes um you know as we look at just for example up on Aurora um people are you know calling for us to close down roads not not due to buses um but due to people driving the neighborhoods um to to you know buy sex um or because of uh drive by shootings right and and it is often um it is not folks uh doing drive by shootings hopping on the bus it is people doing drive-by shootings in vehicles so I just want to um note that um you know I do think as we think about public safety broadly um sort of transitioning uh away from uh you know I think we have to recognize the the public safety issues uh with our uh reliance on vehicles is our primary mode of transit uh or transportation um and we heard about the public safety concerns of of you know folks just trying to um you know who are biking or otherwise who are who are who are unfortunately too often hurt or killed um by vehicles so I just want to you know provide some some uh points on that but as we look at um sales taxes and we've heard it I think we all have concerns about um sort of the regressive nature of sales taxes and uh you know I do just want to point out for for the record that um you know I know that transit riders union and and you know mayor wilson back when previously when she wasn't a mayor um was you know fighting for an income tax um specifically to find other revenues um for for transit in particular and that this is an issue that we continue to um struggle with and um I do think as we look at the impacts of sales taxes I mean it it is continues to be something that I'm learning about um I think um you know there's the measurement of how it impacts a household based on their direct spending um I do think um there are other impacts um to council member kettle's point sort of overall and I just want to highlight one of those potential impacts which is um right now we charge sales tax um to folks who are building new housing uh on the hard costs of new housing um and oftentimes the hard costs are around 60 percent and then we charge sales tax on on that so that um you know oftentimes gets passed through um to people trying to buy the house or to renters um and I'm not sure that that part is uh captured in our analysis so it's complicated to to figure out exactly the impacts of these sales taxes and um and I'm not sure you know how as a policy uh make you know as we consider this um how to to capture that full impact um as we consider that I also think that um as we look at ways to address sort of the regressive nature of sales taxes you know there are measures that the legislature has taken to uh for example exempting things like diapers and food right so how do we look at sort of the major categories of spending of uh particular low-income families things on like housing um so you know I think things like getting rid of the the sales tax on housing construction could be a good thing uh to address the regressivity of of sales tax.

When we look at things like child care, I don't believe child care is subject to sales tax, so that's good.

But you know, thinking at those those big ticket items um I know that we're working on utility costs, and thank you to council member Strauss for your proposal to to address some of those utility costs for for our low income families.

Um so I think there's multiple ways to address that sort of regressive nature of sales tax.

We can um sort of look at how exactly these sales taxes are impacting different sort of households and try to be more targeted in uh providing relief.

Um so I just mentioned that that I think that that's an ongoing body of work.

The other thing that I think um for us uh over the next you know potential 10 years if this passes is that we do um just really need to look at our tax structure more generally.

Um so again, council member Kettle to your point about sort of the overall tax burden, um I just want to call out a few things that um as we were looking at King County passing their um sales tax measure.

Um unfortunately a lot of the sales taxes here in the city are diverted to other parts of the nation, to other parts of the county, um, to other parts of the state.

Um so there is uh a report a couple years ago, uh, you know, Seattle Times, Danny Westney talked about this back then, where uh you know it was reported about 22 billion of our state uh taxes go to other states, and then and recently I was looking at um a fax USA that talked about 57 billion of our state taxes go to other states in terms of um you know goes to the feds and then you know where that fed where the feds spend their dollars.

And um, you know, King County and Seattle being sort of large generators of those taxes, that means a lot of our tax dollars are going to other states.

Similarly at the state level, um King County uh submits about 12 billion in taxes uh to the state.

We get somewhere between six and eight and a half billion in return.

So that means billions of our uh King County, and again, as Seattle is the largest sort of tax generator within the county, billions of our tax revenues are then being uh diverted to to the rest of the state.

Um with the most recent King County sales tax measure, um, even though we fought hard uh to to get as much as we could, uh, still uh over it's about 87 and a half percent is still going to fund roads and unincorporated King County.

Those are you know our sales tax dollars going to the rest of the county.

Um we were able to get you know pass through similar to the other small cities or the rest of the cities, but um a lot of that is is in going leaving the city going to to other parts, and so as we um, you know, and so it it people are rightfully concerned about what they are getting in exchange for the taxes they pay, and that is because the the state taxes that we pay, and I just want to point out that sales taxes who collects the most sales taxes, it's the state.

Six percent goes to the state.

Um, and again, we are not getting our fair share in return.

Um, and so uh you know, one of the best things that we could do as our as a city is to work hand in hand with uh our businesses to get our fair share of our um our state, federal, and other taxes to get those back because otherwise we are left um without sufficient revenues to meet the needs of our community, and the only revenues that we really control that we can make sure get spent in our community are local taxes, and so um when our tax revenues keep getting diverted to other parts of the state, other parts of the country, the only option we have to meet the needs of our community is local taxes, and and so I I hear the concern uh when our businesses say, hey, stop raising taxes, and and my message to them would be let's work hand in hand, let's go down to Olympia, let's go down to DC to make sure that the taxes that you're paying to the states and feds actually stay in in our region.

Um so again, earlier you mentioned it, but I just want to sort of make re reinforce a point that if we are able to be successful uh in getting back some of those funds from from Olympia or DC, that um there is the option to reduce the sales and use tax.

Yes, thank you, Councilmember.

Um we have the uh we have control of how much of it we implement.

Um the one issue I just wanted to make sure I I know you mentioned this, uh, but the idea of uh the recent exemptions that the state allows for different categories of sales tax, those are state-driven uh decisions, so that requires us to have a lobbying effort to do that, as a number of other folks have mentioned as well.

But just want to highlight that that isn't under our control.

Thank you so much, yes.

Thank thank you, Chair, for allowing me that time.

No, thank you.

Well said, uh Councilmember Lynn.

Appreciate you.

Uh council member Foster, floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Um, and thank you, uh Councilmember Lynn.

Uh I really appreciated that.

Um, and I'm gonna follow up on a similar note.

So um, as we've heard folks talk about today, the balance between sales taxes, which we all know are regressive, as well as the need for service that we know that folks need.

Um, I'm gonna first uh share an anecdote because this has been a really important um piece for me to balance.

And I'll say I our office met earlier this week with some uh poverty advocates, and we're talking with them about this issue and said, I said, hey, I'm I'm grappling with this, I want to get your input.

And I just want to share an anecdote, which was they told me, you know, they had a similar issue come up at a board meeting, and when they were discussing it at their board meeting and this issue of paying sales taxes, um, not for transit for for a different issue, uh, that their board members were sort of split along economic lines, and that it was the low-income board members who were in favor of the sales tax because they understood that it was buying a service that they otherwise wouldn't have access to.

So I I've asked that group to get back to me with some more input on this particular measure, but I just want to make sure that we continue to be clear about who we're talking about, who's paying how much.

And with that, I want to turn to my understanding of the existing measure, and I want to just bring this back up, which is that for an average median household in Seattle, which is um a household that's around a hundred and twenty-one thousand dollars a year, that household would pay fifty-eight dollars per year under the point three percent sales tax, and that is an increase of twenty-nine dollars from what folks are paying today.

And I want to appreciate um SDOT and the mayor's office for also bringing us information on what the increase would mean for a low-income household.

And so my understanding is that for a low-income two-person household at 30% area median income, which is $38,000 a year, that household would pay about $35 per year under this measure, and that is representative of an increase of $17 from the existing measure.

Um, then I want to just turn to some additional information.

So, you know, my understanding again is that, and and I'll get a question in here for you, Calvin, at some point, but you know, my understanding is that in order to continue with our existing levels of service, just to keep as is status quo because of increased um costs, inflation, the cost of buying service hours from Metro, that to stay as is, we would need to go from 0.15% to 0.233%.

Is that correct?

That was the mayor's office in SDOT's uh uh presentation.

Uh they highlighted the increased cost.

Uh, we know that uh a cost for running our streetcar is also increased, so maintaining the existing programs and the like that that's the number that that uh SDOT and the mayor has presented.

Yes.

Okay, got it.

And so to just oh just to be sure, you said point two two three.

I said point two three three, but tell me if I'm wrong.

Point two two three.

Not that it's a big difference, but I want to be correct, Amanda.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um, and so you know what I what I just want to highlight that because we're talking about that level of increase just to make sure that our residents are not losing transit service because of the increased cost.

So it when we're talking about our expansion, we're just talking about the change between 0.223 and point three.

And so I wonder if you can just share with us what that is in terms of cost impact for residents.

Uh so the difference between point two two three and point three uh uh you had kindly asked me this question before it's about 77% of the of the of the total amount.

So uh it it it essentially changes the calculus from fifty-eight dollars for a median household to about 45 dollars for a median household.

Got it.

And I I think that's important when we're talking about the need that we've heard from our residents and public comment today for expanded service levels and the just putting in context.

I've seen a lot in in writing around the doubling of the sales tax for this, and I just want to I think it's an important piece for the public to see, which is to to maintain our existing levels of service, we would have to have an increase, and we've already heard from so many people that that expansion is really needed.

So I just want to make sure that's uplifted for folks who are engaging in this issue.

Um, and then I want to turn actually, Councilmember Rink had a question that was really similar to something I was curious about.

So I want to just turn back to that around the change from the 3.5 million to the five million dollars.

And my understanding is that's an annual change, correct?

So that would actually be 1.5 million over the 10 years, or excuse me, 1.5 million per year for 10 years.

Yes, so the the decision before the council is what sort of broad guidelines or allowances per year uh do you want to include in the spending?

The actual spending will have to be approved by the council through future budgets.

So if it's a uh up to, then that is a maximum that can be spent unless uh future ordinance changes that um for something like revenue service uh excuse me, transit service.

The proposal currently is for a minimum of 60 percent of the revenue to be spent on.

So within those broad um restrictions, that's what the mayor will propose for a budget, and that's what you will be um uh considering through the regular budget process.

The 3.5 to 5 million is presumably an annual spend plan for that amount of money.

Got it, thank you.

And I'm not sure if I got my notes correct.

I know um Councilmember Rink was doing some math up here on the dias earlier, um, but I which I really appreciated as a somebody who's got a master's in social services.

Um but I I wanted to go back and just make sure I got those numbers correctly.

I thought I heard 4,000 hours for 1.5 million.

Did I get that right?

I'm trying to get to the potential shift from services to capital over the 10 year period.

Sure.

So SDOC confirmed that the 1.5 million is about 4,500 hours of service.

Okay, so that would be 4,500 hours of service annually over the 10 year period.

Correct.

Okay, thank you so much for that clarification.

Okay, and then I just want to turn to a question about our evaluation.

So, um, and I I really appreciated our public commenter earlier talking about we heard folks talk about transit frequency, but we also heard people just talk about their experience with uh travel time.

So I'm just curious how do we evaluate as we sort of look ahead to the annual reports, um, whether the service hour investments that we're making through this measure um result in reduced door-to-door travel time for transit riders, so especially thinking about those crosstown trips or um our commenter who spoke about their experience getting to the hospital.

Yeah, so it it is a little more um complicated in sort of we have a spending mechanism of which we buy service from King County Metro.

King County Metro has a broader service uh uh evaluation processes that we track and engage with.

Um we have annual reports that identify kind of what our spending has been and and the characteristics of what that spending is.

Uh and I know that staff work very closely with King County Metro to identify where there are problems, that's where we tend to focus our capital spending to try to make um transit priority improvements.

That's where we uh were where King County looks at potential routing adjustments to make those adjustments as well.

Um we can follow up with you a little more directly about uh sort of what the best uh source of that information is.

Uh I tend to look for to King County uh um performance um I can't remember the name of the report they have, but they have a they have an annual reporting uh uh document that that provides a lot of that information on a on a more sort of system wide level, and um just as a reminder, um, we are kind of obligated to use King County's routes as sort of the menu of what we purchase.

We we don't really um we can county has to King County Council approves what the council's uh the transit service changes are, and from those offerings, we are using our revenues to help support where we think there's additional value for our um our our residents.

Thank you for that.

And I know there's folks from uh Metro here today, and I can see them nodding their heads, so I'm sure that we'll get that follow up.

So thank you.

Um and then I want to just turn to my final point here, and thank you, Chair, for the time.

Um, you know, which is just I you know, we talked a little bit about provisions and the measure um that are in place that um allow us to sort of take a second look um if there are changes to what the county is doing in their overall work.

So can you just uh share with us a little bit more Calvin about the process for that so if we were to see a um change in investment from King County or additional hours from King County um what what does this the language that's in this transit measure now either require us to do or allow us to do um I I believe that the language in the resolution before us is really just a statement acknowledging that we have that authority so um regardless of whether the language was there or not um this legislative body can decide at what level to impose this local taxing authority and so if the voters approve this then the council will have to take a uh uh an action to ask the state to impose and collect the 0.3% sales tax um you some of well council member strauss I know remembers that um we actually ran into a timing issue in the past where uh it took uh time for the state to actually uh get that in in place so um there was a certain amount of uh uh head um advanced uh um it takes some time for the state to put those systems in place and start to be in collectings collections so the process would be sort of the reverse the council would say instead of collecting point three we would collect point two or whatever the amount is and it would take some amount of time for the state to put that in place and and change the collection um amount.

Got it thank you so the language is just a restatement of our authority to make sure that we have that clarified in the resolution I I view it as a way to make sure that the voters who are going to vote on it are are aware that that Seattle elected officials are paying attention to that um to that concern.

Thank you so much Calvin thank you chair thank you council member foster appreciate your questions uh council member ring for recognize thank you chair and I want to thank council member foster for her questions because now I have more math for everybody so thinking about a 1.5 million uh reduction annually so um 4,500 um bus service hours per year looking across the 10 years of the measure that's 45,000 um hours and I think it's a little bit um ambiguous to be talking about bus hours like what does that mean every day for people um and so I think it's important to know that um 4,500 bus service hours is about a week's worth of bus service um so across the course of the measure as proposed um we would be looking at uh 10 weeks of bus service as the trade-off here so I thought that was uh particularly important to just name just to close the loop on that point and I do have one additional question that's just kind of come up since we've heard folks today talk about the frequent transit network and the importance of being able to deliver on that I'm wondering um how much would it cost to get 100% of the frequent transit network um is it possible to achieve that through reductions to um capital spending what is the the true delta there I think that's a little bit of a moving target depending on what you consider the frequent transit network to be it is a structural idea of these are our core routes and we want to have higher service um what is that level of service that you mean when you talk about fully embracing that is that five minutes headways on every single route is that you know what's the difference between the two um there is a uh a specific sort of um proposal in the Seattle transportation plan and we will go back and try to get a sense of what that you know how much of that is unfunded uh so that you have that sense um but I don't know it off the top of my head so we'll we'll do a bit of research on that okay certainly um thank you so much for that that was just a point of curiosity I think folks are are having and something that I want to center in our future discussions just broadly across all of our transportation investments.

One thing that I I just want to make sure it's part of this conversation is uh it genuinely what King County is going to be doing over the next two years because um bringing back a hundred hundred thousand service hours is going to be a big deal and um could potentially address a number of of concerns that folks have about where exactly are these buses going to go.

We haven't had a big restructuring look at this in Seattle for some time.

So it will be an opportunity to really raise a number of these sort of direct service issues.

Thank you so much, Cal.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Last but not least, their hand raised.

Council Member Schrouse, you're right.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, colleagues.

I appreciate this transit measure being before us, and we need to make this transit measure about transit.

The current proposal doubles the tax for fewer transit hours, and we need to fix this.

We had better bus service in the pandemic than we do today in the Ballard Regional Center.

Metro's issues as discussed here during the pandemic caused funding diversions as Calvin Chow discussed here today.

We were literally in a place where if Metro, if we could have bought those hours from Metro, we would have, but we couldn't, and we were just what what's the next best option?

And so that's why I think that the 2020 proposal might not be the best apples to apples, it might actually be that first proposal.

We can talk more about that later.

All that to say if we were in a place we knew Metro could spend as many dollars as we provided, we would have even more transit hours in this plan.

Seattleites ride transit.

We I would be in a place we would literally buy as many hours as dollars could be collected.

I say that because if Metro is able to get these buses on the roads, these coaches on the roads with operators driving them.

If it if that was just exponential, I'd be adding a VLF to these sales tax, right?

Because there Seattleites enjoy riding transit.

We're not there yet, but Metro is building back, and as Metro builds back, we need to be ready to buy more hours, not fewer.

In land use committee yesterday, Chair Lynn had a discussion about the regional center planning.

Colleagues for you reference the regional centers in our city are First Hill Capitol Hill, downtown, University District, Northgate, South Lake Union, Uptown or Lower Queen Anne, however you want to call it, and then Ballard.

Sorry, sir.

I'll do better next time.

Just to recap, there first hill Capitol Hill has the streetcar and the light rail, downtown has light rail, U District has light rail, Northgate has light rail, South Lake Union has the streetcar, has a number of rapid rides, and should have light rail, and uptown has rapid rides that are unencumbered that have direct bus lanes all the way downtown to the center of uptown.

Sir, what we heard in public comment today is that Betty, who lives in a regional center, has many options to get to her two gyms.

There's I mean, it's great, there's a lot of different options.

But we heard that Miss Kimball in a different regional center has to plan two hours to get to her doctor.

We heard Jonathan share that he literally has to gamble with their plans if they want to use transit.

This isn't different from my situation.

Colleagues, usually Thursdays are a day I work out at my district six office in the Ballard Regional Center.

Uh today I came down here for for this.

Um I would rather be able to rely on transit to get back for office hours today, but I can't because to get from this office at City Hall to my district six office, it takes the same amount of time on transit as it does to get from this office to Tacoma.

Um so Ms.

Kimball, if you'd like a ride back to Ballard, I'll be going back at one o'clock for office hours.

I'm happy to give you a ride, Jonathan, and you as well.

Um in the select committee on June 4th, we had a slide five.

The words on that slide said that this proposal is in line with the comprehensive plan.

But the map that showed the frequency of transit shows that it does not through actions.

Words are hollow when actions are not followed through with the map on that slide shows that the closest to Ballard that the most frequent transit gets is Leary and 15th, which is in an industrial zone.

It's not near housing, it's not near the center of Ballard, and this is not about my neighborhood.

This is about our comprehensive plan.

If we are putting if we are putting this type of zoning, if we are focusing on job and housing growth in a part of our city, our transit needs to do that as well.

In that same committee on June 4th, committee staff stated that the only way this proposal will fund traffic to the Ballet Regional Center is by Rapid Ride D or Route 40, again, which takes the same amount of time to get from downtown Seattle to Tacoma.

If slide five's words were to be accurate, we need to make sure that this transit measure transits.

So colleagues, I'm asking that we take a clear look at this and make sure that this proposal is in line with our comprehensive plan more than it was on slide five.

This must be fixed, and we have to bring our transit plan in line with our comprehensive plan.

But just to be clear, I'm not asking for more than anyone else has.

I'm just asking for the same as everyone else has.

I'm not asking for the service that is serving your neighborhoods to be taken and put to the Ballard Regional Center.

I'm just asking to use our existing coaches and operators between the downtown regional center and the Ballard Regional Center more efficiently.

If you take one bus off of the Rapid Ride D and one bus off of Route 40, it's a 50% increase of direct service between the downtown regional center and the Ballard Regional Center.

Again, Miss Kimball could have taken the 17 bus directly here to get here, but then has no way home until 3 30, unless they want to take unless she wants to take a bus that takes the same amount of time that gets to Tacoma.

I had the same experience yesterday right in the 17, where somebody got on the bus and they were going to downtown and then to West Seattle, and it was all direct until they had to get back to Ballard from downtown middle of the day.

So I don't have any questions for you, Calvin or Amanda.

I appreciate your analysis because it reflects exactly what my experience has been over the last six years regarding this.

Needs to be fixed to make it more about transit to align with our comprehensive plan to ensure that we are ready for to buy hours from a reignited metro and to serve our Seattleites with efficient use of tax dollars.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Well said.

Council Member Foster, is that a new hand or is that a stale hand?

All right.

Um looks like there are no other comments, questions.

Uh so let me finish my line of questioning.

And very rich, awesome discussion, colleagues.

Really appreciate you all.

Learned a lot.

Uh and especially appreciate the the conversation around, you know, what the the proposed cuts to accessibility uh would would mean and how it would impact purely transit service.

I have a different perspective.

Um so what I want to double-click a little bit on on that conversation to to hopefully help illuminate the full breadth of of the various trade-offs at issue, right here today.

So we learned the potential service service hours that could be purchased with additional 1.5 million dollars annually.

Um in a moment, I'm gonna ask you about how many specific curb ramps, 88 accessible curb ramps.

Could 1.5 million dollars purchase annually.

And the reason why I at where I'm gonna mention that colleagues, this capital bucket ain't just about sidewalks or new sidewalks.

It's one specific sidewalks and new sidewalks are one specific potential implementation of that, but a better I think more illustrative implementation of that is curb ramps.

What are curb ramps?

Earlier this year in committee, in our regular committee, we had a briefing and discussion from SDOT on the Reynolds and Consent Decree.

And for some contextual uh framing for colleagues who are not on that committee and colleagues who were, just a friendly reminder.

I've asked our own legal experts or legal team to provide a short synopsis of exactly what the Reynolds consent decree is and its current state.

Here it is.

In 2017, the case settled by creating a consent decree.

Through this Reynolds and consent decree, Seattle made an 18-year commitment in these critical areas.

One, installing accessible curb ramps and new construction projects or alterations.

Two, meeting annual commitments in two categories.

Subpart A, installing or remediating at least 1,250 curb ramps annually, and B budgeting for the installation or remediation of at least 150 customer service request curb ramps annually, and three, annual reporting, and fourth and finally hiring an S.88 coordinator.

It concludes that since the city began implementing the consent decree, there have been no further proceedings in federal court regarding the city's implementation or compliance with the consent decree, suggesting Seattle has met its mandates to date.

It's minimum required legally required binding mandates to date.

In 2026, this year, both SDOT and Disability Rights Washington report being proud of the work that has happened with disability rights Washington stating there is a long way to go.

End of the expert legal analysis.

And this is colleagues, this is more than just a legal summation and overview of the Reynolds and consent decree in the background and the context in its current state.

More than legalese that I'll read out that I just read out loud.

It's about people.

Encountered someone with different mobility needs.

They're in a wheelchair.

Renewal came up and they looked at me and said, how can I, as a voter, vote to approve a measure to raise my taxes?

And ultimate with the goal of providing more access to transit, and I can't even access transit safely.

Curb ramps.

I have fought for the rights of people with different disability different abilities, differently able people to navigate our transportation infrastructure, and we'll continue to fight because I believe everybody, regardless of your abilities or inabilities, deserves to safely access transit.

I got a bum knee from the military.

Couple weeks ago, I head coached my son, my youngest son's well, I was his little league baseball team.

And during practice, I took a line drive shot to the to the right knee.

It's the hardest hit this kid has ever hit.

And I'm very proud of him as a father and as a coach, but it hit me right my bum knee from the military.

And for a couple days, I had to navigate, as I sometimes do because of my flare-ups, around our city in a cane.

Colleagues, you might see me limping sometimes behind the scenes here.

Occasionally it's because of it's because of a flare-up.

And I just experienced for a few short days what it's like to have a disability and not be able to safely navigate and access our transportation infrastructure.

Again, this ain't about sidewalks.

That's one specific possible implementation.

It's about protecting our neighbors with disability, making sure we have disabilities, making sure we have accessible pedestrian rights away, which is exactly the subject matter of the Reynolds and consent decree.

So I ask again with that 1.5 million dollars.

Could that fund annually?

Thank you, Councilmember.

That's a good question.

We will definitely have to get back to you on that.

I can only share that the consent decree requires a thousand two hundred and fifty curb ramps a year.

And we're still a long way off from having all the curb ramps done.

2035 is the date when we would be able to have that done.

A long way off from being able to have the curb ramps done.

We're meeting our minimum compliance obligation.

This ain't about minimum.

This is about investing above and beyond what we're legally required and obligated to do.

This is more than an obligation.

Colleagues, I would submit this is a duty.

And the as was noted on page six of the Central Staff Analysis memo in that table three.

It notes that the 20 soon to be expiring 2020 measure is up to 16.4 million dollars a year for transit and accessibility infrastructure.

The baseline, the revised baseline proposal, that uh myself and the the executive aligned on is up to five million dollars.

And colleagues, you guys are smart with your with your with your math, and I I love it, inspired me to you know, brush up on my math skills in the intervening time.

Um, you know, I actually became a lawyer, went to law school under the implicit, you know, guarantee and promise I didn't have to be good at math, but you all inspire me so much.

I learned that even under the revised amount, it still reflects a 69.51% cut to the legislative maximum amounts in the soon-to-be expiring.

70% cut.

So I would I ideally have liked to do more for our neighbors.

We're differently able to to make sure that they can better access transit.

I'm sure the mayor would ideally not like to you know, have have moved away from the 3.5 million annual amount that was included in the original proposal.

We came together and aligned on a compromise solution, because this is about people.

Numbers on the balance sheet, service hours, even curb ramps.

It's about people.

Anyways, uh fair box recovery ratios.

Fair box recovery ratios.

What is the current, so fair box?

Well, I guess as a baseline, can you help clarify what farebox recovery ratios are?

Well, the fair box recovery ratio, uh, a couple different ways that people think about it.

It um often it's if you look at the amount of the cost of what it takes to provide a transit service, how much of it is funded through fair box recovery, sort of the classic piece.

Um oftentimes we talk about sort of uh uh more like the enforcement like of the people who are riding, how many people uh are paying fares.

Um so those are usually the two different ways that people talk about fair box.

Okay, that makes sense.

Can you help us better understand what is King County Metro's current fare box recovery ratio and uh how that compares to you know national averages or trends?

I don't have that information in front of me.

Um, happy to follow up with you.

Please do.

That's very helpful and important information.

Uh we are being asked to put a measure before voters that would double the tax, and to to ensure the most accountability and oversight, you know, we need to have a better understanding of of you know that important nitty-gritty policy wonkish uh feature of this underlying work when we're talking about transit service, and um, so please do follow up offline about that important issue.

And King County transportation benefit district, bring that up a moment, share a little a few thoughts from my perspective.

Uh the I was work I was working the horns all last week, and I want to I want to thank Council Member Lynn for um sort of uniting a group of us and and rallying the troops to to lobby uh and get rid of that punitive uh cap that targeted solely the city of Seattle, and I appreciate the King County Council for passing that.

I want to thank Vice Chair Rink for organizing that letter.

I think all those things collectively made a difference, um, and what they what they the King County Council ended up doing was passing their measure with a certain amount of pass-through funds, 4.5 million roughly is the estimated amount Seattle can expect to receive under that proposal.

The rest's going towards uh uh you know road roads in our unincorporated areas, which the need is significant there.

I share a boundary with unincorporated King County and White Center.

Um here's the truth, maybe a little uncomfortable one, certainly a practical one.

But here's the truth about transit.

Well, one, we all need it for so many reasons.

We need it, we need more of it, and we need more people to take it and then adopt it.

But second, uncomfortable truth is that these heavy buses impose a significant strain on our transportation infrastructure, especially in including our roads, and so while on the one hand, the King County proposal and measure is kind of separate and distinct from our own parallel conversations right now.

I think they're actually directly related.

In my own council district right now, near Westwood village in West Seattle, along Barton, SDOT is doing some major rehabilitation road work repairs of a specific portion of that road, because a lot of buses congregate there, park there, it's a bus stop, and the the strain, they're not doing a full of the entire road, but just specific panels that were you could tell that the bus stops, the like uh buses parked.

And so buses impose a very significant strain on our roads, and that is an acceptable trade-off from my perspective because they're overriding more compelling policy interests and and goals associated with mass adoption of transit, increasing frequency, reliability, and safety of transit, um, you know, the climate rationale, all those things.

But it does impact our roads.

So I think a lot of those funds, four and a half million, we should prioritize one in areas that are heavily utilized along frequent transit networks where the roads are horrible.

Two, probably in the reverse order, along our boundary areas with King County.

There's a few of those.

I happen to have one.

King County Council member uh Teresa Musceda was a pivotal vote and a thought leader and and just a strong advocate for getting that measure done at the county level.

And her in her comments, she noted Roxbury, that's the southernmost boundary of uh my district in the city of Seattle, and it abuts directly abuts unincorporated King County White Center, and she was a decisive vote in that, and I think we should start leveraging those funds and roads that are shared with the county in any event.

I see those two things, they're separate, distinct, but also somewhat related.

Because what we're talking about here is the complete picture.

There are trade-offs with all these things, and I think you know, we've been able to illuminate some of those trade-offs further here today.

All right.

Just to highlight, um, we will follow up with you uh on sort of what some of these costs are.

Um, I will say that um the cops are the costs for an individual curb ramp are going to be minuscule compared to the cost of getting our roads up to the capacity necessary to handle the busloads.

We you know, we know that buses are much heavier than they were 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 100 years ago, and we have very old infrastructure, and that's been the focus of a lot of our transportation discussions till now.

So, um, I just wanted to put it out there that that the cost of of dealing with our our road structural deficit is um significantly higher than what we're talking about here.

100% agree.

Couldn't agree more.

We need more money for roads.

That's why I'm excited for the forthcoming uh transportation funding task force, and you know, look forward to learning what they come up with in terms of their report and recommendations and implementing some of those recommendations.

Um, but for clear clarity from uh from a policy makers' perspective, uh, those comments like my comments are two distinct things.

We shouldn't use any of the accessibility features for for road repayments uh or even spot repairs, it's about accessibility, pedestrian rights away and safe access to um transit.

So all right.

That said, colleagues, any final questions, comments for the good of the order.

Hearing and seeing none, uh, thank you.

Um tomorrow, happy Juneteenth, everybody.

Uh and also want to thank my own staff and team, Brendan, Michael, Eric, and Hadia, uh, for not only helping out and getting us to to this state where we're at right now, but also uh recently we passed uh this this body unanimously adopted and passed a council joint mayoral council resolution affirming our commitment to renovate the Seattle Center.

And during those comments, we when we passed that, I I thanked everybody, they mama, with the exception of my own team.

So really appreciate my own team for um for the all the work they've done, are doing, will continue to do to support transportation, Seattle Center, and the waterfront.

So colleagues, thank you.

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.

It is 12 14 p.m.

Thank you.