Dear Councilmembers,The Urbanist asks you to rescind your support andoppose Councilmember Alex Pedersen’samendmentgutting a vetted plan and replacing it onewith one funneling at least 75% of newvehicle license fee (VLF) revenue into bridge maintenance.The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) strucka careful balance intheir spendingproposaland incorporated the City's stated prioritiesof safety, reducing climate emissions,mobility justice, and equity. Pedersen’s amendmentdoes the opposite. Instead of valuing inputfrom the City’s modal boards, it bends the investmentstohis own preconceived vision, erasingweeks of work with those groups and devaluing theirtime. SDOT’s proposal to invest 66% of the$20 VLF fee on safe streets, sidewalks, and activetransportation and 7% on multimodalplanning was well-received, but it didn’t even geta full hearing before the transportationcommittee set to work overwriting it dramatically.SDOT’s plan (on the left above) includes 24% for bridgemaintenance, but Pedersen invertedthe spending priorities so that all other transportationpriorities get 25% of the pie while bridgemaintenance hogs 75% or more and bonds on that revenueto lock in that arrangement for 20years. Debt service on the bonding absorbs $40 millionover the next twenty years, more thanthe $25 million set aside for sidewalks, etc. in Pedersen’sproposal. Instead of investing about$5 million per year in safe streets, sidewalks, andactive transportation over twenty years for $100 million in all, the Pedersen proposal would investone fourth as much, offering $25 millionupfront. Immediate funding is nice, but it can’t outweighreversal in priorities.Please stick with the vetted SDOT plan. Even $100million in bonding hoped for in Pedersen’splan would be far from enough to tackle the bridgemaintenance backlog. Rather thanopportunistically raiding a multimodal revenue sourceto offer a temporary band-aid made tolook bigger through gimmicky bonding, the transportationchair should present a plan that fully
addresses the backlog. This will likely involve a stable new revenue source to provide ongoingmaintenance support without burning 40% in debt service.Invested in safe streets projects,$100 million would make a huge difference and savelives, but that amount doesn’t really go thatfar when applied to our staggering bridge maintenancebacklog.Too often safe streets investments end up on the cuttingroom floor, but this shouldn’t be one of those times. Troublingly, our region sawtraffic deathsincreasedlast year even as the Covidpandemic drove down traffic volumes. The increasein people speeding in their cars is makingour streets more dangerous and instead of advancingsolutions, our transportation chair throwsaway a proposal that would have helped. And, by theway, since bike and pedestrian projectscreate more jobs per dollar invested than highwayprojects, the safety-focused investments arelikely to be the better job creators and the strongereconomic stimulus.If the City Council planned to go along with Pedersen’sbridge plan the whole time, they shouldhave spared the various advisory boards and equitystakeholders the extra work of reviewing anSDOT plan they had no intention of passing. To throwaway this plan so abruptly is to make amockery of good outreach, stakeholder engagement,and City commitments to tackle the crisesaround climate, traffic safety, and mobility justice.Stakeholders could have had five months todigest the bonding idea and the 75% bridge maintenancespending proposal, but instead Chair Pedersen waited until the eleventh hour, giving advocatesjust two weeks to respond.Please stick with a VLF funding plan that stays trueto SDOT’s proposed vision and spendingbreakdown. Thank you for your consideration and Iam happy to discuss if you have questionsor additional details to share.Sincerely,Doug TrummExecutive Director The Urbanist