Month: September 2014

Five West Seattle peninsula transportation issues

Seattle, Washington & King County – September 28th, 2014

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After one year of meetings, panels, research, and outreach, the West Seattle Transportation Coalition has identified the following as the most pressing transportation issues for the West Seattle peninsula, which are within the power of the City of Seattle to directly address and resolve. It is our belief that the City can resolve each of these concerns if funding were made available.

These are an assortment of safety, commuting, business impact, freight mobility, and quality of life issues. In some cases, lives may be on the line.

The issues are the following:

  1. Expand vehicle capacity from the West Seattle Bridge to SR-99.
  2. Develop a “West Seattle Peninsula” emergency relief plan.
  3. Increase access to the westbound Spokane St. Viaduct from SODO.
  4. Complete the Lander Street Overpass.
  5. Immediate mitigation of traffic events to West Seattle peninsula chokepoints.

Today, we have sent a letter to Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, City Council President Tim Burgess, and City Council Transportation Committee Chair Tom Rasmussen, on behalf of our membership of eleven local community groups and various citizens.  The letters details each of these issues, possible resolutions, and calling for action to be taken on and spearheaded by the City of Seattle to resolve each of the five items to the satisfaction of West Seattle residents and businesses.

We have asked the City of Seattle to respond to our concerns with a plan of action for each of these five items by January 9th, 2015.

The West Seattle Transportation Coalition (WSTC) is a peninsula-wide organization working to address transportation and mobility issues for Seattle’s largest constituency. Representing more than 100,000 people living and working in the 10 square mile area between the Duwamish River and Puget Sound, we are community leaders, advocates, business owners, residents and workers focused on addressing the transportation and commuting challenges of West Seattle.

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You will find a PDF copy of the letter to the City of Seattle here:

WSTC Letter to the City of Seattle – September 28 2014

You may also read it in-line here:

 

WSTC

Should the WSTC endorse Prop 1?

The West Seattle Transportation Coalition voted in our September 2014 meeting to ask our membership whether or not we should endorse for or against, or neither, the Prop 1 measure to save bus service on City of Seattle ballots this November. This is the “city only” version of the countywide Prop 1 measure we voted on in April. If you’ll recall, the county version failed countywide, but passed convincingly inside the city. Now we’re going to do that vote again, city only, in November.

Please take a few minutes to read this PDF letter from us with full details, including a pro and con view, for and against endorsing. Please e-mail to info@westseattletc.org to let us know your views.

For those of you receiving these emails, which are members of the groups that comprise the WSTC, please take this to your groups by e-mail and by your meetings. The WSTC board will take it up one last time on Tuesday, October 14th, based on the feedback from all of you and your groups.

Thanks, and we hope to see you in October’s meeting!

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