The West Seattle Transportation Coalition 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, these community leaders, advocates, business owners, residents and workers focused on addressing transportation and commuting challenges caused by:
- The reduction of mass transit services: The current insufficient level of service will be compounded by the proposed cuts in our already under served area.
- Loss of infrastructure: The scheduled removal of the SR-99 Viaduct without sufficient replacement capacity on other routes to and from our Peninsula.
- Density without transportation capacity: The region’s commitment to increased density is not matched with equivalent increases in transportation capacity to serve the Peninsula’s steadily growing population.
- Natural barriers: West Seattle has only limited routes connecting it to downtown and beyond for the vast majority of its commuters. Mass transit is the primary option that can move us across these choke points to keep our transportation systems functioning.
The West Seattle Transportation Coalition calls upon our city, county and state elected officials to produce permanent solutions to these identified challenges affecting our Peninsula.
We call upon the City of Seattle to:
- Implement immediate, short, and long term sustainable funding for transportation
- Increase traffic capacity of surface streets
- Match transportation services to increased density
- Utilize SDOT Transit Master Plan funding options to mitigate impacts of transit orientated development (TOD)
We call upon King County to:
- Implement immediate, short, and long term sustainable funding for transportation
- Match transit services to increased population
- Get permanent funding authority from the state for transit
We call upon the State of Washington to:
- Implement immediate, short, and long term sustainable funding for transportation
- Grant permanent regional funding authority increases for transit tied to population and tax revenue growth
The coalition looks forward to partnering with you directly on the matters stated above. We request that you send us your transportation action plan for West Seattle, with milestones, by December 9th , via email. We respectfully invite you to RSVP and present at our January 14th public meeting.
Sincerely,
The West Seattle Transportation Coalition
https://www.westseattletc.org
info@westseattletc.org
###
At 5:00 PM on Sunday, October 13th, 2013, on it’s twentieth day of existence, the West Seattle Transportation Committee sent this letter to forty-eight City of Seattle, King County, State of Washington officials, and all regional candidates for office in the upcoming November 2013 elections.
Click here for more information about the West Seattle Transportation Coalition.
To download a PDF copy of our letter to review and present to your West Seattle groups, institutions, companies, or organizations, please click here.
To join the West Seattle Transportation Coalition:
Please click here.
###
