Hi, in case you were curious, we have no meeting today for August 2014, but we’re back to work in September 2014, which is also the anniversary of our first ever meeting!

Join the West Seattle Transportation Coalition and Sound Transit to discuss the future of Light Rail and Bus Rapid Transit to and from West Seattle on Tuesday, July 8th, 2014 from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. Neighborhood House High Point Center, 6400 Sylvan Way SW in West Seattle, just east of the intersection of 35th Ave SW and SW Morgan. For bus, take the #21 or #128. The full agenda will be out later.

Read Sound Transit’s Long Range Plan Update here: http://www.soundtransit.org/Projects-and-Plans/Long-range-Plan-update

Full Agenda:

6:30-6:40: Welcome, Introductions, Community news, Updates.

6:40-6:55: A review of some West Seattle related activities the past month and committee updates (if any).

• The WSTC testified before the City Council on the city’s “Plan C” to fund metro. You can watch our segment of testimony here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLHwDbA_hFs
• Call for someone to chair the Outreach Committee (currently a very light workload, will ramp up later).
• Call for volunteers to meet for planning and discussion of some proposed public records requests on financial data.
• Call for volunteers to work on some letters to the city.
• Should we skip our August meeting and host a table at Delridge Day and the Gathering of Neighbors instead, on Saturday, August 9th?

6:55-7:00: New business from the Membership.

7:00-8:15: Sound Transit will be presenting to us, with Rachel Smith, their Government and Community Relations Officer, and Chris Rule, one of their Planners, joining us. What are the routes? Where would Light Rail and Bus Rapid Transit go to and through West Seattle? Come for the presentation and a Q&A. You can read some of the Sound Transit materials here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/222955539/South-King-County-HCT-Sound-Transit-study-progress-report

8:15-8:30: Last call for new business.

8:30: Adjourn.

The WSTC last night confirmed our new governing board (click here for full profiles).

WSTC Meeting, May 2014

We have created a very large to-do list that we’ve been researching, studying, planning against, and are now ready to begin executing fully in through our permanent Board. Everything has been planning, research, and development up until now. If we were to issue a statement on the beginning of each project goal we’ve got lined up and in various stages of development every two weeks, it would take us until October to spin them all out.

You will start seeing updates on us tackling problems and challenging the City of Seattle, King County, Sound Transit, Washington State, and even the United States Government in the next year. What sorts of things? Here is our Current Issues page. As each item begins to ramp up it will get it’s own project page there.

• A poll of our membership of their preferred funding methods to save bus service in-city.
• Getting the Lander Street overpass.
• Mandating published transparency from SDOT, KCDOT, and WSDOT on funding and prioritization of all projects.
• Obtaining a 4th or 6th Avenue busway to the Spokane Street Viaduct.
• Addition of BRT-type capacity to the West Seattle Bridge/SR99 interchange.
• Development of an emergency transportation access plan to West Seattle with short term and long term components.
• Working with King County on improvements to bus service in our area.
• Working with Sound Transit on bringing Light Rail and true Bus Rapid Transit to the West Seattle peninsula.
• Working with WSDOT on dedicated mitigation funding and ferry issues.
• Working with the US Government on bridge openings affecting the peninsula.
• Outreach and recruiting more members and member groups to join the WSTC — our strength comes from unity.

If we have to or are forced to, we’ll do whatever it takes for all of that. Our duty in the WSTC is to our membership: West Seattle first. We’ve been neglected for a long time. That status quo is no longer acceptable and never will be again.

“There are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.”

– Thomas A. Edison

Here is the agenda for our next meeting. Our guest is Andrew Glass Hastings, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s transportation policy advisor.

Tuesday, May 13th, 2014 WSTC Agenda.

This meeting will be 6:30pm to 8:30pm at High Point Neighborhood House, 6400 Sylvan Way SW in West Seattle. Please enter at the rear plaza to the large meeting room.

The Facebook event for this meeting is here: http://www.facebook.com/events/835116326503353

6:30-6:40: Welcome, Introductions, Community news, Updates.

6:40-6:55: WSTC Board member confirmations.

• Position 1: Joe Szilagyi
• Position 2: Amanda Kay Helmick
• Position 3: Michael Taylor-Judd
• Position 4: Deb Barker
• Position 5: Vicki Nelson
• Position 6: Alon Bassok
• Position 7: Tod Rodman
• Position 8: Marci Carpenter
• Position 9: Ray Krueger
• Position 10: Martin Westerman
• Position 11: Open

Details on each member: https://www.westseattletc.org/about/wstc-board

6:55-7:00: New business from the Membership.

7:00-8:00: A discussion with Mayor Ed Murray’s Transit and Transportation Advisor, Andrew Glass Hastings, about a variety of critical transportation issues. Some of the topics will include:

• With Prop 1’s failure on the county level, what is Mayor Murray’s plan now for bus service in the city?
• What is the Mayor’s plan to keep Viaduct Mitigation money coming for West Seattle now that Bertha will be offline for over a year?
• If an earthquake shuts down the bridges, what is the city’s plan for us?
• What year will the Lander Street Overpass be opened?
• When will the Chelan intersection bicycle improvements and the E Marginal cycle track be finished?

8:00-8:15: A first discussion of the proposed Friends of Transit “Plan C” to fund King County Metro in-city only with property taxes. Details: http://www.friendsoftransit.us

8:15-8:30: Brainstorm topics for our June 10th meeting with guest Washington State Secretary of Transportation, Lynn Peterson.  Including the Viaduct and tunnel, and how it affects West Seattle: https://www.westseattletc.org/wsdot-secretary-lynn-peterson-visits-wstc-on-june-10

8:30: Adjourn.

Join us on our mailing list here: https://www.westseattletc.org/wstc-talk/

Join us on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/westseattletc/

Next meeting: Tuesday, June 10, 6:30pm with guest Washington State Transportation Secretary and WSDOT head Lynn Petersen.

The Seattle Department of Transportation posted this on Twitter today, on their @seattledot account. It’s a reference to an Internet meme known as “Scumbag Steve“. The short version of it is that if you’re wearing one of the hats, you’re a deplorable person doing deplorable, socially unacceptable things.

While SDOT can at times be funny on Twitter, this joke is completely inappropriate and unprofessional. With years of cuts to bus service and decades of questionable infrastructure design, many West Seattle commuters today have no choice but to drive over the bridge to get to their jobs in a timely fashion. Instead of insulting taxpayers and voters for trying to survive, SDOT and the heads of city government should be answering today why, for decades, West Seattle’s transportation issues were overlooked. Andrew Glass Hastings, the Mayor’s transportation advisor, will be our guest in our Tuesday, May 13 meeting at 6400 Sylvan Way SW.  We will have many questions for him about this, and we encourage West Seattle residents to join us in getting answers.

Click here for the May 2014 WSTC meeting agenda.

The West Seattle Transportation Coalition is happy to announce that Washington State Secretary of Transportation and head of WSDOT Lynn Peterson will be the guest at our June 10, 2014 meeting. We will have a discussion about the current state of the SR-99 Viaduct, it’s impact on West Seattle, the plans the state has for mitigation of traffic from our peninsula in the event of short or long-term Viaduct closures before the Deep Bore Tunnel is completed, and a talk about the possible future of ferry traffic from Vashon and Southworth. This meeting will be held at 6:30 PM on Tuesday, June 10th, in room 207B at at the High Point Neighborhood House at 6400 Sylvan Ave SW in West Seattle.

Lynn Peterson was appointed Secretary of Transportation in February 2013 by Governor Jay Inslee. Peterson manages an agency of 6,600 employees, with responsibility for 18,600 lane miles of highway, 3,700 bridges, general aviation airports, passenger- and freight-rail programs, and the Washington State Ferry system, the nation’s largest.

As the Washington State Department of Transportation nears completion of the agency’s largest construction program in its history ($16.3 billion), Peterson brings a renewed focus on efficiencies, accountability and investing in a multimodal system. She supports WSDOT’s partnerships with cities and counties, businesses, transit, non-motorized transportation and environmental organizations to cost-effectively build safe and healthy communities everywhere in Washington state.

The West Seattle Transportation Coalition (the WSTC) is a Peninsula-wide organization working to address transportation and mobility issues for Seattle’s largest constituency. The WSTC formed in September 2013, in response to the looming 27% cuts to King County Metro to West Seattle. We represent up to 100,000 people the 10 square mile area between the Duwamish River and Puget Sound.

Meetings are held at the High Point Neighborhood House at 6400 Sylvan Ave SW from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM on the second Tuesday of every month. Our guest in our May 13th meeting is Andrew Glass Hastings, the principle transportation policy advisor for Seattle Mayor Ed Murray.

Please join our discussions online:

• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/westseattletc
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/WSTCoalition
• E-mail list: https://www.westseattletc.org/wstc-talk

Marci Carpenter

The West Seattle Transportation Coalition (WSTC) is happy to announce that we have been invited by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s office to have a representative of the WSTC on the Mayor’s Community Advisory Committee to find a Director of Transportation for the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT). The Director of Transportation reports to the Mayor and has management oversight of more than 750 employees and an annual operating budget of more than $400 million.

The West Seattle Transportation Coalition will be represented by Marci Carpenter. Carpenter is a West Seattle resident and current interim board member of the WSTC. Carpenter has extensive experience in transportation advisory roles. In the 1980s and 1990s she helped to develop the Transportation Master Plan for the Boulder Valley in Colorado, chaired a group that helped implement that multi-modal plan, worked on creating one of the nation’s first employer-based bus pass systems and negotiated with the University of Colorado for a similar student pass program. Carpenter also served on Boulder’s City Transportation Board and conducted public meetings, with a focus on implementing a citywide sidewalk completion program.

The Mayor’s initiative and other committee members are listed here: http://murray.seattle.gov/sdotdirector/#sthash.Sh7EyLVk.dpbs

The West Seattle Transportation Coalition is a Peninsula-wide organization working to address transportation and mobility issues for Seattle’s largest constituency. We represent up to 100,000 people living and working in the 10 square mile area between the Duwamish River and Puget Sound.

Our next monthly meeting is tonight, Tuesday, April 8th, at 6:30pm at High Point Neighborhood House at 6400 Sylvan Way SW (east of 35th & Morgan) in West Seattle. Our guest tonight is the Seattle Department of Transportation to discuss upgrades and improvements to our major capital infrastructure such as the West Seattle Bridge, fixing deficiencies related to entering and leaving our peninsula and all areas west of the Duwamish River.

The full agenda is here: https://www.westseattletc.org/tuesday-april-8th-2014-wstc-agenda/

The WSTC is also happy to release our own group’s response to the Mayor’s survey on the future SDOT director:

(more…)

West Seattle Transportation Coalition
Endorses King County’s Proposition 1, Adds Caveats

At their February 11, 2014 meeting, the Interim Board of the West Seattle Transportation Coalition (WSTC), an advocacy group dedicated to advancing and improving all modes of transportation to benefit the 100,000 residents of the West Seattle Peninsula, voted to endorse King County’s “Proposition 1” transportation package with some important caveats. As proposed by King County Executive Dow Constantine, Proposition 1 is intended to save bus services and maintain roads in lieu of adoption of a balanced statewide transportation package with local options for funding transit and roads.

The caveats are:

1. Proposition 1 package should sunset in two years instead of ten years.
2. King County should continue to lobby the Legislature for permission to levy an MVET, which is less regressive for taxpayers.
3. King County should work with the City of Seattle and other jurisdictions to implement transit mitigation fees.

The WSTC developed the caveats based on current available information. Refer to our website www.westseattletc.org for the full version of our endorsement position. The West Seattle Transportation Coalition endorses adoption and encourages support of King County’s ‘Proposition 1’ Transportation Package with important caveats.

Media Contact: Amanda Kay Helmick
West Seattle Transportation Coalition
(206) 708-5617; info@westseattletc.org

A PDF version of this endorsement is available here: WSTC Endorsement letter for Proposition 1 on this web site, and on Scribd here.

Here is the updated WSTC agenda for Tuesday, March 11!

6:30-6:35 — Welcome, and Community News.

6:35-7:00 — Board Elections. Candidates need to declare today, it’s the deadline in our by-laws. Elections are in our May 2014 meeting. Full details are here: https://www.westseattletc.org/2014-wstc-board-elections

7:00-7:15 — Committee business/reports. The Research & Solutions Committee is meeting to review additional items and issues that we have in our long West Seattle backlog of transportation issues and will give us more details. Some of the items can be seen here in last month’s agenda: https://www.westseattletc.org/agenda-feb-11-2014/

7:15-8:15 — WSTC Steering: Review of outstanding action items for prioritization for the year, West Seattle Transportation Coalition Steering Discussion. What issues should we tackle, and in what order? It’s time to decide and then dig into resolving them.

8:15-8:20 — Set the main Agenda items for April’s WSTC meeting.

8:20-8:30 — Break, and meet with Board candidates for quick photos for website and discussion.

NOTE: SDOT due to scheduling difficulties will not be coming in our March 11 meeting to talk about West Seattle-affecting capital projects but we’re working on scheduling with them for our April 8th meeting.