Category: Surveys & Polls

Take our Sound Transit 3 survey

In November 2016, we will be asked to vote on “Sound Transit 3,” also called “ST3”. This vote will help shape the future of light rail to the peninsula. On December 4th, 2015, Sound Transit presented various options to the Sound Transit Board. In response, the WSTC sent the following letter to the Sound Transit Board, the Mayor and City Council:

https://www.westseattletc.org/letter-on-proposed-plans-for-sound-transit-3

On January 28th, 2016, the WSTC held a Call to Action to gauge peninsula resident’s reactions to ST proposed ST3 expansion plans. West Seattle Blog coverage of the meeting can be found here:

http://www.westseattleblog.com/2016/01/west-seattle-transportation-coalition-light-rail-hopes-fauntleroy-boulevard-side-trip

The WSTC would like YOUR feedback on a survey to help us refine the position we should advocate for. We will be submitting the feedback to Sound Transit’s Board and other elected officials that govern Sound Transit.

Take the survey:

http://westseattletc.org/2016-Sound-Transit-survey

 

Thank you for your time.

Screen Shot 2016-02-09 at 12.36.01 PM

Move Seattle levy survey

The West Seattle Transportation Coalition (WSTC) has heard and seen a fair amount of feedback and criticism of the Move Seattle levy put forward by Mayor Ed Murray as a replacement to 2006’s Bridging the Gap levy. As a result, we are conducting a very short survey on Move Seattle. It should take no more than a minute or two.

We are NOT looking for respondents from only in West Seattle and District 1 for this survey! If you are a Seattle voter, we want to hear from you.

Take the survey here:

https://www.westseattletc.org/2015-move-seattle-survey

 

The survey runs until Sunday, July 5 at 12:00pm, and we’ll release results afterward.

For more details on Move Seattle, click here for the official city website:

WSTC 2015 Parking Survey

In response to recent and prolonged debates about parking in our area, the West Seattle Transportation Coalition (WSTC) is conducting a basic survey about parking. We are taking this survey to aggregate and then publish the results in a report to the public. At this time we have no position on the parking questions and are doing this to benefit all interested parties with some new data.

Take the survey here:

https://www.westseattletc.org/2015-parking-survey

 

The survey will run until Thursday, March 26, 2015 at 12:00pm PST. We hope to publish the results of this survey with additional information in a few weeks’ time past that. Please go ahead and share this with anyone you think may be interested!

As a reminder, the Seattle Department of Transportation and SDOT Director Scott Kubly will be our guests in our meeting on Thursday, March 26 at 6:30pm at Neighborhood House High Point, 6400 Sylvan Way SW, to discuss a wide array of city transportation issues.

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!

WSTC Metro funding poll survey results

On May 15, we began a poll on our website that asked the question:

“If you had to choose a funding method(s) to save King County Metro service only inside of the city, which do you prefer?”

The poll was located here: https://www.westseattletc.org/metro-funding-poll-may-2014

This was done in response to the recent media coverage of Mayor Ed Murray’s proposal to use only car tab fees and a sales tax to fund King County Metro inside of the City of Seattle, in contrast with the previous I-118 initiative that had proposed to use property taxes instead. The West Seattle Transportation Coalition became aware of heated debates within our membership over which funding sources were best, and that they would be most willing to support.

The 5-day long online poll had 1,287 votes cast. The results are:

WSTC-052014-totals

 

WSTC-052014-poll-percent-rank

The WSTC has provided these results individually to Mayor Murray, and all nine members of the Seattle City Council.

The Letter to Mayor Ed Murray may be downloaded here.

Metro funding poll, May 2014

Update, May 20, 2014: 

Final poll results are available here.

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On May 13, 2014 in response to King County Proposition 1 failing countywide, but passing inside of the City by 66% in favor, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announced his funding proposal for preserving King County Metro bus services inside of the city only (details here on Murray’s website). Prior to this announcement, another now suspended ballot initiative was filed by the group Keep Seattle Moving. The core funding differences for the plans are this:

  • Murray plan: $60 car tab fee and a 0.01% sales tax.
  • Keep Seattle Moving plan: $0.22 per $1000 of value property tax.

The West Seattle Transportation Coalition became aware of heated debates in our membership over which funding sources were best, and that they would be most willing to support. In response, over twenty members present on our Tuesday, May 13th meeting voted unanimously in favor of this basic poll of available funding sources. All of these can either be enacted by a popular vote of Seattle residents or that the Seattle City Council and Mayor can enact as legislation without a popular vote.

The survey:

[socialpoll id=”2201268″]

 

This poll will be closed at noon on Tuesday, May 20th, 2014 at 10:00am.

Explanation of tax methods:

  • B&O tax (business and occupancy): “The Seattle business license tax is applied to the gross revenue that businesses earn. It is sometimes called the business and occupation tax (B&O tax) or gross receipts tax.”
  • Car tab fee: A flat rate fee added onto all car registrations in the city.
  • Commercial parking tax: A special sales tax paid when a driver parks in a commercial parking lot in the city.
  • Employee hours (head) tax: This was a city tax on businesses imposed by the City Council in 2007 and later repealed in 2009 during the Great Recession. It charged a fee to businesses for each employee and was intended to fund transportation projects.
  • Gas tax (city only): An increase in the amount of gasoline taxes charged in-city at the pump.
  • Property tax fee: A fee added to the annual tax bill for all buildings and land in the city. For example, $0.20 per $1,000 of the value of the property.
  • Restaurant & Entertainment tax: Special taxes that would be applied to entertainment, such as dining out.
  • Sales tax increase: An extra sales tax added to all eligible purchases in the city.

After being open for five days, we will publish the results of the poll and present them to Mayor Ed Murray and the Seattle City Council for consideration in a letter, and will request a public response from the chair of the City Council’s Transportation Committee and Mayor’s office.

Please take the time to read and take this basic poll.

Our next WSTC meeting:

Please join us for our next meeting on June 10th, 2014, when our guest is Washington State Transportation Secretary Lynn Petersen, to talk about the state of the Viaduct, SR99, and how it all applies to West Seattle.

We meet at June 10th at 6:30pm at Neighborhood House High Point, 6400 Sylvan Way SW, in West Seattle.

Thanks,
The West Seattle Transportation Coalition
Move the people.

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