Metro funding poll, May 2014

Surveys & Polls
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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  • Employee hours (head) tax: This was a city tax on businesses imposed by the City Council in 2007 and later repealed in 2009 during the Great Recession.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.

The new WSTC Board

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

WSTC Meeting, May 2014

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

Mayor’s bus funding plan is tomorrow, and his transit policy advisor joins us tomorrow night.

Events
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It’s been an unusually and surprisingly busy month, for local transportation news:

Tomorrow night at 6:30pm, Mayor Ed Murray’s transportation and transit policy advisor, Andrew Glass Hastings, joins the West Seattle Transportation Coalition to discuss all this and a wide array of West Seattle related transportation issues.

Join us at Neighborhood House High Point, at 6400 Sylvan Way SW in West Seattle, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm.

Full agenda: https://www.westseattletc.org/tuesday-may-13th-2014-wstc-agenda
Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/events/835116326503353
Google Maps to our meeting: http://goo.gl/v2cvko

Tuesday, May 13th, 2014 WSTC Agenda

Announcements
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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.

WSTC statement on the Scumbag Steve incident

Announcements
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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.

WSTCscumbag

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.

WSDOT Secretary Lynn Peterson visits WSTC on June 10

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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_WSDOTLynn 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:

 

WSTC joins Mayor’s Advisory Committee to find SDOT Director

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Marci Carpenter

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:

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Tuesday, April 8th, 2014 WSTC Agenda

Events
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Here is the agenda for our next meeting. We need as many people to come out as is possible for the Seattle Department of Transportation. Today, Mayor Ed Murray made it clear that transportation issues in West Seattle are a priority for the city. We need to demonstrate our commitment and get all our infrastructure issues out on the table for SDOT.

Tuesday, April 8th, 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/1422447128008751/

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

6:40-6:50: Committee News and Updates; Looking for new Committee Chairs

6:50-7:00: New business from the Membership – Anything to share, work on?

7:00-8:00: Seattle Department of Transportation, to discuss infrastructure and safety across the West Seattle Peninsula. Expected Guests:

  • Jim Curtin, Senior Transportation Planner
  • Brian Dougherty, Associate Transportation Planner
  • John Buswell, Roadway Structures Manager
  • Bill LaBorde, Strategic Advisor at Seattle Department of Transportation
  • Bob Chandler, Seattle Department of Transportation
  • Assistant Director Richard Sheridan, Public Information Manager
  • Cheryl Swab, Strategic Advisor for Council Relations at Seattle Department of Transportation

8:00-8:20: Set action items for the May WSCT meeting with guest Andrew Glass Hastings, Mayor Murray’s Transportation Policy Advisor.

8:20-8:25: Set the main Agenda items for May’s WSTC meeting.

8:25-8:30: Adjourn.

Other upcoming events:

  • Wednesday, April 9th: Seattle 2035 Meeting at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Tell the Department of Planning and Development your concerns about long-term planning and the direction of the city.

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

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

The first six months, and the next six months

Announcements, Events
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The West Seattle Transportation Coalition formed in September 2013, in response to the looming 27% cuts to King County Metro to West Seattle. From that moment we started the process of building the WSTC so that there would be a unified voice for transportation issues in West Seattle, to drive our elected officials and agencies to stop — finally — overlooking West Seattle.

The first six months

The panel at our January 2014 forum.

The panel at our January 2014 forum.

How it began:

A huge crowd discussed this at our first meeting, which was recorded by the West Seattle Blog. You can watch it here:

West Seattle was getting a double hit: in addition to the 17% cuts the entire county was facing to King County Metro, we were also facing another 10% in cuts because of the “Viaduct mitigation money” from the WSDOT running out. This was a special fund for us, due to the massive disruption to our commutes from the Deep Bore Tunnel and Bertha digging. Unfortunately, the State only funded that through June 2014! At the end of that first meeting, with nearly all of the leaders of nearly all of the West Seattle neighborhood and community groups present, we unanimously formed the WSTC, and started working on our problems…

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WSTC Endorses King County Proposition 1 to “Save Metro”

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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.

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