Act Now to support walk/bike/transit in this year's City Budget!

  • clara
  • Oct. 14, 2021

The City of Seattle is failing to reach its Vision Zero, climate, and equity goals. A budget is a moral document, and we are working with the Move All Seattle Sustainably (MASS) Coalition to ask the City Council to amend the Mayor’s proposed budget to better reflect our shared values. Two easy ways to ask the City Council to prioritize people walking, rolling, biking, and taking transit: This year we're supporting some critical changes to make the budget better reflect our city's values and priorities:
  1. Vision Zero: Increase funding for our Vision Zero program, which has strong equity and safety prioritizations. 
  2. Sidewalks: Increase funding for sidewalk construction, particularly along critical transit corridors, improving access for disabled people, elders, and others.
  3. Lake Washington Boulevard: Conduct equitable engagement to design and implement permanent improvements for Lake Washington Boulevard.
  4. Martin Luther King Way South Safety: Ask SDOT to come up with a plan to make this high crash corridor safer for people walking, biking, and accessing transit. 
  5. Remove Data Collection from the Police: Ask SDOT to analyze what it would take to collect street safety and crash data in order to move this work away from the Seattle Police Department.
  6. Smart Planning: Demand accountability for the "Citywide Integrated Transportation Plan," which may undercut our efforts to make safer streets.
  7. Progressive Revenue: Continue to seek new progressive revenue, and direct sources such as the Vehicle Licensing Fee and Commercial Parking Tax towards street safety.
Click here to ask City Council to support people walking, rolling, biking, and taking transit, and phone in Friday morning, 10/15, at 9:30 am when Seattle City Council discusses the transportation budget! Sign-up to give public comment opens at 7:30 am. How-to guide here. Two people walk beside 7 lanes of traffic on Aurora Ave. Increase funding for Vision Zero, new sidewalks, and Home Zones  Safety for people walking and rolling is more urgent than ever given the sharp uptick in traffic deaths this year, which disproportionately impact people of color, low income people, unhoused people, disabled people, elders, and their communities. These deaths are also geographically concentrated -- over half occured in Southeast Seattle. District 2 Councilmember Tammy Morales has proposed several increases. A mixed race family smiles for the camera with their dog in front of a boulevard full of people walking and biking next to a lake.Projects in Southeast Seattle We also support Councilmember Morales’s proposals for projects within her district. District 2 has long been underfunded and lacking in publicly accessible park space and safe streets infrastructure.
  • Lake Washington Boulevard: $200,000 to conduct equitable engagement and develop a community design for a long-term vision for people using this iconic waterfront space.
  • Martin Luther King Jr Blvd Safety: A request that SDOT develop a plan to make this high crash corridor safer for people walking, biking, and accessing transit. MLK Blvd is one of the most dangerous streets in Seattle, and has seen 3 community members killed this summer.
Remove Data Collection from the Police Currently, our street safety data relies exclusively on police reports, which results in huge gaps in data. Reports skew towards vehicle crashes, and incidents often go unreported, particularly those involving Black people, Indiginous people, and other People of Color (BIPOC), immigrants, those who do not speak English fluently, and low-income or unhoused people. Our BIPOC Whose Streets? Our Streets! Workgroup recommendations include developing a new, holistic data-collection structure without police involvement, and we’re supporting Councilmember Morales’s request that SDOT analyze what it would take to collect street safety and crash data -- the first step towards moving this work away from the Seattle Police Department. A street scene with people biking and people boarding a bus.Smart long-term Planning SDOT is currently developing a "Citywide Integrated Transportation Plan" to combine and replace the existing pedestrian, bike, transit, and freight master plans. However, the process has been opaque, and early releases are worrying, particularly for people walking, rolling, and biking. Councilmember Strauss is proposing a proviso on the $2.5 million budget item for devising this multimodal master plan, requiring that SDOT bring that process out into the public eye and ensure that they follow through with their stated climate, equity, and mobility goals.  A pie chart showing funding from the Vehicle Licensing Fee.Progressive Revenue Options Seattle doesn’t have the funding available to fully meet the overlapping crises around housing, climate, mobility, and racial justice, which is why it's crucial Seattle continues to pursue progressive revenue, and direct new sources such as the Vehicle Licensing Fee and Commercial Parking Tax towards street safety. Click here to ask City Council to support these priorities, and phone in Friday morning, 10/15, at 9:30 am when Seattle City Council discusses the transportation budget! Sign-up to give public comment opens at 7:30 am. How-to guide here. Get involved in Seattle Neighborhood Greenways by volunteering with us or donating to support our work. Thank you for your continued advocacy! Clara Cantor she/her Community Organizer Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Website - Twitter - Facebook
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