In an Otherwise Slash and Burn Budget, Mayor Proposes $13 Million for Alt-Transportation

“the Chief Sealth Trail”

Any ideas what improvements they’re considering here? Beyond better/clearer street crossings I can’t guess.

“Given that council members are already pushing back”

I assume this is like any haggling type deal. Mayor makes a first offer; council counters; public bitches; ends up somewhere in the middle.

Nice press release. can’t wait for the story.

13 mil for Alt-transportation (when we’ve already funded the Bridging the Gap Levy) 20 Mil for Rainier Beach Community Center. That’s 33 Mil of the 67 Mil ‘Budget Deficit’… It seems this budget deficit has little to do with lack of tax revenue and a lot to do with wanting what we could do without for a couple of years.

Serious on that. Government never met a program it couldn’t dream up a tax for.

Adding $20 dollars to each of my cars for bike paths while the existing streets are falling apart? Mike, please do somthing enough that we can recall you!

I think it’s odd that cars are paying for bike infrastructure. Cars should pay for roads, not bike lanes. Why not create a City license for bicyclists (complete with a test to teach bicyclists the rules of the road), charge $50 for it, with licenses renewable every 2 years, and the proceeds go to bike lanes. The more bicyclists = the more funding for bike lanes. Seems fair to me.

the ongoing “just license the bikes” meme. fail. The vast majority of Seattle bicyclists are also car owners, meaning they’re already paying the same taxes you do. Bikes do far less in terms of wear and tear on the street infrastructure. They take up less street space to park. They don’t cause nearly the same CO2 emissions. I could go on.

Get a grip. The same car owners also my own motorcycles. Lets not tax motorcycles and scooters either. There should be appropriate levels of tax shared amongst all users. If we’re going to build all this infrastructure for bikes and maintain it, they should pay an appropriate share.

Sorry, your response isn’t logical. My argument is bikes pay for bike lanes. Cars pay for car lanes. If bike owners choose to own and pay for a car, then they’re also choosing to pay for the roads upon which the cars drive. Sell your car if you don’t want to do that. If you choose to own a bike, then you’re choosing to help pay for bike infrastructure. Eventually, if less people own cars, and more people own bikes, there will be less funding to fix roads, and there will be more funding for better bike infrastructure, which will lead to more people feeling comfortable riding bikes, and less comfortable driving cars because the roads are so crappy. And so on and so on and so on…

And, there is no CO2 impat fee in this City (yet). So, the fact that cars emit CO2 and bikes don’t (other than the huffing and puffing of the bicyclist) isn’t relevant to my point.

They are currently extending the trail northwest along the power line ROW from Beacon to 15th on Beacon Hill, and they have a long-term plan to connect it across I-5 with some kind of new bridge to SODO. That would be pretty expensive, but I mean, it’s probably a lot less than your average regular freeway overpass.

Thanks.
Sounds like a link to the Mountains to Sound project in north Beacon, the proverbial last mile.

I think the Beacon to Rainier Beach part was more a place where they could dump rail waste, but I like it. On the other side of Beacon are lots of p-patch gardens, though.
Might have to pave it with compost.

Thanks.
Sounds like a link to the Mountains to Sound project in north Beacon, the proverbial last mile.

I think the Beacon to Rainier Beach part was more a place where they could dump rail waste, but I like it. On the other side of Beacon are lots of p-patch gardens, though.
Might have to pave it with compost.

Actually, you got it backwards, the waste majority of car owners do not ride bikes so will not use these special projects for the 1-2% who do commute by bike.

Actually, you got it backwards, the waste majority of car owners do not ride bikes so will not use these special projects for the 1-2% who do commute by bike.

http://www.cityofseattle.net/transportation/docs/bmp/final/AppendixI.pdf Number 40 on this list is that extension of the Chief Sealth Trail, fyi.

http://www.cityofseattle.net/transportation/docs/bmp/final/AppendixI.pdf Number 40 on this list is that extension of the Chief Sealth Trail, fyi.

Get a grip!

$13 mil for “Alt-transportation” is coming from transportation-related taxes. Bad timing, perhaps… but we’re not about to use a license fee on your car or parking taxes to pay for human services or libraries.

And $20 mil for Rainier Beach is coming from a levy specific to expanding Parks. Again, perhaps it’s poor timing on the expense or the levy dollars could be re-programmed… but neither the Mayor nor the Council has the power to just reprogram levy dollars that were approved by voters.

“the waste majority of car owners”

Freudian much?

Let them eat sharrows.

So, is that what the parking increases are paying for?

So, is that what the parking increases are paying for?

The Mountains to Sound Greenway has an unfunded future phase for an I-5 crossing to SODO – anyone know if McGinn’s plan refers to this or to the extension through Jose Rizal park that’s almost already underway?

Btw, the picture attached to the story was shot on the wrong side of the street. The other side has a sidewalk the runs from 145th all the way down to 128th, there are existing bike lanes or sharrows, it is a side street the is blunted at 145th on the north and 128th at the south (no through traffic to Shoreline or the rest of Seattle for cars, there are 3 stop lights, one 4-way stop with stop signs.
Linden, at this point, is a “want” to do more project to payoff the developers, or they just go used to spending money on those 8 blocks.
Take that money and spend it on an actual safety problem involving people walking/biking. It is f-ing stupid to spend a dime more on that avenue in 2011/2012. That can wait.

I drove down that street today, it was lonely, no cars, bikes, walkers.

One person and two cars in a 7 block stretch does not alarm me.

Is that a city thing?
I thought it was more of a private thing, but while they were rousting out all the humans they came upon some prime garter snake habitat; and then things shut down.

Rainier Beach is not coming from Levy dollars. Check out the Seattle.gov/Parks/Levy

Bicycling infrastructure is a pretty cheap way of getting people out of their cars so that we don’t need to build more car capacity. More bikers also equals less congestion for you.

I’ll do you one better. 10 cents per pound per vehicle per year. Seems fair to me.

A biker who doesn’t own a car in Seattle on average subsidizes car drivers to the tune of $3000+ a year.

I dream of a time when car drivers cough up and pay their own way. Until that time, car lovers should be very careful about spouting off.

While I fully support expanding alternative transportation options with transportation dollars (parking taxes, car licensing fees), considering that making sidewalks safer and adding bike lanes makes my driving easier, safer, and gives me more reason to be annoyed when people ride bikes or walk like assholes, I share in the concern that we are doing this while not doing simple things, like fixing potholes.

The streets around much of Seattle, as they are, are unsafe for both cars and bikes, just due to the significant demise. While we are talking in a budget about delaying simple maintenance, launching into a $13 million endeavor such as this clearly shows where priorities are of the mayor, but to me reek of a lack of truly understanding that basic road and sidewalk repair is just as important as making new bike lanes and sidewalks.

It’s like passing a levy to build stuff, without having any plan to operate and maintain that new stuff…which I understand the Mayor to know a thing or two about.

The argument that cyclists don’t pay their fair share for roads is clearly flawed and we’ve argued this over and over again. However…the idea of a voluntary bicycle registration program might be worth considering. Perhaps cyclists pay $25 to have their bicycle registered with the police. In return, the information is entered into a police database. If your bike is stolen, the police can retrieve the bike’s information from the database, checking the serial number against a statewide stolen property database. If the bike was reported stolen, it could be reunited with its owner more quickly and efficiently. I think we cyclists dismiss the idea of bicycle licensing without considering that it might be voluntary and beneficial in some ways to cyclists.

I think Johns gets this.

You know its the same basic roadway right? Its not like we are paving more roads for bikes or cars in Seattle. With the exception of a few multi-use trails the difference between a bike lane and car lane is how you paint the existing surface.

A large chunk of this new funding goes towards basic street maintenance for all of the reasons you mention.

from an earlier Publicola post (http://www.publicola.net/2010/08/31/we-all-pay-for-the-roads/)

The SDOT budget office sent me their 2009 arterial and non-arterial paving expenditures. They spent $29,377,725 for arterial and $261,000 for non-arterial for a total of $29,638,725. The arterial revenue sources breakdown as follows:

Bonds: $14,748,947 (50.20 percent)
Bridging the Gap Property Tax: $9,693,410 (33 percent)
Bridging the Gap Commercial Parking Tax: $4,801,062 (16.34 percent)
Gas Tax: $129,981 (.44 percent)
Grants: $4,325 (.01 percent)

All of SDOT’s non-arterial paving work was 100 percent funded by the gas tax, but non-arterial work only accounts for .9 percent of total paving expenditures for 2009.

The paving numbers reinforce what the budget numbers already showed: everyone is paying for Seattle’s roads.

Bike and pedestrian projects should be placed on hold until we are in better financial times. Right now basic services should be provided, positions should be cut and then when finances are better, THEN we proceed with the bike and ped projects.

Exactly. Not one dollar should go to these kinds of projects that could instead be used for shelters/meals programs/service centers/senior centers, etc.,

Parking meter revenues, parking ticket revenues, and the commercial parking tax combined to bring in about $65 million in Seattle alone last year. That is all revenue collected from motor vehicle owners in Seattle. That is far more revenue paid by motor vehicle owners than that $30 million or so Seattle spent on paving Seattle streets last year.

And that does not include the gas taxes, MVET, license fees, sales taxes etc. that are collected from motor vehicle owners in Seattle each year.

Except if we could do all these thing you want for almost nothing.

Big tents. Surplus cots. Bowls of gruel.
Shit, I’d go for that. But you want me to hold out for a condo w/ view.

How long should I hold out?

I don’t see anywhere in this article that a “large chunk” goes towards basic street maintenance, nor is there a link to specifics that I could personally review, so, based on what’s reported here, along with the Mayor stating that pothole repairs are going to take longer to get to because of the budget, I have no reason to believe you’re right. Unless you prove it, of course.

Oh bullshit…..

Care to cite your $3000 claim or do you get your facts the same way you pull spandex out of your crack

Care to cite your $3000 claim or do you get your facts the same way you pull spandex out of your crack

I guess it’s time for a new city council-huh?

http://www.cityofseattle.net/parks/projects/rainier_beach_cc/

Except that is simply NOT how we pay for things in government… and, more importantly, voters in recent years have made it clear that is how it should be by either voting down tax proposals not targeted in one way or another or voting away existing taxes that were not targeted.

Seattle doesn’t use license fees on cars to pay for shelters/meals programs/service centers/senior centers, etc., and it’s not allowed to in some instances by law.

I should just tell you rude motorbaters to suck a tailpipe, but I figure there is still a small chance that road-rage hasn’t atrophied your brains too much to open your mind to facts and logic.

Elly Blue does the heavy lifting so you don’t have to

If you don’t drive a car, even for some trips, you are subsidizing those who do — by a lot. The best primer on this is economist Todd Litman’s highly readable 2004 report “Whose Roads.” (It’s also the source for most of the figures in this column. Download the PDF here). A journalist recently crunched the numbers in Seattle and found the discrepancy in 2010 to be as wide as ever.

There are many reasons for cities to encourage bicycling, and the economic argument is one of the best. Every time somebody gets on a bicycle instead of in a car, the city saves money. The cost of road maintenance is averaged at 5.6 cents per mile per motor vehicle. Add the so-called external costs of parking (10 cents), crashes (8 cents), congestion (4 cents), and land costs and that’s another 28 cents per mile! Meanwhile, for slower, lighter, smaller bicycles, the externalities add up to one meager cent per mile.

The average driver travels 10,000 miles in town each year and contributes $324 in taxes and direct fees. The cost to the public, including direct costs and externalities, is a whopping $3,360.

This actually already happens if you report it stolen and provide a serial number for your bike.

The majority of these “special projects” are paint, Tim. That’s like saying pedestrians who don’t own cars should have to pay to get crosswalks painted. And, it’s not just commuting by bike – many of us walk and bike for lots of other things, not just to get to and from work.

something tells me that was intended for someone else but yes, you’re absolutely right. I suspect what really frustrates the “license the bicyclists” crowd is that they’re watching streets get carved up and reapportioned so that there is space for other uses – including bus bulbs for transit and wider crossing areas for pedestrians. Yeah, sometimes it’s going to be slower going in a car in Seattle from here on out. Peak oil, baby. Peak oil. You’ll thank us later.

something tells me that was intended for someone else but yes, you’re absolutely right. I suspect what really frustrates the “license the bicyclists” crowd is that they’re watching streets get carved up and reapportioned so that there is space for other uses – including bus bulbs for transit and wider crossing areas for pedestrians. Yeah, sometimes it’s going to be slower going in a car in Seattle from here on out. Peak oil, baby. Peak oil. You’ll thank us later.

Voluntary licensing would be fine by me, although SPD isn’t exactly long on spare resources right now.

Voluntary licensing would be fine by me, although SPD isn’t exactly long on spare resources right now.

Your argument is wrong because car taxes and fees don’t come anywhere close to paying for car lanes. Licence fees and gas tax revenues make up only a small portion of the street maintenance budget.

In reality, bicyclists, pedestrians, and people who don’t even own cars are subsidizing the vehicle lanes.