Council Puts $60 Transportation Fee on Ballot

It was O’Brien’s amendment that was amended (clarified) by Conlin.

It was O’Brien’s amendment that was amended (clarified) by Conlin.

It was O’Brien’s amendment that was amended (clarified) by Conlin.

what is going to be the real kicker is in two years there is still barely anything to show for this and they come crawling back asking for money. im voting no.

Great! Anything less than $60 may have had a f*cking chance.

but O’Brien’s ammendment was not added, because it was a 5-4 no vote.

but O’Brien’s ammendment was not added, because it was a 5-4 no vote.

This is

A.) for Seattleites
B.) for 10 years

This is

A.) for Seattleites
B.) for 10 years

Fee It Up Yo is correct: Conlin’s amendment was to O’Brien’s amendment, which then died. So no Conlin amendment in the final version. And the quote you attribute to Conlin was actually Sally Clark.

i am voting No

Sounds more like a Sally C comment.

You guys should mention what the other city council members talked about (yes, I watched the meeting and the vote)

Licata, Rasmussen, Clark, and O’Brien talked about how this is not necessarily as regressive as other would like to claim. It’s a use tax, and it’s a tax on every vehicle a family owns. Families with higher incomes usually own more vehicles. O’Brien and/or Licata also talked about how they will be working to minimize the impact to lower income families, while also adding that this increase will benifit lower income families more than most others since a large chunk of transit riders are lower income. Also, Councilmemeber Harrel even made it a point to mention that the TBD board will also be urging to place high-capacity transit in lower income communities, such as SE and SW Seattle – communities that will use more transit for things like getting to work, school, etc.

Some other takeways that people like Monster tend to forget:

This is an investment for the future and a genuine olive branch being extended by the TBD board. They know we want transit, and they know that (potentially) a lot of us are not happy about the tunnel. They know we want to connect our streetcar network. They know we want to improve our streets (repair). They know we need new buses and better traffic controlling technologies.

The council also pointed out that this is really the best time to invest in transit for the following reasons:

1.) It’s cheaper to build high-capacity rail projects during slow economic times
2.) These infrastructure improvements will provide jobs
3.) Projects like transit improvements and extensions encourage develoipment. They also encourage people who WANT to live in a city to live there, out of convenience.
4.) Having the potential to influence more retail and housing development + encouraging people to move the community = pumping cash into the economy. With development comes jobs. With people comes money.

Look, this is a compromise in the best sense. Both sides are not entirely happy, but guess what? That’s what a compromise is. Maybe I want an 80 dollar fee and maybe you feel like you are more important than everyone else and hate social services. This helps everyone. It improves the streets. It addes transit and helps refine current transit. It takes cars off the road. It helps give people transportation alternatives. It helps reduce traffic.

Get over it. I mean, I am not entirely happy, but look on the bright side. This will ultimately help more than it will hinder. Yes, even people who think that everyone, including blind people and lower income people, should own a car.

Right now I’m a yes with reservations but already trending toward no. I’d rather no focus on the Capitol Hill/SLUT connection. Those neighborhoods are extremely well connected while those of us in the “boondocks” of Ballard and Interbay are stuck still with the same traffic mess and bus “rapid” transit as our solutions. Yet I’m still forced to pay to make it easier for people who live within walking distance of those areas to take a streetcar?

I’m all for a strong urban core and efficient mass transportation in dense neighborhoods, but this seems like shooting oursevles in the foot. An amendment like this one keeps it easier for people who live outside of walking distance of the downtown core to keep driving to the downtown core. Meanwhile, those of you on the hill and in SLU have a plethora of ways to get in to an area you’re already basically in. 

I know, I know, sprawl is bad. But that doesn’t mean we all need to live within Cap. Hill, SLU, Queen Anne, First Hill and Belltown. Ballard, Fremont, Greenlake and other points North (not mention southern destinations such as the wilds of West Seattle and Rainier Valley outside of the Link route) last I checked, are pretty dense urban neighborhoods in their own right. Yet we’re offered buses and the opportunity to pay for more Capitol Hill transit.

I’m a huge transit advocate and I’ll likely end up voting for this, but if someone campaigns against it with the promise of coming back to voters without the Cap Hill restriction a la what McGinn did with ST2, I could easily be flipped to a No.

“Councilmemeber Harrell even made it a point to mention that the TBD board will also be urging to place high-capacity transit in lower income communities, such as SE and SW Seattle – communities that will use more transit for things like getting to work, school, etc.”

This is EXACTLY why lightrail went to southeast Seattle before it went to North Seattle!

im a seattle born and raised. i still live in the city. my family still lives in the city. im voting no, this tax hurts the poor, hurts the middle class, and gives us  another very expensive  toy train to mainly wealthy enclave of people so they can go have their wood fired pizza’s and gourmet cup cakes.

oiseaux, I agree with everything you said here.  And, your last line made me laugh (so bonus points).

Who are you talking about when you say ‘we’? You mean ‘you’?

“ They also encourage people who WANT to live in a city to live there,”

ie. gentrification.

i dont dobt it is a investment in the future, but what i do know is that alot of people who used to live in this city can no longer afford to and they are all high tailing it to the exurbs. I also know my parents are aging (both city and state goverment workers) and I cannot in good consiouse saddle them with another tax or fee, especially when it is for bikers who dont even pay their fair share to use the roads, or transit users who’s  travel is far under priced.

“I know, I know, sprawl is bad. But that doesn’t mean we all need to live within Cap. Hill, SLU, Queen Anne, First Hill and Belltown. Ballard, Fremont, Greenlake and other points North (not mention southern destinations such as the wilds of West Seattle and Rainier Valley outside of the Link route) last I checked, are pretty dense urban neighborhoods in their own right. Yet we’re offered buses and the opportunity to pay for more Capitol Hill transit.”
agreed

Don’t forget the Cannondale Crowd taking money from the working poor to fund their leisurely pursuits.

Dude, if you didn’t know about how long the VLT is supposed to last, you probably don’t know about it’s benefits. I recommend watching the meeting. It’s on the council website. They go into great detail about the benefits. This isn’t a 4 billion dollar tunnel. Link costs as much as a bus. The streetcar is even less I believe. These aren’t rich people toys, and yes I know that they are new, but they are meant for the entire public to use. That’s people from the lowest to the highest wage brackets. This is why they will be researching routes in SE and SW Seattle, in addition to places like Ballard, QA, or Capitol Hill. (Places that are notoriously labeled as being snobby and rich even though most residents of these neighborhoods are neither)

@ BMWL

How is this gentrification? Lot’s of people want to live in cities.

Why?

Diversity and convenience are two good reasons.

or one america, or washingtonbus, looking back through this sites archives they had quite the opening night party… oh and also seattles neighborhood house, when they built that new green palace to their workers in high point they also had a smashing Gala…. all for the little people right….

Also by “we,” I mean Seattleites. I especially mean Seattleites that have to suffer with the poor choices that their parents’ generation made when they repeatedly voted no on transit in the past. Now, it’s in higher demand and much more expensive. If we keep deferring, demand will still continue to rise and so will the cost. It’s been proven with actual numbers that people are continuing to drive less and continuing to seek out alternative modes of transportation. Hop on board. Choo choo.

Ring around the rosie…….

I’ve heard the false arguments. “Too much taxes” “bicyclists hates families” “transit riders eat puppies”

Compared to many other nations in the world, we pay so little in taxes. This might be why we get so little in return, eh?

Also, just please watch the council meeting. This barely even helps cyclists. The cost of transportation has risien for transit riders in the Seattle around by 400 dollars a year in the past three years. Who makes up a big chunk of those riders? Lower income and elderly citizens.

Mmmm….goood puppy.

ok when i said in two years it was a turn of phrase it wasnt meant to be taken literally and that doesn’t mean they wont come to us in two years or 3 or 5 asking for more and acknowleding there was shoddy accounting. Yes there are alot of benefits im not denying that either, im saying i dont like how long time residence’s and their familes are being forced out for YOUR benefit. as i said i can’t in good conscience give my parents another fee to add to their property tax for areas which I veiw have a abundance of transit options.

ok when i said in two years it was a turn of phrase it wasnt meant to be taken literally and that doesn’t mean they wont come to us in two years or 3 or 5 asking for more and acknowleding there was shoddy accounting. Yes there are alot of benefits im not denying that either, im saying i dont like how long time residence’s and their familes are being forced out for YOUR benefit. as i said i can’t in good conscience give my parents another fee to add to their property tax for areas which I veiw have a abundance of transit options.

convenience is what got our society into allot of todays problems.

If we pass this, can Seattle progressives tell WSDOT to take a hike when they want to raise taxes for Freeways and Freeways and Transit and Freeways?

I’m from here, Monster. So, sorry, you cannot turn me into the boogey man.

SE & SW Seattle do not have adequate transit in relation to the need, but I guess you figure c’est la vie, they can walk.

Just like how it’s convenient to go to a bar, and then get into our cars to drive home drunk and potentially kill someone, eh?

What does this statement illustrate? Don’t try to counter with such an ambiguous phrase.

So we should be striving to make things less convenient? Intentionally live further from the places we need or like to go, just for the hell of it? This point makes absolutely no sense.

look i didn’t say any of those things but you can keep putting words in other peoples mouths if that makes you feel better, just keep that in mine next time a flame fest starts that your part of the problem.  but again reality is preception and my preception (along with a lot more peoples) is that they are nickle and diming us every chance they get, and we have little to show for it except over runs and poor management, jsut becuase you don’t care about your familes or friends fincial situations don’t assume the rest of us don’t

Don’t feed the troll

well first people in fincial situations shouldn’t be going to bars but that is another topic. 

but convience crap is what all you liberals like to use about POV and SFH. how about this with the conveince of having a goverment controlled transit system locked down on the “threat” of a riot taking place.. something very similar happend in SF recently not the transit system it self but a public utility you could call it.. and what is to stop them from shutting down the trolly or Light rail for a “threat” http://www.americablog.com/2011/08/cell-phone-service-blocked-in-san.html

or how about that living in your dense new urbanist enclave, while it makes it easier to get  a artistan crossiant it also makes it easier for disease’s to spread to the rest of the population.

so two of your conveniences easily can be debunked just as owning a car or living in a suburb can be. 

Don’t fee the Troll!

Don’t fee the Troll!

no but lets drop the pretense that living in a city is the end all

Huh? “The city is assuming it will implement the maximum possible upzones for
Vulcan-owned land in South Lake Union, which makes a South Lake Union
streetcar extension pencil out.” So only the Vulcan-owned land will be upzoned, not the other 70% of the land in SLU (such as the acres owned by the Seattle Times)? And how is that related to a streetcar extension to Ballard exactly, considering downtown is a much bigger trip generator?

ok so your from here and so am i, then what was your point of saying this is for seattlelites. 

With the county council voting last night we have drivers paying $20 for the same service (and if metro isn’t a viable option then there isn’t an improvement, just avoiding a little more gridlock). We have the city council already imposing $20 for some of the same things this $60 tax is supposed to deliver by bridging the Bridging the Gap levy.

They need to do a much better job communicating the details of this latest plan or it will have a tough time.
Buying streetcars for Paul Allen isn’t exactly high on a lot of people’s list in this economy.
We have already had millions of taxpayer money funneled into SLU, and the hand comes out again, while the city struggles to find operating funds.
A tougher sell after $40 has been thrown on drivers.
The downtown politicians that want a Great City will have to tell people that are not getting streetcars exactly what they are getting for their vote.

This will turn into another example of how the at large council should be elected by district.

SDOT and their consultant had to make land use assumptions in order to model the transit use in the Transit Master Plan study. They assumed that the SLU rezone would be fully approved.  If they did not make this assumption in the study, the street car would likely not be a recommendation of the study.  Instead, more frequent bus service would likely have been the recommendation.

A streetcar is the biggest fucking waste of money I have ever heard of.

vote no, tell your family and friends to vote no. its as simple as that. fuck i got my very liberal brother to vote no with just the point that it was going to raise our parents property tax.

that would definitly change the debate around. instead of getting what seems to be like 8 carbon copy (and white ) clones

“SE & SW Seattle do not have adequate transit in relation to the need,”

Peered reviewed research please….

‘Peer reviewed’

Just wait until the get done stuffing Conlin’s hole under Seattle.

“How is this gentrification? ”

THe CD and RAinier Valley are both gentrifying as young whites move into the city and push out poor minorities. With white gentrifiers come their cho cho trains and talk about how it’s good for the poor. Look at Whitopia in Portland.

It’s no coincidence that as Seattle raises regressive taxes on everyone and expands cho cho trains, it’s getting whiter:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001110-the-white-city

“How is this gentrification? ”

THe CD and RAinier Valley are both gentrifying as young whites move into the city and push out poor minorities. With white gentrifiers come their cho cho trains and talk about how it’s good for the poor. Look at Whitopia in Portland.

It’s no coincidence that as Seattle raises regressive taxes on everyone and expands cho cho trains, it’s getting whiter:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001110-the-white-city

he doesnt care about it becuase it is not from one of his approved sources…. 

he doesnt care about it becuase it is not from one of his approved sources…. 

voting no for that also

Why mention Vulcan? Because Erica never posts without a ham-fisted attempt at shading the story to suit her ideology. Fox News could learn a trick or two from her.

Meanwhile Josh consistently trots out the Moxie Media story as his defense against the growing claims of bias.

Fair and balanced indeed.

Hi Charlie – fortunately the amendment to limit the planning money to two projects was defeated. While we could have hoped for language that favored additional rail corridors today, many members on the council expect the TBD transit money to be available for planning high-capacity transit on priority corridors identified in the Transit Master Plan in future years. Their mantra today was something like “fix it first & finish what we’ve started.” While I’m not sure that connecting the SLUT to the First Hill streetcar will be so easy, it seems like a reasonable compromise to wait and accept all the great things that will come of this fee. The other transit money should make a lot of bus corridors function quickly and efficiently. 

To people who complain that denser, more urban neighborhoods get most of the transit: it is a basic fact of geometry that denser neighborhoods can support dramatically more transit service than less dense neighborhoods. It doesn’t make sense to send transit to a neighborhood where only a couple people each day might ride it. We have a pretty good system in this region that sends most of the service to dense areas with less service to less dense areas, but there are still a lot of empty or almost-empty buses due to poor network design. It makes sense to concentrate this funding on the high-use corridors.

Very little of this VLF would be spent on streetcar extension planning, if you actually look at the numbers (less than 10%, and some of that would be for “high capacity transit” which can also mean Bus Rapid Transit). About half the total is spent on improving transit speed and reliability on the most-used corridors all over the city and expanding the electric bus system, and the other half is for roadwork and bike/ped improvements. This is very balanced, and no serious look at the numbers could come to any other conclusion. I can tell the no side has already figured out their “messaging,” which is to focus on the streetcar extensions (which are actually very productive in terms of new ridership) and ignore the rest of it.

Please… Vulcan owns the bulk of properties.  Even if Vulcan sold properties, they’d have to know what properties are waiting for height increase in which case, they’d have to know stats on the bulk of the sites in SLU which happen to be owned by or sold by Vulcan.  Just for fun, the Clise Family are probably the single biggest owner of unbuilt or underbuilt surface area in the Denny Triangle.

Seattle $60 VLF –Equality and Social Justice for non- bikers?
STBD board (same members as Seattle City Council) passed proposed $60 VLF (Vehicle License Fee) applicable for 10 years for November ballot.  There was discussion about amount poor car owners would pay and lack of transit in south Seattle.  Also discussed was inequity of total funding by car tabs, but not one word about bicycles not paying their share.
29% pavement preservation does not cover current annual shortfall. The 49% transit funding is not for Metro buses and routes, but mostly Seattle rail. 22% for pedestrian and bicycle safety.  Code words for continued conversion of 2 vehicle lanes into 1 shared lane for cars, trucks, and buses and 1 exclusive bicycle lane for the next 10 years.  Thus increased congestion and commute time for everyone but bicyclist.
Yet bicyclists refuse to pay anything, much less a registration and annual license fee equal to an average car (shortly about $200). Bicycle safety amounts are $173 per bicyclist. Their share is even more.  
 If $60 VLF passes, car drivers and transit riders can reflect that they voted for and are paying to see increased pot holes, increase in congestion, and a minimum $200 annual subsidy per bicyclist for the next 10 years.
This is equitable and just?

Seattle $60 VLF –Equality and Social Justice for non- bikers?
STBD board (same members as Seattle City Council) passed proposed $60 VLF (Vehicle License Fee) applicable for 10 years for November ballot.  There was discussion about amount poor car owners would pay and lack of transit in south Seattle.  Also discussed was inequity of total funding by car tabs, but not one word about bicycles not paying their share.
29% pavement preservation does not cover current annual shortfall. The 49% transit funding is not for Metro buses and routes, but mostly Seattle rail. 22% for pedestrian and bicycle safety.  Code words for continued conversion of 2 vehicle lanes into 1 shared lane for cars, trucks, and buses and 1 exclusive bicycle lane for the next 10 years.  Thus increased congestion and commute time for everyone but bicyclist.
Yet bicyclists refuse to pay anything, much less a registration and annual license fee equal to an average car (shortly about $200). Bicycle safety amounts are $173 per bicyclist. Their share is even more.  
 If $60 VLF passes, car drivers and transit riders can reflect that they voted for and are paying to see increased pot holes, increase in congestion, and a minimum $200 annual subsidy per bicyclist for the next 10 years.
This is equitable and just?

Wow… You completely missed the point. On the bright side, you provided a nice example of your complete obliviousness to being manipulated.

More than half of that 22% goes to pedestrian projects. The Pedestrian Master Plan’s Tier 1` project list alone is $840 million, so there’s an enormous need out there in many neighborhoods for sidewalks and curb bulbs and ramps and lots of other things to make it safe to walk.

The City has underinvested in maintenance for decades. That’s not news. Bridging the Gap has done a lot of maintenance work; deciding to replace the Viaduct meant Spokane had to get done, and focusing growth in SLU meant Mercer finally got done as well. I’m sure BtG will be up for renewal. SDOT’s budget has been cut the last couple years, and they didn’t have enough money for maintenance before that anyway. You could give 100% of an $80 VLF to maintenance and you still wouldn’t get through the backlog.

Let’s also remember that you can remove thousands of trips a day through carpooling and demand management for the same price as rebuilding a lane-mile of road. Remember that reduce, reuse, recycle starts with reduce.

The overwhelming majority of Seattle cyclists are also car owners, and they’re already paying lots (and will pay more if the VLF passes).

Finally, show me the evidence that travel times are slower with lane reconfiguration projects. The Stone Way study was pretty clear that you’re wrong there too.

More than half of that 22% goes to pedestrian projects. The Pedestrian Master Plan’s Tier 1` project list alone is $840 million, so there’s an enormous need out there in many neighborhoods for sidewalks and curb bulbs and ramps and lots of other things to make it safe to walk.

The City has underinvested in maintenance for decades. That’s not news. Bridging the Gap has done a lot of maintenance work; deciding to replace the Viaduct meant Spokane had to get done, and focusing growth in SLU meant Mercer finally got done as well. I’m sure BtG will be up for renewal. SDOT’s budget has been cut the last couple years, and they didn’t have enough money for maintenance before that anyway. You could give 100% of an $80 VLF to maintenance and you still wouldn’t get through the backlog.

Let’s also remember that you can remove thousands of trips a day through carpooling and demand management for the same price as rebuilding a lane-mile of road. Remember that reduce, reuse, recycle starts with reduce.

The overwhelming majority of Seattle cyclists are also car owners, and they’re already paying lots (and will pay more if the VLF passes).

Finally, show me the evidence that travel times are slower with lane reconfiguration projects. The Stone Way study was pretty clear that you’re wrong there too.

Obviously it’s still early and I obviously don’t have all the details clear in my head yet,  but I’m basing my current opinion on this information from the post above. 

Conlin’s fee does not go as far as a proposal by council member Nick Licata to prohibit any spending on extending the South Lake Union streetcar to Ballard, but it does refocus streetcar spending in the center city.Am I misunderstanding it or you? Hopefully you’re right that focusing on the center-city streetcar improvements, buses in the north and south ends will be more efficient and faster, but I’d like to see a study that says that’s likely. Is there one?

Tell me how transit hurts minority communities?

Also, your comparison to Portland is just flat out stupid. Portland has always been white. Their tram system did not push out minorities. There weren’t many minorities there to begin with. In fact, Oregon is the only former territory (and possible state, period) to have a black exclusion clause written into their original constitution. This means, that a bunch of racists got together in the mid-1800′s and said that it’s against the law for a certain ethnic group to set up in their state.

Also, there are plenty of cities with trams and metros and other forms of rail that have massive minority populations. Case in point: San Francisco. New York. Chicago.

I dislike gentrification too. I think anyone that likes diversity does, but transit doesn’t cause gentrification. Hype causes gentrification. Low rent for single-family homes contributes to gentrification. Trust me, this is Seattle. We are a northern city. That’s not to say there isn’t racism, but white people aren’t moving to the CD or Rainier Valley to push minorities out. They are moving into these neighborhoods for a variety of reasons. These folks are moving to these neighborhoods because these are great neighborhoods with their own character, and because there is a variety of cultures in these neighborhoods, etc.

I really love the CD. It’s vibrant, yet quiet. It’s a generally safe place. There is a lot of great food. It’s a diverse neighborhood. People are generally nice on the street. People KNOW each other. Do I live there? Nope, but I walk there often. Does the CD need more transit? Yes, I believe it does, and that is not because I want an easier way to get there, but because it’s a community where people choose what little transit they do have. The neighborhood should have better transit, because the neighborhood deserves it.

Vulcan owns about 1/3 of the private land in SLU. If you count public land like street ROW and parks, it’s under 30% of the land. Vulcan has also already built out roughly half of the land they do own:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2010/09/24/2012987061.pdf

No, the Transit Master Plan Scope of Work is explicitly based on current (2010) conditions, not on future rezones:
http://seattletransitblog.com/2010/12/20/transit-master-plan-scope-of-work/

Again, the trip generator for the Ballard line is clearly downtown anyway, not SLU. As STB puts it, “No matter what you do, nothing is big enough to handle the demand in
this corridor. Even running every 5 minutes, BRT simply doesn’t; only
coupled streetcars come close.”
http://seattletransitblog.com/2011/07/26/tmp-hct-analysis-iii-maximum-ridership/