Last month we reported on SDOT’s Transit Master Plan, which includes plans for a “rapid streetcar” that, unlike Sound Transit’s Link light rail, would operate in the right of way on city streets, making it cheaper and faster to build out an efficient and reliable transit service that would better connect Seattle “neighborhood to neighborhood,” according to McGinn. This plan included lines that would link Lower Queen Anne to downtown, South Lake Union and First Hill, and Ballard and Fremont to downtown, amongst other neighborhoods.
Yesterday, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn took to his blog and challenged the Seattle City Council to “be bold” and consider funding such a project.
For the distances served — neighborhood to neighborhood — it looks like the right choice for a number of corridors in Seattle. That includes Ballard to downtown via Fremont, the University District to downtown via Eastlake, and linking those to Seattle’s two initial streetcar lines to South Lake Union, the International District/Chinatown and Capitol Hill. Other cities have already demonstrated the promise of this approach, like Portland with its MAX system.
McGinn went to say that, even if the council didn’t want to act on the initiative, he “will not stop working to fulfill my commitment to expand rail in Seattle… So that the Seattle Transit Master Plan does not become a pretty plan gathering dust on a shelf. And so that Seattle will realize its transit future.”
Currently, the city council is working on approving a $60 car tab fee that would help save many King County Metro bus routes as well as provide some much-needed maintenance to Seattle’s roadways. But if they want to think big, like Mayor McGinn would like them to, they might discuss much grander plans soon. Here’s what Mayor McGinn had to say about the proposed car tab fee:
The committee recommended an $80 VLF. Much of it goes to catching up on deferred maintenance, which I support. 49% percent goes to implement the Transit Master Plan, to catch up on our deferred transit needs. As a permanent funding source, this could fund the following in the next ten years: planning and alternatives analysis for all five high capacity corridors in the Transit Master Plan, planning and construction for connecting the two streetcar lines through downtown, speed and reliability improvements on half of all non-high capacity transit corridors, and substantial upgrades to our electric trolley bus infrastructure. Over the next twenty years, we could make good on the Transit Master Plan’s stated need to accommodate substantially more travelers on each of the high capacity corridors the Plan identified.
But here is the problem. The City Council is only considering a VLF for a limited amount of time, after which it expires. For this amount of money, all you can do is study a single corridor. You cannot finance long term infrastructure with a short term financing plan. You cannot get in the queue for federal, regional, or state funds because there will be no source of funds for us to put up our local match. The Transit Master Plan will join the Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plans as nice plans, without serious funding.
It is here that Mayor McGinn calls for “boldness” within the City Council to set up an ongoing VLF that would become “a steady source of revenue that can be borrowed against to build rail that will serve us for decades.” He’d like to see Seattle take a feather out of the hat of many other cities and leaders nationwide that already have, or are currently investing in massive transit programs, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is working to accomplish 30 years’ worth of transit projects in 10 years’ time with funding from an ongoing VLF. Read Mayor McGinn’s full post here. Read more about Seattle’s Transit Master Plan here.