A RESOLUTION relating to the Seattle Center City Bike Network; establishing an implementation schedule for Seattle Department of Transportation delivery of capital projects that are elements of the Center City Bike Network; and requesting quarterly status updates to the Chair of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee through 2019.
Agenda item three Resolution 318 26. Wellington Cell Center City Bike Network Assumption and Implementation Schedule for this year department transportation delivery of capital projects that are elements of the Center City Bike Network and requesting quarterly status updates to the Chair of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee through 2018. The committee recommends the resolution be adopted as member. O'Brien. Thank you. I'll just speak briefly to this. And then we have a substitute, which a lot of folks on the dais here weighed in to help craft and let folks speak to that. The general impetus for this is to lay out a 18 month plan for how the city will take some significant steps to completing the downtown Protected Bike Network. This has been a specific set of investments that has been central to the bike master plan, and other community advocates have been pushing for this and there've been a number of setbacks. So just going to be honest, the city has postponed and delayed various aspects of this a number of times to the frustration of many in the community, including myself. But out of that frustration, we had a chance to work with the department and advocates on identifying projects that can be completed in the next 18 months. I will say that this is an ambitious set of plans, but that every one of these there are no major. Or. One, should I say there's no obstacle that we don't see a way to overcome in the next 18 months. So we have a plan that's short term and we're going to be monitoring this very closely with report backs in the committee. And I look forward to moving forward and getting these things built in the week and a half since we had our committee meeting and at our committee meeting. A number of colleagues who showed up at committee meeting had a number of really great suggestions. We have incorporated all those suggestions into a substitute version, so I would go ahead and move to amend Resolution 31826 by substituting version three for version 1D, which includes a new attachment B. And then I would let my colleagues each speak to the various components that they had a hand in crafting when we get to that point . There has been moves in second for the new version three. Who would like to speak on components of the new version? Now. Just wait if someone feels the need to go first. Councilmember Johnson's. Please go. First. So just briefly, the section that Councilmember O'Brien worked with me on was Section ten. And Section ten relates to not providing quarterly reports back to the Council on evaluation of the performance of the transportation system, particularly downtown. We are living in a city that is rapidly growing, and there's a couple of ways that we can try to manage that growth. From our transportation network perspective, one would be very expensive and that's to build a whole lot more roads. And to do that, we would require to tear down buildings and do all kinds of ridiculous things. The other is for us to really do a better job of managing our existing environment, and that I think we're doing through these quarterly reports. Growth means we need to use our space more effectively and more efficiently than we're using it today. It means that we need to think about throughput and how many people are going through the city into and out of the city every day and maximize the existing right away that we have to the best of our ability, in particular downtown. We know that we've got, you know, a very high percentage of households that are living without a car. We know that one of the best ways we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions is to encourage folks to get around without a car. And that really, particularly for downtown bike riders or those that are coming to downtown on their bike, that this is one of the places where we need to have a highest emphasis on safety. It's a place where there's a lot of conflicting modes and a lot of people that are looking at a lot of different things, whether that's their phones in their cars, whether it's the screens in their cars, whether it's the best friends around them. There are a lot of distractions downtown. So the more we can do to create protections, the safer we're going to be for those folks that are riding into town every day. So enthusiastic about this resolution, I think to Councilmember O'Brien's point, we've set ourselves a pretty high bar here, and I'm hopeful that we can really make it very good. Thanks for the explanation, Katherine Johnson. Councilmember Mesquita. Sure. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you to Councilmember O'Brien and to his staff for your ongoing work on this legislation and for your work with us in my office to really identify if there was a way for us to use the language in the text of the resolution to call out the priority populations that we really want to address intentionally. We want to make sure that this is a bike network that's available and accessible for all ages and abilities, as I said in the legislation. But given the conversation that we had, and I think very much Phyllis Porter, who came forward and talked about making sure that individuals have access to socio cultural, economic opportunities and destinations, this is also an opportunity for us to be really intentional in our language here, to make sure that this new bike network is available for all languages, ethnicities, genders, race as well as abilities and and ages. And so the language that you see in front of you reflects those demographics and that commitment throughout the text. I use a shorthand for all of those categories to say Allegra, which also means happy when I take my bike into work and actually cut my commute in half by coming in on the bike way. I show up happy, happy to have been outside for a brief moment, to be able to have a little bit of physical activity. And I know that more individuals will be able to show up happier at their places of work if they're safer also on their commute in. This is about economic justice, just as is is much it is is about environmental justice. We're also creating the ability for individuals to have self-determination, to be able to decide when they're able to get on their bike and get to work in a safe manner. Instead of maybe being reliant either on a car that's expensive or a bus route that maybe doesn't need their time. And yes, we're going to increase the bus routes as well. And we want to make our streets safe, safer, pedestrian, safer bicyclists and safe for all that are on it, including those in busses and bikes and busses and cars. So the language that you see in front of you also comes from a really a commitment to recognizing that as we think about the ability to get more folks out of their cars, which are the most the the item that contributes the most to pollution in Seattle is single occupancy vehicles. When we think about this through an economic justice lens, we must think about it through a racial and gender justice lens as well, because it's our communities of color who are going to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. And so, yes, we want more folks to get out of their cars, but we also want to make sure that we're investing in communities equitably across our city. We've talked about this before, Mr. President, where we currently have a situation where our zip codes are determining our our health outcomes and how long we live. And many of you know that I spent the first few years of my career working in South Park at Seymour Community Health Centers, making sure that people had access to health care and health services. And now I live in Queanbeyan and you know that there's a quite a distinction between the health outcomes for individuals who live in South Park versus Queen Anne. We need to rectify that wrong. We need to make sure that every community throughout Seattle has access to equitable services. And that means affordable housing. That means access to child care facilities, that means access to food and grocery stores. So people aren't living in food deserts. And, Mr. President, this means access to safe routes for people to be able to bike and walk and get around their communities safely. I'm really excited that this piece of legislation is moving forward after years of your work and advocacy. Thank you to the sponsor for his work on this. And it's not just about making sure that people have access to a bike lane because those bike lanes are not just about luxury, it is about access to bike lanes as the necessity and necessity to be able to get to your job, to your child care, to grocery stores, to make sure that people can get to hospitals, whether they're working there or they're visiting a loved one. And this really comes my my excitement about this is really renewed after coming back from Minneapolis, where I had the chance to meet with the individuals and the t shirt that I'm wearing, which is Somalis in basic letters . This organization promotes access to safe roads in communities of color and connecting communities of color to downtown core so that people can have access to jobs and opportunity in every corner of their city. They said that the most important thing in creating new bike lanes is to operate from a place of reducing harm, which means protecting lives and increasing access to bike lanes as much. It is about reversing harm, recognizing that many of our communities have historically been disinvested in thought of after the fact and not included. I really appreciate the report that the Chair included with this resolution, and if I might just read from it, Mr. President has a few statistics that I think are important for women and people of color as we think about creating a connected bike lane. It says that women are consistently underrepresented as a share of the total bicyclists, but the share of women writing increases in correlation to better riding facilities, and that safety in numbers has additional significance specifically for female bicyclists. I feel that myself, Mr. President. It also talks about communities of color and notes that black and Latinx bicyclists make up a rapidly growing segment of the riding population. And yet it is black and Latino cyclists who feel uncomfortable, whether it be from assault from a vehicle or whether sorry for accident from a vehicle assault or being cited by law enforcement. These are barriers to cyclists, and we want to make sure that people all feel safe and in biking in every community. And it also says something that I think is really important, given the conversation we heard today from those who testified that longstanding disinvestment in street infrastructure means that these riders are disproportionately likely to be killed by a car, more disproportionately likely than their white counterparts. So for me, this is really about with the back of this shirt says and I know you probably all can't read it, but it says decolonizing one bike lane at a time as we think about investing in the bike lanes and the infrastructure and the road networks throughout our communities. It's about connecting communities, not just creating bike lanes through communities are through communities of color. It's about making sure that individuals have access to local. McCalla was making sure that people can have individuals, enjoy their small businesses and not just bike through it. The folks that tirelessly bicyclists talked about how their studies, study after study shows that when there is not a parked car in front of a business, actual visits and purchases at those local businesses increase. So we can think about how we promote economic justice, especially for low income communities and communities of color and entrepreneurs who are trying to create economic opportunities in their own communities. When we think about connecting communities, not just connecting corridors through communities. So I'm really excited about this opportunity to work with you to make sure that we are intentional about creating an integrated and connected bike network that lifts up all of our communities and highlights the fact that we want this to be for all ages, languages, ethnicities, genders, race and ability so we can all have more Allegra in our lives. Thank you. Okay. One more. One more obese. Oh, two. More. Don't know when to quit when you had. That was a closer. As I know it it was it was so good. It was so good. But I want to acknowledge and say thank you to our Seattle neighborhood greenways. Many of you here in the audience. You and I have worked together since 2011 on this. And of course, I'm emphasizing downtown connected lanes because I live downtown. But secondly, because here that's what we ride. But you are doing so much good work in the neighborhoods. I want to acknowledge that. And also, when we're talking about all ages and abilities, we're not just talking about seniors, we're talking about the kids getting to school and connecting those neighborhood greenways so that our kids can get to school on the bike trains or whatever we decide to do. I think it's really important to I just want to acknowledge you and say thank you. Thank you both. Thank you. I just wanted to very quickly speak to the contribution that Chair O'Brien allowed me to make to the substitute. There is a recital at the bottom of page two, as well as two recitals, the two last recitals on page four and the new Section 12. The purpose of these changes is to include recognition of the broader one center city work the city is doing with partner agencies such as King County and Sound Transit in the One Center City program. And it also references the quarterly reporting that the Council is already required on implementation performance and that coordination of bike network implementation will be done within the overall context of meeting the one center city goal of moving people safely and efficiently through the center city. This is very important to West Seattle bus commuters who access downtown via the Alaskan Way Viaduct on routes like the C line and the 120. And my hope is again that changes and improvements to the Bike Network be considered within the context of one center city, particularly as it relates to the period of maximum constraint that will have severe, significant impacts on West Seattle commuters. Excellent. Any other comments before we vote. On the amendment? We hadn't voted on the amendment. Obviously, I was infatuated with General Lewinsky's comments. Okay. But all those in favor of the amendment that basically substitutes version three for version one D, please say I. I opposed. The ayes have it. Okay, now we have an amended resolution. So closing comments on the amended resolution. Caspar My. Brian I'll be brief. I want to really think all of my colleagues for weighing in on this. And I think the fact that there were so many people that had ideas to improve the the resolution really speaks to the importance of this the attention that council members are putting into this. And I think that speaks well to the outcomes of making sure that we can move forward and working with the department in the mayor's office to make sure that we actually meet these ambitious goals that have laid out here. I think it's critically important that we have the report back that Councilmember Johnson highlighted. And Councilmember Herbold, the coordination with the work on one Senator City is is critically important. It's going to be exciting times in the transportation world the next coming months. And so making sure we have clarity on exactly what is happening, when and how it's going to impact us is going to be really important. Councilmember Make sure your ongoing work around all ages and ability and the fact that I should mention that the attachment B that's included in this amended version is the NAT, the National Association of City Transportation Officials, designing for all ages and abilities, contextual guidance for high comfort bicycle facilities document. So we're making just clear that when we reference all ages and ability in that document, what specifically we're talking about and you've been a champion on that for a long time. And finally, councilmember skater, I am so thrilled to have your support of this in your advocacy on behalf of communities. You relayed to me your story of being back in Minneapolis earlier this month and having that experience riding with folks. And we do some great work here in Seattle, and we have so much great work to do, making sure that that everyone in our community, regardless of their background. And I really appreciate you highlighting languages, ethnicities, gender and race in addition to ages and abilities in this document, because there's so much potential for folks to do it . We hear from community members. Phyllis Porter here today testifying, who's been a strong advocate in southeast Seattle and I really appreciate her comments about this is really about mobility. Equity is what we're talking about. I'll still mention bike lanes occasionally, but I think she's right. But this is about mobility, equity and how we do this. And I think you're amendment's really speak to that today. So thank you for that. Very good. Excellent. Any further comments? If not those in favor of adopting the resolution as amended. Please vote i. I those opposed vote no. The motion carries in the resolution adopted and then chair will sign it. Please read the report of the thank you. The Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development and Arts Committee.