AN ORDINANCE amending Ordinance 126000, which adopted the 2020 Budget, including the 2020-2025 Capital Improvement Program (CIP); revising project allocations for the Madison BRT - RapidRide G Line project and certain other projects in Ordinance 126000 into the 2020-2025 Adopted CIP; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.
To be part of the transportation to a region that I'm 21 capital 11983 amending ordinance 26, which is up the 2020 budget and 2025, 2023, 2025 CAP Improvement Programs Revising project allocations for the Madison BRT, Ragland Project and certain other projects important at 20 6000. The committee recommends the bill pass. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson is chair of the committee. You're recognized in order to provide the committee's report. Thank you. Council President Gonzalez, this is Council Bill 119883. It's legislation from our Seattle Department of Transportation and will allocate more city tax dollars for the Madison Street Rapid Ride Bus Project, serving city councils, districts or city council districts three and seven to qualify the project for a relatively large grant from the Federal Transit Administration. The FTA required to provide a longer schedule and to fund a larger contingency. So the budget here is increasing from 121 million to 134 million. 5 million of that increase is coming from city tax dollars. I want to thank DOD and the City Budget Office for honoring my request to beef up their fiscal note that accompanied this Council bill to show the public the all the sources and uses of funds so we know where the money's coming from and how it's being spent. More clearly, the sources and uses, they illuminate several points. First, the good news. Only about 17% of this funding for this project is from city tax dollars. The purpose of the legislation, however, is to increase the amount coming from the city and to update the budget in general. This does have an impact to two projects and this fiscal helps to explain that. I want to make sure we keep a close eye on this project going forward. As with all big ticket projects, we want to make sure it's managed effectively. I do have confidence in our state's ability to complete the project and in supporting this bill today. I will be cautious in the future about diverting additional flexible city dollars toward big ticket projects like this during an era of budget deficits. We know the city has a lot of pressing maintenance needs, such as repairing our old bridges through our throughout our city. As we heard last week with the city auditor's report on bridges, at the same time, the climate notes that we just passed would probably point out that the net benefits of this project by reducing carbon emissions, by getting people out of their single occupancy gasoline powered vehicles. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson, are there any comments on this bill? Councilman Strauss. Thank you. Council President. Thank you, Chair Peterson for bringing this for the Madison Bus Rapid Transit Project is very high priority for me. We know that the rapid rides in Seattle and King County are not quite bus rapid transit. Bus Rapid Transit has its own lanes level. Boarding. All door boarding. And when bus rapid transit is able to be successful with all of its its implements, then it can meet the similar reliability as light rail, plus or minus about 3 minutes. We know that people will be more able to use and rely on transit when transit has a reliable travel time from its from when you pick it up to where you're going, if you know how long it's going to take, every time you ride the bus, you're more likely to take it. Also, we need to be able to have reliability within our city to have busses arrive every 10 to 15 minutes on corridors such as the Madison BRT. We know that in places like, again, Eugene, Oregon, who has true bus rapid transit, they are able to meet these frequency levels of service that our city so, so desperately needs . And so by creating on what transit only lanes throughout the city is going to be one way of doing that. And overall, we need to have more projects like Madison be BRT. And so this ranks very high on my priority list. I'm happy to support it today and I look forward to supporting it more in the future. Thank you, Council President. Thank you. Chair Peterson. Are there any other comments on the bill? Councilmember Herbold. Thank you. So I, I really, I understand the importance of the medicine BRT Rapid Ride Line Project, and I appreciate that it's been in the works for many years. I was glad to see 7.3 million additional funding available from Sound Transit and 4 million in savings was available from the Lander Street Overpass project. And I start gets the credit for managing the Lander Street over project over street project in a way that allows this fund to be funds to be relocated. I do have concerns about the smaller funding source for another project that's been in the works for many, many years. The Fauntleroy Boulevard Project, namely $918,000 previously allocated to that project, is included in this reallocation. One constituent when we actually voted on this reallocation in the 2020 rebalancing package and this is a separate vote to to align the CIP with for 2020 with that vote. But when we took that that vote earlier, a constituent reminded me that planning work for this project goes back over 20 years. The project originated with Community, which is on a pedestrian unfriendly city and a very, very dense and increasingly dense area in an urban village. Last week, during Transportation and Utilities Committee, I had to leave for another meeting and I wasn't able to bring this up during committee. Thank you to Chair Peterson for doing so. You know, it's again important to realize that 100% designed for the project was reached in fall of 2017. I supported the delay of that project in January 2018 because the project overlaps with one of the options under consideration for Sound Transit's Light Rail project. Consequently, implementation was delayed until completion of the EIA process. But I only supported the the delay of the project because we also received a very strong commitment from DOT about the funds that had been allocated for the project and as Dots Fauntleroy Project website notes, Sound Transit's decision on light rail alignment is the next step. And they go on to say, and I quote, We remain committed to the goals of the Boulevard Project. If Sound Transit's light rail design for West Seattle does not impact Fauntleroy way, we will move forward with the full project as design. If Sound Transit's design impacts on the right way, we will work with Sound Transit to implement streetscape improvements on Fauntleroy way that align with the goals of the Fauntleroy Boulevard project. Now it appears that Eastport is planning to propose redirecting not only these funds in 2020, which I agreed to in principle, but a significant amount of the 13 million enlisted in the city for the project in the proposed we. I believe they are going to make this proposal in the 2021 budget. Essential staff estimates involve a $9 million redirection. So Sound Transit's draft year is scheduled for early next year and the final year for 2022. It seems very premature to reallocate funding for the project in advance of that decision. I definitely appreciate that I did some short term improvements with the over $13 million allocated for for this area, for transportation improvements in this area. And they did so a couple summers ago. But those were definitely intended as temporary improvements and not a substitute for the project. I recognize that this issue is tangential to funding for the Madison Street Rapid Ride. It only affects a small portion of the new project funding. I want to make sure that I state my concerns in advance of the 2021 budget. I let Eastport know after the committee vote last week that my support for the Madison BRT funds is strong, but that I was seeking a commitment from start to reconsider this plan to divert between 9 to $13 million from the Fauntleroy project in 2021. I believe they're doing so is a real mistake and the community would feel and I would as well, that a promise was broken. If it moves forward with what I understand is a 2021 decision to divert the rest of those funds. Thank you. Are there any other comments on the bill? Councilmember Peterson, please. Just I want to thank Councilmember Herbold for bringing up that issue that, you know, I know we don't want to. Live an austerity budget scenario. And and yet there is a budget deficit. And during the 2021 budget, we'll have lots of, we'll say, robust discussions about how to allocate funding. And Councilmember Herbold, I'd be happy to work with you if that budget comes down and that project is negatively impacted, we can, you know, happy to happy to be an ally as we try to find funding from other projects that may not be as much of a priority as Fauntleroy, just. Thank you for that. Are there any other comments on the bill? Hearing none. Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill? Lewis. I. Morales. I must get to. My. Petersen. I the what? Yes. Strauss. Yes. HERBOLD Yes. SUAREZ Yes. President Gonzalez. Yes. Nine in favor. Nine opposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Will a quirk please affect my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Item 22 Will the clerk read the short title of item 22 into the record?