City Hall
Coming Soon: Lots of New Transportation Taxes
In an action-packed meeting that just wrapped up a few minutes ago, the city council's transportation committee discussed a long list of potential transportation funding mechanisms, including the citywide transportation benefits district (TBD) I wrote about yesterday (and which Fizz covered this morning
). In short, Seattle voters could be looking at lots of new taxes in the coming months and years.
The committee didn't vote on any of the potential funding sources yet, but most seem like a foregone conclusion, as does an update to the city's transit master plan. Here's what transportation nerds can look forward to in the coming weeks:
• The adoption of an updated Transit Master Plan, the document that guides the city's transit planning. As Mayor Mike McGinn has noted repeatedly, is so outdated that it still includes the long-since-scuttled Ballard-to-West-Seattle monorail. Council members have been hesitant in the past to release the $600,000 it will cost to pay a consultant to study the master plan out of fear that McGinn will use it to ram through city-funded light rail to Ballard and West Seattle, which he proposed shortly after he was elected. Today, council members made it clear that their goal wasn't to commit to any technology (buses or rail, for example) but to "provid[e] convenient, reliable service 18 hours per day," as council member Nick Licata said, while ensuring that transit-dependent people are well-served by the city's transit system.
As part of moving forward with the transit master plan, the council released $300,000 of that $600,000, with the caveat that both the mayor and the city council, rather than just the mayor, are responsible for appointing a committee to oversee the development of the plan.
• Increasing the city's commercial parking tax, currently 10 percent, to 12.5 percent to pay for street maintenance and city road improvements and bike and pedestrian projects. Previously, Mayor Mike McGinn had proposed a 5-to-10-percent increase to close a shortfall at the city's transportation department; earlier this month, McGinn told PubliCola he would still push forward with a parking-tax increase to pay for the city's maintenance backlog.
• Creating a citywide transportation benefit district, which would include a $20 vehicle license fee and could include a property tax, a sales-tax increase, or an additional vehicle-license fee of as much as $60, which would have to go on the November ballot. The legislation is an apparent end run around efforts by McGinn to use a transportation benefits district to pay for his own priorities, including light rail. The city has also talked about using a TBD to pay for improvements on the downtown waterfront as part of the viaduct replacement process.
The committee didn't vote on any of the potential funding sources yet, but most seem like a foregone conclusion, as does an update to the city's transit master plan. Here's what transportation nerds can look forward to in the coming weeks:
• The adoption of an updated Transit Master Plan, the document that guides the city's transit planning. As Mayor Mike McGinn has noted repeatedly, is so outdated that it still includes the long-since-scuttled Ballard-to-West-Seattle monorail. Council members have been hesitant in the past to release the $600,000 it will cost to pay a consultant to study the master plan out of fear that McGinn will use it to ram through city-funded light rail to Ballard and West Seattle, which he proposed shortly after he was elected. Today, council members made it clear that their goal wasn't to commit to any technology (buses or rail, for example) but to "provid[e] convenient, reliable service 18 hours per day," as council member Nick Licata said, while ensuring that transit-dependent people are well-served by the city's transit system.
As part of moving forward with the transit master plan, the council released $300,000 of that $600,000, with the caveat that both the mayor and the city council, rather than just the mayor, are responsible for appointing a committee to oversee the development of the plan.
• Increasing the city's commercial parking tax, currently 10 percent, to 12.5 percent to pay for street maintenance and city road improvements and bike and pedestrian projects. Previously, Mayor Mike McGinn had proposed a 5-to-10-percent increase to close a shortfall at the city's transportation department; earlier this month, McGinn told PubliCola he would still push forward with a parking-tax increase to pay for the city's maintenance backlog.
• Creating a citywide transportation benefit district, which would include a $20 vehicle license fee and could include a property tax, a sales-tax increase, or an additional vehicle-license fee of as much as $60, which would have to go on the November ballot. The legislation is an apparent end run around efforts by McGinn to use a transportation benefits district to pay for his own priorities, including light rail. The city has also talked about using a TBD to pay for improvements on the downtown waterfront as part of the viaduct replacement process.
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