There's a price tag on Seattle's transportation woes. Will voters pay it?

This November, Seattle voters will face a decision on whether to approve a property tax levy that would significantly increase the city's spending on transportation projects.

So what would voters get for their money?

M

ary Williams lives in Rainier Beach. She's looking for a new job now; one she can drive to, because she has some mobility issues.

“For me, I do definitely want to work at a place where there's a parking lot," says Williams. "I used to take the bus all over the place, don't get me wrong. But I'm just not really in as good a shape as I used to be."

How Williams, or anyone else, chooses to commute may feel like a personal decision. But the options available to her, and the pros and cons of each commute mode, is the result of countless government decisions over decades about how we use the public right of way.

The future direction of those decisions is spelled out in Seattle's $1.55-billion transportation levy on the ballot this fall.

And that direction is: Roads and bridges need repair, and while we're at it, we can make many incremental improvements so those roads are better places for transit, bikes and pedestrians.

The reason Mary Williams plans to drive is that her walk to the bus stop is a long hike up a steep hill and light rail is even farther away. And there are no sidewalks.

The transportation levy includes investments in more sidewalks and safer crosswalks. They’re intended to make it easier for people like Williams to get to roads with frequent transit service, like Rainier Avenue South.

“If I could possibly do that and I'm able bodied, you know, I definitely would move towards that,” Williams says.

T

he levy promises further investments in those transit corridors, including better street lighting, bus lane restrictions, upgraded traffic signals, and more street trees.

Those tools could help buses fly through car traffic bottlenecks. One spot called out for such improvements is Denny Way, where congestion snarls the popular Route 8, making that bus late about 50% of the time.

And because a huge chunk of the levy spending goes to road maintenance, cars should benefit as well.

• Fifteen corridors are targeted for major repaving projects, for a combined cost of $330-million, the single largest expense in the levy's honey-do list. They include N 130th Street, which provides critical access to an infill light rail station scheduled to open in 2026, and Marginal Way South, a major freight corridor running parallel to the Duwamish River that connects Seattle to Boeing, along with Rainier Avenue South and Roosevelt Way Northeast.
• A lot of drivers have been noticing bumpy roads lately. Officials say the levy will help patch up 400 spots like that. It also aims to expand the pothole ranger program with the goal of filling 80% of potholes within 72 hours after they’re reported.

Alex Hudson, who directs the nonprofit Commute Seattle, says the levy isn't perfect. For example, it doesn’t do enough for bikes, and she'd like to see the levy strive to make enough transit corridor improvements that buses would be known for their reliability, like Swiss trains.

But Hudson says the levy does a good job balancing competing needs, and she appreciates its investments in bringing more people to transit.

“If you are an elder in our community and you don't want to walk across an unlit four-lane roadway, even though there could be a bus that comes every five minutes there... It might as well be a moat filled with sharks and piranhas. And so, this access is extremely important for people," she says. "It's a game changer.”

Research by the Puget Sound Regional Council shows that when it comes to increasing ridership, better access to transit is as important, possibly more important, than improving the speed and reliability of service.

Hudson says she'll be voting for the levy.

But another Alex, former City Councilmember Alex Pedersen, the former chair of the council's transportation committee, recommends people vote against it.

“To see this levy come out, that's unaffordable, ineffective, inequitable is very frustrating,” he says.

Pedersen says the levy spends too much money across small projects, and raises property taxes on people who can’t afford to pay it. The levy roughly doubles the annual cost to the average homeowner to $500 a year.

Pedersen says the levy doesn't spend enough on the city's most urgent problems.

For example, he says the city's bridges have fallen so far into disrepair that the levy's $200 million investment in bridge maintenance and structural upgrades won’t do nearly enough.

“This is infrastructure, and it's very expensive," he says. "And it should be done right."

Levy proponents want voters to know that, even though the levy seems pricey, it opens the door to a lot more federal and state funding.

The new levy replaces and enlarges an old, expiring transportation levy.

Based on polling, city officials expect it will pass.

Learn more about Seattle's transportation levy on KUOW's economics podcast, Booming.