|
Bridging the Gap — Building a foundation that lasts
Updated February 14, 2008
Bridging the Gap 2007 Annual Report
'Keeping Seattle Moving with a successful first year'
Read the press release:
Transportation Levy Meets Mark in Fixing Seattle Streets
Bridging the Gap; reducing our transportation backlog
Before the BTG program, SDOT was only able to do a fraction of the work we are now. This chart shows a few key examples.
2008 Work Plan
City residents can expect to see SDOT working in
their neighborhood on the following 2008 goals:
- Striping 30 miles of bike lanes or
sharrows
- Paving 32.6 lane miles of streets
- Building 15 to 18 blocks of new
sidewalk
- Repairing 22.5 blocks of sidewalks
- Pruning 3,000 trees
- Adding 20,000 new transit
service hours
- Designing 17 large Neighborhood
Street Fund projects
- Improving five school routes
for safety
- Completing three trail segments
- Rehabilitating 5 to 8 stairways
Background
In November, 2006, the voters of Seattle passed a $365 million levy for transportation maintenance and improvements. The levy proceeds, combined with a commercial parking tax and an employee hours tax, dramatically increase available funds for transportation capital projects and needed infrastructure maintenance. These three funding sources make up Bridging the Gap (BTG). BTG adds approximately $40 million to SDOT's budget in 2007 and $80 million in 2008. Over the nine-year life of the levy, the total expected revenue from the three sources is $544 million. This represents approximately $365 million from the levy lid lift, $127.5 million from the commercial parking tax, and $51.5 million from the employee hours tax. A Citizen Oversight Committee will provide accountability on how BTG revenues are spent.
Over the next nine years BTG will address the City's mounting transportation problems and create a strong foundation for Seattle's transportation future by reducing the infrastructure maintenance backlog by approximately half and investing in major transportation projects.
The nine-year goals of Bridging the Gap are to:
- Reduce the maintenance backlog by about half.
- Pave and repair Seattle streets.
- Make seismic upgrades to our most vulnerable bridges.
- Improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and create safe routes to schools.
- Increase transit speed and reliability.
Over nine years the Seattle Department of Transportation will:
- Resurface, restore, or replace approximately 300 lane-miles of arterial streets.
- Rehabilitate or replace 3-5 bridges and seismically retrofit 5 additional bridges.
- Repair or restore approximately 144 blocks of sidewalks.
- Build approximately 117 blocks of new sidewalks.
- Rehabilitate approximately 50 stairways.
- Restripe 5,000 crosswalks.
- Create "safe routes to schools" near approximately 30 elementary schools.
- Support the development of a Pedestrian Master Plan.
- Provide bike lanes in accordance with the Bicycle Master Plan.
- Add 4 miles of new multi-use paths.
- Replace over 150,000 small, faded street and regulatory signs.
- Provide funding for 20 neighborhood-identified street improvements.
- Secure up to 45,000 hours of new Metro Transit service.
- Enhance transit and safety improvements on 3 key transit corridors.
- Prune 25,000 street trees to prevent safety and security hazards.
- Plant 8,000 new street trees.
- Fund 4 major capital improvement projects: Spokane Street Viaduct, Lander Street Overpass, Mercer Street Corridor, and King Street Station.
Bridging the Gap is an opportunity for SDOT to improve Seattle's transportation system for all users with realistic and achievable goals and objectives with built-in systems of accountability.
|
