In 2006, Seattle voters passed a nine-year, $365 million levy for transportation maintenance and improvements known as Bridging the Gap. The levy is complemented by a commercial parking tax ($127.5 million) and an employee hours tax ($51.5 million) and over life of the levy the total expected revenue from the three sources is $544 million. Together they add approximately $80 million to the Seattle Department of Transportation’s budget in 2008, dramatically increasing available funds for transportation capital projects and needed infrastructure maintenance. Over the next nine-years Bridging the Gap will address the City's transportation challenges and create a strong foundation for Seattle's transportation future by reducing the maintenance backlog and investing in major transportation projects.
The nine-year goals of Bridging the Gap are to:
Reduce the infrastructure maintenance backlog.
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 200 lane-miles of arterial streets.
Rehabilitate or replace 3-5 bridges and seismically retrofit 5 additional bridges.
Repair or restore 144 blocks of sidewalks.
Build 117 blocks of new sidewalks.
Rehabilitate 40-50 stairways.
Restripe 5,000 crosswalks.
Create "safe routes to schools" near 30 elementary schools.
Support the development and implementation of a Pedestrian Master Plan.
Provide funding to implement 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 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 3 major capital improvement projects: Spokane Street Viaduct, Mercer Street Corridor, and King Street Station.
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.
City residents can expect to see SDOT working in their neighborhood on the following 2008 goals:
Striping 31 miles of bike lanes or sharrows
Paving 41 lane miles of streets
Building 15 blocks of new sidewalk
Repairing 22 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 stairways
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.
Over nine years the Seattle Department of Transportation will:
