Seattle/King County Climate News
Robin Briggs
Seattle
SDOT and the Mayor's office released a draft Transportation Levy. This new levy would replace Move Seattle, which expires this year. The levy provides one third of SDOT's spending overall, and almost all of the capital projects. The levy would raise $1.35B, up from $930M in Move Seattle, but below the $1.7B that SDOT polling showed would pass, and that advocates had hoped for; in inflation adjusted terms it represents a 10% increase according to the Urbanist. In spite of the fact that the overall levy is larger than Move Seattle, the new spending proposal has sharp decreases for both transit (-30%) and sidewalk spending (-23%), while spending on road maintenance is up by about 33%. The draft is available for public comment until April 26. Then it will go to Council for approval before going on the ballot in November. Advocates are asking for transit, walking, and biking to be 50% of the investments in the levy. There are a series of public events during the public comment period when you can talk with SDOT:
Wednesday, April 10: SODO BIA 2024 Transportation Open House | 11 AM–1 PM
Saturday, April 13: Columbia City Farmers Market | 10 AM–2 PM
Sunday, April 14: Capitol Hill Farmers Market | 11 AM–3 PM
Tuesday, April 16: Northgate Station | 3 PM–6 PM
Thursday, April 18: Westlake Park | 11 AM–2 PM
Saturday, April 20: University District Farmers Market | 9 AM–2 PM
Sunday, April 21: Ballard Farmers Market | 10 AM–2 PM
Sunday, April 21: West Seattle Farmers Market | 10 AM–2 PM
Seattle's Climate Change Response Framework makes it clear that meeting our climate goals requires increasing transit, walking, and biking as well as electrifying vehicles, and in particular, transit usage and biking will have to double between now and 2030.
Excerpted from the Seattle Climate Change Framework
The Office of Sustainability and Environment recently posted several job openings, in spite of the city-wide hiring freeze. The three positions are for a grants advisor, a coordinator for the Building Emissions Performance Standards program, and for the Clean Heat Program. This is a possible sign that the Mayor is not planning to significantly cut these programs in order to cover the budget deficit.
350 Seattle's Green New Deal for Social Housing campaign is helping House Our Neighbors gather signatures for the social housing initiative. They have just months to gather 30,000 signatures, and are looking for folks to help out.
Sound Transit
The Link extension to Lynnwood will open on Aug. 30 this year. It will add four new stations: Shoreline South/148th St., Shoreline North/185th St., Mountlake Terrace, and Lynnwood City Center. During peak hours, trains will run approximately every eight minutes. Bus service changes related to the opening will start on Sept. 14.
The East Side Starter line, from Bellevue to Redmond, will start April 27. This will connect 8 stations, from South Bellevue to Redmond Technology Center (aka Microsoft), passing through East Main, Bellevue Downtown, Wilburton, Spring District, BelRed, and Overlake.
State
A State timber sale in East King County has been blocked by a judge after opponents sued in court that the environmental impact statement did not take into account the carbon emissions that would be caused by logging. The forest in question is mature, with trees as old as 110 years, and cutting it would emit an estimated 48,700 metric tons of CO2. The State uses money from sales of the timber on its land to fund education, but this is a practice that is under increasing pressure. This decision could impact many other sales elsewhere in the state.If this was forwarded to you, and you would like to subscribe for regular updates, please send email to seattle-climate...@googlegroups.com, or, if you have a Google account, click here.
Robin Briggs
Seattle
Electric vehicle adoption doubled in January 2023 compared to Jan. 2022, and was 17.2% of all new vehicles registered in Seattle. Nationally, EV adoption is at 7% overall.
King County
ACEE Energy Equity for Renters is supporting efforts in King County for "reducing utility burdens and expanding renewable energy and energy efficiency deployment in frontline communities as part of its Strategic Climate Action Plan. ACEEE technical assistance will support a county-led project to analyze the utility burden on renters in frontline communities to help develop policy recommendations that can improve utility bill affordability while meeting the county’s climate goals."
State
There is a new set of conservative initiatives being circulated for signatures, including an initiative that would prohibit any restrictions on natural gas at the state or local level. In order to qualify it would require 324,516 valid signatures by July 5th, and if qualified, it will appear on the ballot in November, alongside the three other conservative initiatives including I-2117 to repeal the Climate Commitment Act. Getting the signatures in the short time available before the deadline will be challenging, but could be done with sufficient funding for paid signature gatherers.
Puget Sound Energy released a fact sheet on HB 1589, the recently passed bill that is aimed at decarbonizing PSE, and allowing an eventual conversion of its current natural gas and electricity business into an electricity only business. This fact sheet indicates PSE's own understanding of the bill, and also combats misinformation about the effect of HB 1589 on natural gas in Washington. Interestingly, it notes that "Natural gas energy use is declining—down 7% for residential and 3% for commercial customers in 2023 and forecasted to continue to decline over the next five years. Electricity use is increasing and forecasted to continue to rise." PSE filed an Integrated Resource Plan in 2021, and another updated one in 2023. The one from 2021 forecasted a growth in their natural gas business of .8% per year in energy usage, in line with a growing population. The IRP for 2023 forecasts a growth in the natural gas business of only .4%, and notes that this is because in 2023 the IRP took into account the projected effects of climate change in the next 25 years with a corresponding drop in energy usage for heating buildings. This reflects a per-customer projected drop of .3% per year; the projected growth of .4% is from growth in customers, reflecting a growing population in the region. Note that these changes are much smaller than was flagged in the recent fact sheet, and it is not clear what is causing the discrepancy. It could be further changes since the IRP was issued, possibly including more customers switching to heat pumps, and possibly just the difference between one year's temperature change and projected 30-year averages. Electricity usage by contrast is rising, and forecasted to continue rising; once natural gas is no longer part of the mix for electricity sources, the drop in residential natural gas usage may be more apparent in the overall totals.