Seattle/King County Climate News
Robin Briggs
Seattle
City Council is holding hearings on interim Comprehensive Plan legislation to come into compliance with the State's Middle Housing rules; this will affect Neighborhood Residential zones. Council will hold a meeting where amendments are introduced on May 7. May 19 is a second hearing for public comment, with a final vote planned for May 27. The hearing on May 19 will be in two parts: remote comments at 9:30 am (Register here), in person comments at 4pm at City Hall. Info here from the Connected Communities Coalition.
The Council plans to pass the remainder of the Comprehensive Plan before the August break. There will be follow-on legislation, for example to update zoning to match the new Plan, which may be taken up sometime after the budget is passed in November.
The Mayor signed an Executive Order on Climate for Earth Day. It confirms previous reports that the City will update its Climate Action Plan, which is expected to be completed by Q3 2026. In addition, the City will:
- Provide a status report on the current Climate Plan by Q3 2025.
- Continue to develop plans for 3 low-pollution neighborhoods, including a "funding plan to inform the investment of $8M in Transportation Levy Funding by Q1 2026".
- Pursue renewal of the Seattle Transit Measure to ensure sustainable transportation options for Seattle residents and visitors beyond 2027. The Seattle Transit Measure was renewed in 2020, and provides extra bus service over and above what Metro funds for city bus routes. Some of this funding was diverted from bus service during the pandemic when it was difficult to hire drivers, and it is not clear what the present funding plan for it is.
- Implement Transportation Demand Management Strategies in conjunction with Revive I-5, a multi-year effort to rehabilitate Interstate 5 in Seattle. The expectation is that funding for this would come from the State.
Commute Seattle released a report on its commute survey comparing how commuters were getting to work in 2024 vs 2022. It shows that fully remote work is down by 8%, while transit use is up by 3% and driving alone is up by 6%. Relative to 2019, driving alone is slightly higher than before, while transit use is still significantly below 2019 levels. Overall transit use has dropped even though the system has grown, with light rail to Lynnwood. Although we won't have official data on GHG levels for another 2 years, we should expect it will show an increase over 2022 levels, because transportation is the largest source of our emissions.
State
The Legislative Session ended on time, which was by no means a sure thing. The budget was a big sticking point, and finally settled with some of the deficit made up with new revenue and most of it with cuts. Some of the bills I've been following have already been signed by the Governor, but many more are still awaiting signature. The next chapter in this saga will be the June revenue projections, which may provide a hint about whether next year's supplemental budget will need to be a big restructuring or just an interim adjustment.
The State Transportation Budget was passed, and along with the Operating and Capital Budgets, is awaiting the Governor's signature. The Governor has the option of vetoing any part of the budget, using a line item veto. The budget was described by the Urbanist, Final State Budget Puts Highway Expansion Ahead of Basic Maintenance. It includes new revenue, including a 6 cent raise in the gas tax, and hikes in many different fees, plus a transfer from the General Fund. Much of this new revenue will be used to backfill deficits in the State's highway expansion program to finish out the Puget Sound Gateway, Spokane Corridor, I-405 & I-90 widening, as well as the I-5 Interstate Bridge. Spending on maintenance is about the same as before, even though our maintenance backlog keeps growing. The emphasis on highway expansion will likely add to our GHG emissions as it enables more development in car-dependent areas. Here's the spending breakdown by percentage, courtesy of Ryan Packer:
Highway capacity (expansion) projects: 36%
Ferries: 14%
Maintenance & preservation: 13%
Fish passage: 9%
Local grants: 8%
Public transit: 6.3%
Transportation operations: 3.5%
Rail: 3.3%
Aviation: 1.3%