The final meeting for The Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee (CTAC) III will meet July 6 (today!), 3:30 p.m. at City Hall the Seattle Municipal Tower (700 5th Ave) Room 1610. This is your chance to voice your support in person for a larger investment in safe bicycle infrastructure in Seattle as the committee figures out how to spend the revenue from the new $20 vehicle license fee.
Certainly, much of the money will go to basic street maintenance, which all road users desperately need. But the rest of the funds are an opportunity to create a city transportation system that better meets the needs of all Seattle residents.
If you cannot make the meeting, you can send your comments to [email protected].
Cathy Tuttle, Paulo Nunes-Ueno and other neighborhood greenway leaders sent out the following action alert about the meeting, urging people to support funding for Seattle’s maturing greenway movement (more on that soon):
The Citizen’s Transportation Advisory Committee 3, a group that was charged with making recommendations to the city about transportation needs and ways to pay for those needs, is meeting:
WHAT: Make a public comment at CTAC3 meeting tomorrow July 6, 2011
WHEN: TOMORROW at 3:30pm (comments are first on the agenda)
WHERE: Seattle Municipal Tower 700 5th avenue at Columbia room 1610.
WHY: Likely a final recommendation will be made at this meeting. There is great danger that bikes and peds will be left out of this deal!
Tons of outreach has been done including two polls that suggest that a vote to raise funds for transit, ped/bike improvements, and maintenance has a good shot of passing this November.
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD: Come to the meeting tomorrow and sign up for public comment and make your best case for a significant investment in family friendly bike/ped facilities. Ask for at least 25% of the funds ($6.8M/year) to go to active transportation with a target of 10 to 15 miles of Greenways per year.
YOU SNOOZE YOU LOSE: There is a chance that we will lose this fight and may end up with very little money for the kinds of improvements that serve people of all ages who are biking and walking and which deliver benefits to health, the environment and the livability of neighborhoods across the city.
PLEASE SHOW UP. IF YOU CANNOT SHOW UP WRITE TODAY: [email protected].
MORE BACKGROUND: On June 28, a proposal was made to zero out dollars dedicated to bicycle infrastructure in Seattle from vehicle license fees. There were no members of public at the meeting to make a comment to support cycling or Neighborhood Greenways. Even with the highest level of funding considered, only 3 miles of Greenways would get built each year. Portland is currently building 20 miles per year and hopes to have 85% of its residents within a half-mile of a Greenway by 2015.
UPDATE: Here’s is the committee’s current recommended funding levels, via a June 16 memo to the mayor and City Council:
