Political Landscape, Part One: Falling into the gap

Last fall as Seattle voters considered how they should vote on the Proposition 1 "Bridging The Gap" transportation ballot measure (Wiseline Institute - 1, 2), the attitude I heard among The Folk was -- I'm going to vote Yes because we need it, but why are we having a special levy for basic facilities?

I too adopted that rationale, and so vote Yes we did, to the tune of 53.4%.

The thing is, what I don't recall from the Pro campaign was an explanation of how it would be implemented: How would needs -- especially for pedestrian and bicycle facilities -- be identified? Prioritized? Selected? Projects planned?

A partial answer arrived yesterday in the mail, in a big envelope from the Department of Neighborhoods. "Money and resources are available for groups and individuals to get involved in improving their neighborhoods," the cover letter begins. Involvement is great, but how about money for actual improvements? But I kid. Then farther down:

Funds Available from Bridging the Gap Levy! (Larger Transportation Projects)... Using the attached blue form, community members are being asked to identify specific transportation problems or concerns. Seattle Department of Transportation will then explore your ideas, and using a review committee of neighborhood volunteers, will make project funding recommendations to the Mayor and City Council.

It appears therefore that while there is one fund, which Neighborhoods is calling "the NSF/CRF [neighborhood street fund and cumulative reserve fund] and Bridging the Gap Fund," the selection process is different from the old Neighborhood Matching/Small & Simple process. This is good. Sidewalk construction and repair never belonged in the Small & Simple process, a competitive one that essentially played neighborhoods against each other. Your project is worthy, it says to some, and to others Yours is not worthy. Fine for community artwork, not fine for projects that are about making unsafe streets safe places to walk.

Small & Simple treats basic pedestrian infrastructure as a luxury, that neighbors must agree to, and then pay a significant amount (on top of taxes) to build public sidewalks in the public right of way.

Clearly, Neighborhoods is not an engineering shop, so that it will hand-off project requests to SDOT is good. It is also bad.

In certain parts of Seattle, if you want your neighborhood to be safe for walking, you're on your own. You have to apply for grants even to plan sidewalks, because you have to hire a consultant -- that's right, City engineers don't lift a finger because your needs aren't in their budget. Then when you have a plan, you still must scrape together funding, hope you get into an SDOT budget for a future fiscal year and then, maybe, part of your neighborhood will get sidewalks.

Note that if you just want to be able to drive your car quickly around town, by way of whatever short cut strikes your fancy, SDOT is right there to serve you with planning services performed by a staff of necktie-wearing specialists, all paid for out of the department budget. And if the affected neighborhoods happen to find out about it, one of the necktie wearers will show up at their community meetings to tell them how silly they are to be concerned.

A hopeful part of the new process is that the Mayor and City Council will have the final word on projects. This takes the decision out of the hands of the SDOT bureaucracy and makes it a political process, meaning it might be more responsive to ordinary citizens. What we want is for the City's engineering specialists to, at long last, take pedestrian and bicycle needs seriously. Will the added political dimension accomplish this?

We'll pick up here next time.


Also today: Greg Nickels is out standing in his field (Newsweek).