Mayor Hopes To Ease Competition Between Buses, Freight, Cars And Bikes With 10-Year Plan

Mayor Ed Murray laid out his 10-year transportation plan Monday. The move sets the stage for renewing the transportation levy that expires this year. He plans to reveal a new levy proposal in a few weeks.

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Ballard Blossom delivers flower bouquets all over town.

Manager Rachel Martin says, with traffic the way it is, the logistics have gotten very complicated.

Martin: "We’ve learned, you know, how to schedule the routes. What parts of town are going to be busiest. We watch the news, we watch the different apps on the phones that we can have for our drivers so they can know what’s going on with the viaduct, what’s going on with the floating bridges."

Martin relies on news reports and apps and all that because customers don’t like late flowers.

On Tuesday, Mayor Ed Murray laid out a 10-year transportation plan he hopes will ease tension between all the different kinds of vehicles that compete for road space.

Murray: "We need to step back from the mode wars, where we’re fighting bikes against cars against pedestrians against parking against freight. This plan creates an integrated approach. It is about making them work together."

Murray’s report identified 24 specific projects he said would help relieve congestion.

Those include an enhanced transit corridor linking downtown to Ballard, freight improvements to the Sodo neighborhood and an expansion of the street car network.

Funding would come from a variety of sources, including everything from federal grants to advertising at bus shelters. The project list did not represent a big increase in spending over previous years. But several of the projects would require renewal of Seattle’s transportation levy set to expire this year. Murray plans to release a list of projects to be included in the levy in a few weeks.

We don’t know how big the levy’s going to be yet. But it could include things like transit and bicycle improvements to big arterials streets all over the city from Delridge to Roosevelt – and extending the Burke Gilman bicycle trail.

Here's a list of projects identified as priorities in the Mayor's "Move Seattle" 10-year strategic transportation plan:

Projects to implement by 2024

• 23rd Avenue Corridor Improvements - Phases 1-3
• 3rd Avenue Corridor Improvements
• Ballard to Downtown Enhanced Transit Corridor
• Broadway Streetcar Extension
• Burk Gilman Trail Extension
• Center City Streetcar Connector
• Delridge Complete Street
• E Marginal Way Corridor Improvements
• Greenwood/Phinney/67th to Fremont Complete Street ("complete streets" is a term the city uses when it reconfigures roads to serve multiple modes of transportation, not just cars)
• Lander Street Grade Separation/Railroad Crossing
• Madison Street Bus Rapid Transit Complete Street
• Market/45th Transit Improvement Project
• Northgate Pedestrian-Bicycle Bridge
• Pike/Pine Complete Street
• Rainier Avenue to Jackson Street Complete Street
• Yesler/Jefferson Complete Streets

Long Term Priority Projects

• 1st Avenue/1st Ave S Corridor
• 23rd Avenue Corridor Improvements - Phase 4
• Aurora Avenue Complete Street
• Beacon/12th/Broadway Complete Streets
• Fauntleroy Way/California Transit Corridor
• Fauntleroy Way SW Boulevard
• Lake City Way Complete Street