WA: Seattle Proposition 1 wins support from voters | Election 2024

Seattle voters gave a green light Tuesday to Proposition 1, a property tax measure that will spend $1.55 billion over the next eight years on streets, sidewalks, bridges, transit routes and bikeways.

The levy passed with 67% of Tuesday's count.

The plan, which continues the work of two previous transportation levies in 2006 and 2015, came from a unified City Hall.

Mayor Bruce Harrell and Seattle Department of Transportation staffers crafted the measure. After months of debate about the size and scope of Harrell's original levy proposal, the City Council gave it unanimous support, after adding $100 million to the cost.

The property tax levy will collect about $65 for every $100,000 in assessed value. According to the city, that's $530 a year for the owner of an $804,000 home, about the median assessed value. That's $250 more than they're paying now for the transportation levy that expires at year's end.

The levy is to pay for 30% of SDOT's budget. Here are some of the items in the levy's outline for spending:

• $403 million on street maintenance and modernization, including at least $330 million on arterial roads.
• $221 million on bridges, including upgrades and repairs to the Ballard, Magnolia, Fremont and University bridges, and a preventive maintenance schedule on the city's 134 bridges.
• $193 million on pedestrian safety, including at least $111 million for 320 blocks of new sidewalks.
• $160.5 million on Vision Zero, school and neighborhood safety programs.
• $151 million on transit, including 160 projects to improve bus access and reliability. About $7 million would go toward transit security measures funding civilian "navigators" and armed officers.
• $133.5 million for bikeways, including upgrades to barriers on 30% of bike lanes.
• $100 million for traffic signals, including timing adjustment along 40 corridors.
• $69 million to address climate change and reduce air pollution, including at least $32 million for Seattle City Light's expansion of electric vehicle charging stations to libraries, community centers and parks.
• $66.5 million to add lighting, seating and wayfinding to business districts and public gathering places.
• $45 million toward freight, including working with the Port of Seattle to identify and pave streets carrying the heaviest truck traffic.
• $7.5 million for oversight and auditing levy planning and spending.

Councilmember Rob Saka, who leads the council's transportation committee, described the levy as "the most impactful work that any of us do during our entire time on the council."

While no organized opposition came together, former Councilmember Alex Pedersen opposed the levy, summarizing the measure as "unaffordable, inequitable and ineffective."

Transportation, environmental, business and labor groups lined up in support of the levy, saying it was a much-needed continuation of the work done under the previous two transportation levies and would make streets across the city safer for all types of road uses, not just drivers.

The Keep Seattle Moving 2024 coalition raised nearly $320,000, and spent just over $100,000, according to the state's Public Disclosure Commission. Its biggest donors include Jansen Inc., a general contractor; John Stanton, a local businessman and majority owner of the Mariners; labor organizations representing city and transit workers; the American Public Transportation Association; and the Downtown Seattle Association.

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