This looks like a good appointment. But I am bit disturbed by the City’s definition of an integrated transportation system. An integrated system is more than a coupling of bus, light rail, trolley, bicycles, pedestrians, and automobiles capacity. The discussion on this particular approach has been found wanting. As a result HUD, EPA, and USDOT integrated their efforts and abandoned the silo mentality. We each knew that the complexity of the issue was greater than our own departmental capacity. Transportation investments can be profoundly catalytic. It is well established that transportation policy has significant economic opportunity impacts, and health outcomes consequences. These are addressed by other disciplines and should not be planned in a vacuum. Breaking down just the internal silos within the each City department whether it be responsible for transportation, housing, planning, environmental quality, and human health is very important. But it is also vastly insufficient. Life outcomes of all residents are materially improved by dissolving the walls not only within, but also between the departments. This is an opportune time for Seattle, as other cities have begun to do, to integrate strategies for housing affordability, community health, and mobility in order to establish neighborhoods of opportunity for everyone in all parts of city. SE Seattle and Beacon Hill have always been the last to benefit from integrated transportation outcomes. Many will say that SE Seattle has light rail. But it was actually supposed to go downtown to Northgate first. South Seattle was to have light rail after it reached Northgate. USDOT balked at the potential cost overruns and major Federal funding was jeopardized. Literally, last official act of Secretary Rodney Slater, President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Transportation, was not to reject but hold in abeyance the federal funding for Sound Transit on the condition that the project would start in South Seattle. Secretary Norm Mineta, President George Bush’s Transportation Secretary, made the investment in the Downtown Seattle–SE Seattle-Sea Tac corridor the condition for initial Federal funding. He also opined to a very close friend that the Sound Transit project needed a lot of prayer. King County Department of Public Health, SDOT, Seattle Parks, Seattle’s Housing officials, Seattle Housing Authority, Major Taylor Club organizers, Seattle Public Schools, including State County, and City employment service all need to be intimately involved in coordination of an integrated transportation effort for South Seattle. Then and only then will we create an integrated transportation system of true value. Finally well create more neighborhood of opportunity. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that this SE Seattle First strategy was also long advocated by Seattle Councilmember Richard McIver and former State Representative Jesse Wineberry. We should’ve been listening.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 20:31:25 +0000
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