Seattle mayor to ask voters for $900 million transportation levy

Mayor Ed Murray wants Seattle taxpayers to approve $900 million in property taxes over the course of nine years to pay for his new “Move Seattle” transportation plan.

The mayor unveiled his ambitious levy proposal Wednesday at a Capitol Hill news conference alongside a street that would be retrofit for a new bus corridor if approved.

“We’re not going to be able to do everything this city needs because that number would be far bigger than the one we put forward,” Murray said. “So we wanted to do something that we believe was bold to address the problem but also was reasonable enough that we believed it would pass.”

The levy would cost the median Seattle household, valued at $450,000, about $275 per year, according to the city.

Related: Seattle mayor proposes $2.9 billion transportation plan

The proposal would replace the nine-year “Bridging the Gap” transportation levy that expires at the end of 2015. By comparison, the city said the “Bridging the Gap” levy cost the median household $130 per year.

He’ll pass the legislation over to the Seattle City Council in May after the Seattle Department of Transportation hosts three public meetings.

“We’re going to show people what they’re actually going to buy with this money, what we will be able to do, the corridors it will happen in, the types of infrastructure changes that we will make, and we will hold ourselves accountable through a transparency process that we just got up and running,” Murray said.

Murray said “Move Seattle” would:

• Seismically reinforce 16 vulnerable bridges and eliminate the backlog of needed bridge spot repairs, meeting a critical safety need
• Repave up to 233 lane-miles of arterial streets, minimizing future maintenance costs and improving safety for all travelers
• Repair up to 225 blocks of existing sidewalks and improve curb ramps and crossings at 750 intersections throughout the city, making it safer and more comfortable for people of all ages and abilities to walk
• Invest in 12-to-15 corridor safety projects, improving safety for all travelers on all of the city’s high-collision streets
  
• Complete 9-to-12 Safe Routes to School projects each year, improving walking and biking safety at every public school in Seattle
• Fund a targeted freight spot improvement program, improving mobility for freight and delivery vehicles
• Complete 7-to-10 multimodal corridor projects, redesigning major streets to improve connectivity and safety for all travelers
• Optimize traffic signal timing on five corridors throughout the city each year, improving traffic flow
• Create seven new high-quality bus rapid transit corridors, providing convenient and affordable travel choices for more people

Read the 70-page Move Seattle plan

Scheduled meetings are as follows:

• Saturday, March 28 Noon-2 at the New Holly Gathering Hall
• Monday, March 30, 6-8pm at Roosevelt High School
  
• Tuesday, March 3, 6-8pm at West Seattle High School

KIRO Radio’s Josh Kerns contributed to this report