Bridging the Gap — Building a foundation that lasts

Updated July 29, 2008

Bridging the Gap 2007 Annual Report
'Keeping Seattle Moving with a successful first year'

Read the press release:
Transportation Levy Meets Mark in Fixing Seattle Streets

Bridging the Gap; reducing our transportation backlog

Before the BTG program, SDOT was only able to do a fraction of the work we are now. This chart shows a few key examples.

2008 Work Plan

City residents can expect to see SDOT working in their neighborhood on the following 2008 goals:

• Striping 31 miles of bike lanes or sharrows
• Paving 41 lane miles of streets
• Building 15 blocks of new sidewalk
• Repairing 22 blocks of sidewalks
• Pruning 3,000 trees
• Adding 20,000 new transit service hours
• Designing 17 large Neighborhood Street Fund projects
• Improving five school routes for safety
• Completing three trail segments
• Rehabilitating 5 stairways

Background

In 2006, Seattle voters passed a nine-year, $365 million levy for transportation maintenance and improvements known as Bridging the Gap. The levy is complemented by a commercial parking tax ($127.5 million) and an employee hours tax ($51.5 million) and over life of the levy the total expected revenue from the three sources is $544 million. Together they add approximately $80 million to the Seattle Department of Transportation’s budget in 2008, dramatically increasing available funds for transportation capital projects and needed infrastructure maintenance. Over the next nine-years Bridging the Gap will address the City's mounting transportation problems and create a strong foundation for Seattle's transportation future by reducing the maintenance backlog and investing in major transportation projects.

The nine-year goals of Bridging the Gap are to:

• Reduce the infrastructure maintenance backlog.
• Pave and repair Seattle streets.
• Make seismic upgrades to our most vulnerable bridges.
• Improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and create safe routes to schools.
• Increase transit speed and reliability.

Over nine years the Seattle Department of Transportation will:

• Resurface, restore, or replace approximately 200 lane-miles of arterial streets.
• Rehabilitate or replace 3-5 bridges and seismically retrofit 5 additional bridges.
• Repair or restore 144 blocks of sidewalks.
• Build 117 blocks of new sidewalks.
• Rehabilitate 40-50 stairways.
• Restripe 5,000 crosswalks.
• Create "safe routes to schools" near 30 elementary schools.
• Support the development and implementation of a Pedestrian Master Plan.
• Provide funding to implement the Bicycle Master Plan.
• Add 4 miles of new multi-use paths.
• Replace over 150,000 small, faded street and regulatory signs.
• Provide funding for neighborhood-identified street improvements.
• Secure up to 45,000 hours of new Metro Transit service.
• Enhance transit and safety improvements on 3 key transit corridors.
• Prune 25,000 street trees to prevent safety and security hazards.
• Plant 8,000 new street trees.
• Fund 3 major capital improvement projects: Spokane Street Viaduct, Mercer Street Corridor, and King Street Station.