These charges would do little to curb automobile usage in the Seattle area. But they would make Seattle less accessible, more inequitable and a less appealing place to live, work, shop, visit, and be entertained. It’s just another example of our City leaders chasing new revenue sources without considering the damage it would cause to our vibrant downtown.

“By my grading [2016], Seattle scores six out of 11, at best”, said Westneat. "At my kid’s middle school, this would prompt an after-school retake.”  So how has this changed since 2016, for the better, or for the worse? We went through the same list again this week, and we could only give Seattle a four out of 11, at best. "Whether it’s poor leadership, misplaced priorities or just a temporary struggle with too much runaway success, something’s not quite right.”

If you've ever wondered how City leaders can claim big initiatives you've never heard of have broad public support, they likely spring from forums like the Imagine Downtown Open House happening this Thursday at City Hall from 6-8:30 pm.   By summer this public/private consortium will have collected feedback to "refine, combine and compile Big Ideas" into a vision plan for the future of downtown. Don’t be left out. Please attend this Thursday's forum on Transportation or send your ideas via email.

The original TENW Traffic Study for First Light #3026416 at 2000-3rd Ave. and its Update of 1/3/19 (posted 1/16/19) are incomplete and misleading. The foundation of the study’s projection of future traffic volumes (and cumulative impact) is completely invalid having excluded the project’s closest tower neighbors .

Nothing has really changed on the 5th & Stewart [Altitude] plans. The tower's loading and waste design will cause major back-ups in its alley and surrounding streets. None of its berths will fit the trucks for which they're intended.  There is no space on the alley for garbage collection. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. If you agree, please express your concerns to PRC@Seattle.gov.

The Applicant ignored all substantive design guidance from EDG1: loading design, turn radius study, alley circulation, waste storage niche --only to focus on ribbons, colors, palette, etc. That’s like saying "The patient is terribly sick and may die...but is wearing a lovely color of hospital gown.” And what did the Board do in response? They passed the project on to the Recommendation Meeting phase. Unbelievable! If you agree, please voice your displeasure by writing to prc@seattle.gov.

Seattle’s new mega towers are being designed without sufficient thought about functionality, and are seeking approval with substandard designs for loading and delivery, waste facilities, and parking ingress and egress.

City Council is scheduled to vote on CB119398 this coming Monday, January 14, at 2 PM. Exempting downtown towers from transportation mitigations required for smaller developments outside the city core is the biggest adverse impact and mystery in CB119398. While we understand and applaud the goal of bringing alternative transportation options to the SOV into greater usage, Transportation Performance [i.e. travel time] should be our primary measure of success or failure, not just a fuzzy feel good SOV reduction standard.

CB119398 may be well intentioned, but it is dangerously incomplete. While smaller projects outside the urban core will need to mitigate their traffic impacts, new downtown towers are exempt. The bill eliminates Director’s Rule 2009-5 that says if a tower’s projected vehicle trips exceed street capacity at key intersections, it is required to address its adverse impacts.

A recently released UW/SDOT study (click here for full report) confirms the inadequacies of Seattle's 100 year old downtown alleys. Why does the City continue to allow irreversible disastrous decisions with generational adverse impacts in Downtown Seattle? There can only be one answer.…The city sees a way out of their budget problems, and the developers are more than willing to accommodate them.

Downtown traffic will descend into historic gridlock. It’s time to state your concern: proposed LOS standards will lead to more congestion and less safety and quality of life in Seattle.

After over 4 years, the 5th & Stewart Altitude project [#3018037] still has major unresolved issues with its loading and waste management design and should not be approved.

The Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections (SDCI) commonly uses the term Dock Management Plan as a “cure-all” for inadequate loading and waste facilities in proposed downtown high-rise projects, but the City of Seattle has no practical experience with their operation ,due either to the newness or incompleteness of the projects involved.

First Light Condominium at 2000-3rd Ave. boasts a rooftop pool and some of the best sunset views in the Pacific Northwest. Its problems come on the ground, where it is not a functional design.  As home to an anticipated 1,600 condo dwellers and office workers, this small village is requesting fewer and smaller loading berths than required by code. Most trucks won't be able to access the berths because the project's narrow alley is lined with dumpsters from neighboring older buildings, home to some of Seattle's most popular restaurants. And ingress and egress from its parking garage will be challenging, if not impossible.

Just as in what appears to be the Design Review standard script, the Downtown DRB approved yet another major downtown Seattle high rise apartment building (MUP3026266, 2025-5th Ave) with only one, symbolic and for all practical purposes, unusable loading berth! 

How can the Design Review Board keep a straight face while claiming loading berths, waste storage, or parking aren't issues for them to consider? This is the same endless loop of pass the buck we've been fighting for over four years.The DRB says it’s not their purview and will be taken up in SEPA. In SEPA, it is presumed that it has been considered by DRB, when in reality no one has considered functional design.

Density done right could alleviate traffic congestion, but no one is considering the cumulative impact of spiked demand for access and service in alleys from a new round of mega-towers in downtown Seattle.

Explosive growth, not enough private loading bays, and too many new projects approved with inadequate loading designs, is resulting in too many failed first delivery attempts and too much parking time in loading spaces…a recipe for chaos. This has caused SDOT to rethink how they manage street curb parking and alley operations for trucks and other delivery vehicles. 

While the basic building design is more aesthetically attractive from the street than many of the “big box” designs we’ve seen, this design is not functional, and thus is nowhere close to meeting the standards for approval today. Further, they are not “preserving” the two historic buildings, only using the preservation of the façade to avoid necessary alley setbacks.You will be doing the Applicant a favor by requiring them to come back for a 2nd EDG with a functional ground-floor alley-side design. As is, you have a recipe for loading, servicing, and resident parking disaster.