Should We Panic Over the Council “Kneecapping” the Transportation Levy?

“In a little-noticed amendment to the city budget, the Seattle City Council asserted new and surprising control over transportation spending in the $1.55 billion, eight-year levy passed by voters in November.”

Thus begins a Seattle Times article that ran last week. The amendment in question is a budget proviso—the “mechanism that the Council uses to impose restrictions on appropriations in the City’s budget,” according to the council’s budget glossary. This particular proviso prohibits the executive branch from spending fully half of the $177 million in levy funds intended for 2025 until the council reviews and approves the expenditure. 

The worry? This move introduces uncertainty that could hinder SDOT’s ability to deliver levy projects efficiently. In the worst case, councilmembers could use their leverage to kill specific projects they don’t like, or to privilege ones they do. On this score, the saga of proviso co-sponsor and Transportation Committee Chair Rob Saka’s “border wall” doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

To say the amendment was little-noticed is a stretch: Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and the Solidarity Budget coalition both sounded the alarm about this amendment during the budget process, Ryan Packer at The Urbanist was covering it as early as Nov. 6, Amy Sundberg included it in her budget wrap-up, and on Dec. 6, Packer also wrote about the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee letter that underlies last week’s story.

Beyond giving credit where it’s due, though, I don’t want to be too hard on the Seattle Times or reporter Nicholas Deshais. I’m glad they’re shining a brighter spotlight on this proviso, and for a wider audience. If readers need to feel like they’re in on a big scoop to pay attention to this city council’s shenanigans, I’m here for it.

Still, it’s worth dwelling a bit on the question of how “new and surprising” this form of council control truly is, especially as transportation advocates and the voters who approved the levycontemplate how much we should be freaking out, or not.

It’s not unprecedented for a council to use budget provisos to put a hold on transportation spending. Back in 2010, for example, councilmembers skeptical of then-Mayor Mike McGinn’s ambitions for Seattle rail expansion withheld funds for completing the Transit Master Plan. With the help of advocates pushing from the outside, McGinn was eventually able to pass the plan he wanted. (Many of its components—streetcars to Ballard and the U-District, the Center City Connector—fell away or were stalled during subsequent administrations. But hey, Madison BRT finally came to fruition in 2024 as RapidRide G!)

Of course, McGinn was elected as a champion for multimodal transportation. It’s much less clear that current Mayor Bruce “I won’t lead with bikes” Harrell will go to bat to defend the levy priorities that advocates fought for and voters approved. And Tim Burgess, one of the councilmembers who clashed with McGinn, is now Harrell’s deputy. The executive branch did have a heartfelt transportation progressive in SDOT director Greg Spotts, but he is resigning, ostensibly to move closer to his family. Sure, maybe. But it’s a well-known explanation that’s used to gloss over conflict, or at least lack of confidence, between a department head and his boss.

If the mayor and SDOT aren’t willing to fight back against council meddling,we could have a problem on our hands. Transportation improvements that repurpose space now occupied by cars—be it road lanes or parking— inevitably generate controversy. If such projects, already greenlit by the April passage of the Seattle Transportation Plan and voters’ enthusiastic approval of the levy, can be relitigated one by one through this council, you can bet opponents will seize the opportunity.

Inga Manskopf, a member of the Levy Oversight Committee, said the alarm bells began ringing for her as far back as June, when the committee received a memorandum summarizing a companion resolution that Transportation Committee Chair Saka wanted to accompany the levy proposal. Among other things, it stated the council’s intent to “evaluate the City’s current policies governing the planning, design, and implementation of paving projects, including Complete Streets… and… explore how the Council approves funding for individual projects.”

Seattle’s Complete Streets ordinance ensures that when the City undertakes a major paving project, it also makes investments that improve the street for all users. That could mean repairing sidewalks or adding crosswalks, lighting, bike lanes, or transit stops.

“In my experience, when people say they want to take a closer look at the Complete Streets ordinance, it’s usually not to make it stronger,” Manskopf told me. She said the committee asked 

Saka’s staff person who attended their meeting for more information, but never got a response. “Then the next thing we hear is that there’s a proviso” on the levy funds that could enable council scrutiny of individual projects—the alarm bells got louder.

For a sharply contrasting attitude, we can look back to the transportation chairdom of Mike O’Brien, who held that role from 2016 through 2019. O’Brien had plenty of opinions about transportation the whole time, he said, “but it takes about ten minutes to find out that, hey, I’m not the expert here. There are a ton of people at the City, and a ton of advocates, who have way more expertise than me.” His role, he said, was to shape the overall framework and values, “make sure the department understands that these are [expert] voices to be listened to, and then get out of the way.”

Is the current council open to learning that lesson? Time will tell.