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What’s to not like a few refreshing bike trip on a Sunday morning?
Seems, it’s not so easy.
Earlier this month, the Cascade Bicycle Membership introduced that this 12 months’s model of the Emerald Metropolis Journey would come with a jaunt over the West Seattle Bridge.
Town of Seattle will shut the westbound bridge lanes and an adjoining part of southbound Freeway 99 for 2 hours on the morning of Might 5.
Tickets for the occasion begin at $55 for adults and go as much as $165 with an added donation. Up to now, the occasion has drawn about 7,000 riders.
Count on the Cascade Bicycle Club — which proudly touts its authorities advocacy and retains Metropolis Corridor lobbyists — to make some good coin right here.
Town’s Workplace of Financial Improvement confirmed that Cascade Bicycle Membership can pay a $1,210.41 charge to be used of the bridge. This doesn’t embrace charges related to Seattle Police Division labor supporting the trip, or different allowing charges.
In response to a question from the editorial board, a spokesman for the Seattle Division of Transportation mentioned the West Seattle Bridge was not slated for any scheduled upkeep or inspections that day. In different phrases, site visitors shall be shut out purely to host the fundraising trip.
Why is that this noteworthy?
Mayor Bruce Harrell and SDOT are presently engaged on a proposal to resume the Transfer Seattle transportation levy, which is anticipated to be offered to the general public and Metropolis Council this spring.
Sources say the Transfer Seattle levy, slated for the November poll, is anticipated to work out to round $1.35 billion in property taxes. In 2015, voters accepted the present nine-year, $930 million transportation levy.
About 30% of SDOT’s finances is funded by levy {dollars}. Main classes are congestion aid, upkeep and restore, and protected routes, which incorporates bike lanes and different infrastructure.
In essentially the most recent lobbying filings as of the top of December, a Cascade Bicycle Membership consultant stories assembly with the Mayor’s Workplace and SDOT management on the levy final fall.
The Cascade Bicycle Membership is effectively inside its rights to advocate for security and highway enhancements. However Metropolis Corridor ought to have thought twice about renting out an important piece of public infrastructure to a particular curiosity at a time when residents shall be requested to debate transportation priorities and vote on an enormous property tax proposal.
As it’s, the Transfer Seattle levy marketing campaign already appears slightly juiced.
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