The Future Takes Transportation: What’s next for TCC in 2024 and beyond?

In the Spring of 2023, we posted about our top priorities for the upcoming year. As many people know, there are endless opportunities and challenges in the transportation world, and we believe that we can have the greatest impact by ensuring we remain focused and coordinated on a select number of policy priorities. 

Now, it’s that time of year again, and we’re pleased to share our focus areas for the next twelve months. Our priorities were largely derived from our recent strategic plan or were carried over from existing work underway, and then refined by our staff and board. Our strategic plan’s goals were developed with the input of hundreds of individuals and dozens of transportation leaders and community partners

Through the end of the legislative session next year, we will stay focused on the following programmatic areas:

• Defeating I-2117
• Passing a transportation levy in Seattle that delivers transit reliability & connections to light rail
• Passing a transformational transportation package with robust funding and complementary policies around safety, sustainability, and equity
• Developing and strengthening our mobility justice platform
• Developing recommendations for transit safety & workforce shortage issues
• Supporting Sound Transit’s implementation of the Technical Advisory Group recommendations & celebrating light rail openings

Read on to learn more about what each of these priorities entails. 

Defeating I-2117

This fall, we’ll be fighting against a harmful ballot initiative that could undo years of climate and transportation progress. An out-of-touch billionaire is single-handedly trying to overturn the Climate Commitment Act (CCA), our state’s landmark law to reduce climate pollution. If I-2117 passes this November, it will mean that instead of a fee on pollution being paid by a few, the burden of paying for the impacts of pollution will be put onto communities, workers, and families. It would also strip away investments in community priorities across the state.

We’re particularly concerned that I-2117 threatens critical investments in sustainable transportation, from the expansion of transit and paratransit service across the State, to safety improvements for people walking and biking, to fare-free transit for 1.6 million Washingtonians ages 18 and under. The CCA provides over $5.4 billion of multimodal investment in Move Ahead Washington, the transformative transportation funding plan that we helped pass in 2022. Repealing it would rip a major hole in our state’s already strained transportation budget.

We’ll be working with other organizations and Washingtonians to fight back, reject this dangerous initiative, and pledge to vote no on I-2117. Click here to pledge to vote NO on 2117 today. Want to get more involved? Volunteer to support the No campaign here. 

Passing a transformational transportation package

The next state legislative session could be a huge opportunity to double down on investments in safe, sustainable, and equitable transportation across the state. Every few years, state legislators create a new “transportation funding package.” This differs from each biennium’s base transportation budget, which allocates existing revenue streams to a mix of ongoing and new projects and programs. A transportation funding package, on the other hand, usually authorizes a tax increase or new funding mechanisms and creates a companion list of many new projects, new programs, and big increases to existing buckets. 

Move Ahead Washington is a great example. It authorized $16.8B in new revenue (such as the carbon tax) over 16 years, all of which go above and beyond existing planned investments. Transportation packages also often include cool new policies. For example, Move Ahead Washington included a provision that would give additional operating and capital support for transit agencies that provide fare-free rides for youth 18 and under.

We’ll do everything we can to protect the CCA, but regardless of what happens, the legislature will likely be looking to make a substantial investment in our transportation system in 2025. We’ll work with our partners to identify and communicate joint goals and ideas for the investments and policies that can be most impactful and ways of funding them that have the least financial impact on our communities. 

Interested in working together on a new transportation package? Email hester@transportationchoices.org.

Passing a great transportation levy in Seattle 

A lot has happened since we first identified the Seattle Transportation Levy as a key priority for TCC. In April 2024, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted to adopt the Seattle Transportation Plan, a 20-year vision for the future of Seattle’s streets, sidewalks, and public spaces. The Seattle Transportation Plan was a key guiding document in influencing the Mayor’s $1.45 billion Transportation Levy Proposal, which was released shortly thereafter. TCC commended the ambitious plan and the commitment to safety and equity, and urged City Council to build on the foundation. 

Now, the levy is being shaped by Council before they vote to send it to the ballot. Through this process, we’ll be pushing to maintain and grow multimodal investments and preserve how equity is woven throughout the plan. You can track the Council’s next steps here. After the final vote from the full City Council, the Levy will move into campaign mode. TCC will help support the campaign with voter engagement, education, and more! 

If you are interested in learning more about our work on the potential ballot measure, or if your organization would like to collaborate on this effort, please email matthew@transportationchoices.org. 

Developing and strengthening our mobility justice platform

For the first time, TCC’s newly updated strategic plan includes an explicit reference to mobility justice. We name mobility justice as a key value in our work, and define it like this: 

We believe mobility is a human right and that everyone should be able to get where they need to go, free of barriers, and with transportation options that work for them. We are dedicated to prioritizing those most impacted by transportation policies and historical disinvestment.

While reforming jaywalking laws has been and will continue to be a key effort in our mobility justice work, this next year is all about working with our partners to flesh out what a full suite of mobility justice policies could look like. We’ll use partner surveys and other engagement opportunities to hear directly from BIPOC community representatives, and bring TCC’s board and staff together to develop a joint understanding of this issue and a plan for implementation. 

Developing recommendations for transit safety & workforce shortage issues

Good policy takes time. In the past year, we’ve learned so much about how safety and the operator shortage impact transit, and have heard insightful ideas from agencies across the nation about how to build the transit workforce pipeline and keep transit feeling safe for everyone. 

We still have a lot to learn from our partners in Washington state, so our next steps will be to talk directly with agencies of all sizes and types to understand the current landscape of these issues, what interventions have worked, and what kind of support could still be useful. We’ll then vet these ideas with community partners, and share our findings with the public and policymakers. 

Interested in talking more about either of these issues? Email hester@transportationchoices.org.

Supporting Sound Transit’s Technical Advisory Group recommendations & celebrating openings

It’s a busy and exciting time for Sound Transit. Over the next year, we’ll see the opening of some key stations and alignments:

• August 30, 2024 – Lynnwood Link opens, extending the 1 Line from Northgate to Lynnwood along one of the busiest stretches of highway in Washington
• Spring 2025 – the 2 Line extends further east, adding 3.4 miles and two more stations, at Marymoor Village and Downtown Redmond
• Late 2025 – the full 2 Line opens, connecting the Eastside to Seattle

These openings will be a huge step forward in creating a seamless regional transit system, opening up connections throughout multiple counties and for tens of thousands of riders. We can’t wait to be there and celebrate with all of you!

Keeping all these (and future) Sound Transit expansions on time, on budget, and shepherded through processes with equity at the forefront is key to TCC’s mission, which is why we’ll continue to track and support organizational and process changes recommended by a group of outside experts, the Technical Advisory Group, as well as regional policies that keep light rail affordable, safe, and accessible to all.