The Northgate Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge, funded by the Levy to Move Seattle, under construction in January 2021. Photo Credit: Sky Bear Media. We are excited to share the Levy to Move Seattle Q1 2021 Report with you. With this report, we now have all of the data from each year of the Levy in a single, centralized dashboard!
This new format is fitting as it marks the completion of the first quarter of a new year. Still, much remains the same: we continue to be focused on transparency and accountability as we deliver projects and programs in the remaining years of the Levy.
Our new report is streamlined, efficient, and transparent. You will still see the same letter and Executive Summary sections you have seen before. However, instead of pages of tables and narrative to report our progress towards Levy goals each quarter, you will now find that information captured in an interactive online dashboard.
As trusted stewards of your tax dollars, our goal is to make it easier for you to see how your investment through the Levy is making a difference in communities across Seattle. This supports accountability to you – Seattle residents – and allows us more space to share stories from our neighbors and pictures of Levy projects. We invite you to explore our new dashboard!
2020 provided many opportunities for us to rethink what community safety looks like and examine new ways we can contribute to making Seattle safe for everyone, especially our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) community members, and we carry those commitments into 2021.
This work is paramount always, and we will continue to work actively to improve safety along high-injury streets. We acknowledge, honor, and mourn for the people who have lost their lives and been injured in traffic violence, and reaffirm our commitment for safe and racially-equitable streets.
You can see the results of your Levy to Move Seattle investment in neighborhoods across the city.
In Q1, you will see that we’ve begun to recover and make progress on work delayed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including great progress on work that supports Safe Routes to Schools – especially notable given that some students are returning to in-person learning. We have also completed the Bell St Protected Bike Lane, another piece of the Center City Bike Network to make traveling by bicycle easier, safer, and more efficient.
While we continue to deliver Levy projects, we are working across the department to implement and prepare COVID-19 recovery efforts while supporting communities most deeply affected by compounding, long-term effects of the pandemic and the emergency closure of the West Seattle Bridge.
In total, we invested $43.1M in Levy projects in early 2021, which represents the highest Q1 spending in Levy history and approximately 17% increase over 2020’s Q1 spending. This spending rate reflects our crews’ hard work building delayed 2020 projects as well as major capital work underway, including Northgate Bridge, Fairview Bridge, and Delridge RapidRide H Line projects.
We welcome you to read more about these and other great projects in our Executive Summary. Detailed financial and deliverable information can also now be found in the new Levy dashboard.
We’re proud of our work to build a stronger Seattle in Q1, which has set the stage for the rest of 2021. We are optimistic for what is to come in the remainder of the year.
Among more, we look forward to planned construction of the Madison Bus Rapid Transit - RapidRide G line, thanks to a federal Small Starts grant allocation announced in early April. At the same time, we are aware that the effects of the pandemic are long-lasting, especially on historically underserved communities, and we are committed to an equitable recovery effort that prioritizes the safety and accessibility of the communities most impacted by the public health and economic crises.