July 17, 2020
Dear Council Members
HPAC, which represents the neighborhoods of Highland Park, Riverview, and South Delridge, and are currently one of the impacted areas of the detour due to the closure of the West Seattle Bridge, urges you to support an amendment to the STBD ballot measure to make Routes 131, 132, and 128 and 113 eligible to receive funding from the STBD as proposed by CM Herbold.
We look forward to Seattle Transportation Benefit District (STBD) ballot measure which funds extra Seattle bus service beyond KC Metro funding, but the existing criteria for funding service requires 65% of stops to be within Seattle, which leaves out these routes due to the % figures for stops below. The amendment allows for funding for routes serving historically low-income communities that are below 65%:
Highland Park
Route 113 (55%)
Route 128 (53%)
Route 131 (61%)
South Park
Routes 132 (47%)
As you know, this area is in the direct path of two of the alternate routes to the First Avenue South bridge, via SW Holden/Highland Park Way on the north, and Roxbury/Cloverdale on the south.
These three neighborhoods are mainly residential and have had limited street infrastructure improvements over the last 25 years or more. The impact of additional vehicle traffic is already being felt, particularly on streets that were not designed to handle 20,000 vehicles a day, let alone up to 100,000 vehicles.
Our neighborhoods suffers from a historical lack of investment that has held the neighborhood back in numerous ways. A traditionally working-class area that provided affordable housing for workers in the industrial Duwamish Valley below, boom and bust cycles over the last century have acutely restricted the area’s growth and prosperity, leading to the neighborhood being redlined in the 1930s. Even today, with the exception of South Park, Highland Park remains one of the most (if not the most) affordable neighborhoods on the Duwamish peninsula.
Data the American Community Survey (5-year Series, 2009-2013) show that Highland Park (Census Tract 113) has a lower median income ($53,182) than Seattle as a whole ($65,277). Additionally, Highland Park has a higher proportion of residents who identify as a race or ethnicity other than White (49.8% versus Seattle’s 29.4%).
In Census Tract 265, which overlays the southeastern-most portion of Highland Park in the City of Seattle and a portion of White Center (part of the North Highline unincorporated urban area), the proportion of residents who identify as a race or ethnicity other than White increases to 60.1%, while the Median Household Income drops to $35,857.
Those with lower household incomes have less access to private cars which makes public transit often their only option to get jobs, school, and conduct daily life. Additionally, to access frequent transit, like the Rapid Ride lines, requires folks to take the 131 or the 128 to access the Rapid Ride C or the future H line. The route 131 is also one the closest route that serves the Duwamish Longhouse, even at 1.5 miles away.
As we have at least two years of this detour through our neighborhoods, we must do everything we can to get folks out of cars and onto public transit. Please include these routes in the STDB measure.
Thank you
Gunner Scott
Chair, HPAC: Neighbors Building Community in Highland Park, Riverview, and South Delridge
HPAC 