24-058QP: Transportation Funding Task Force

The City of Seattle, through its Department of Transportation (SDOT) requests Statements of Qualifications to support the establishment of a Transportation Funding Task Force to develop policy and funding recommendations for long-term transportation infrastructure needs. The Consultant team will work with SDOT as a flexible and creative partner to both support the SDOT project team and the Task Force, while guiding the process towards a successful outcome, defined as stakeholders who feel their time and perspectives were used in a productive and meaningful way to generate a set of actionable recommendations to the City Council and the Mayor to guide future actions.

In September 2024, the City of Seattle adopted Resolution 32145 , creating the Transportation Funding Task Force (Task Force) and providing guidance on its mission and process. Per the Resolution, the Transportation Funding Task Force is to develop policy and funding recommendations for long term transportation infrastructure needs, with specific focus on building out Seattle’s sidewalk network, improving existing sidewalks, improving pavement condition, and replacing or rehabilitating aging bridges. The Resolution further describes that the Task Force recommendations should include a list of

recommended actions to achieve the following objectives, along with rationales for those recommendations and analysis of alternative recommendations considered by the Task Force, and a recommended schedule for implementation.

1. Review contextual and background materials to inform recommendations including SDOT’s approach to asset management, related lifecycle cost analyses, City audits for sidewalk repair and bridge maintenance, current sidewalk management and repair policies; the current condition of pavement, sidewalk, and bridge assets, project and program delivery methods, and strategies to sustain maintenance and preservation of these assets;
2. Develop an understanding of current revenue streams, funding constraints, and risks to those funding streams sustainably resourcing the Department’s work;
3. Explore and recommend funding and delivery strategies for maintaining or improving the condition of Seattle’s transportation assets, including by:
   1. Assessing strategies to improve the existing sidewalk network, including changes in state and local policies, point of sale requirements and development of City programs to assist or supplement low-income households with sidewalk repairs;
   2. Exploring and recommending new strategies for accelerating the delivery of new sidewalks or alternative pathways where no pathways exist today. The Task Force should review and consider all implications of potential tools, including development requirements, changes in State and local policies that may allow the City to deliver more sidewalks at lower cost, and approaches that may better align City resources with the Seattle Transportation Plan (STP) sidewalk delivery priorities and goals;
   3. Reviewing and recommending potential external funding and finance opportunities to sustain and maintain the City’s bridges in a state of good repair, including rehabilitating or replacing bridges nearing the end of their useful life, such as federal and state grant opportunities, low-cost financing options, bonding and tolling; and
   4. Recommending policies and funding strategies to accelerate the pace of delivery of projects that will improve and sustain arterial pavement condition in a state of good repair; and
4. Explore currently legal or feasible funding strategies that could allow the City to better meet long-term infrastructure goals as established in the STP or indicated through the Task Force’s review of SDOT’s asset management approach and develop recommendations on how to link funding strategies with specific transportation outcomes.

Three elements of measuring Transportation Funding Task Force success are:

1. We build trust. Our stakeholders develop a better understanding of our challenges and potential strategies to address them, including a shared definition of the problems we are working to solve.
2. We have a recommended roadmap of potential actions from the Task Force, informed by :

• Additional funding sources that are available and appropriate for infrastructure needs and programmatic approaches
• Relationship between infrastructure investment and infrastructure outcomes
• Broad overview of need for multiple assets

1. Task Force work results in action. The work of the Task Force informs future actions by the Mayor and City Council.

We are not asking the Task Force to:

• Recommend asset condition outcomes
• Reassign/reassess current allocation of funds
• Be overly prescriptive in any one action or funding source