Dharmendra Yadav On Budget 2024 LIVE: स्पीकर पर भड़के धर्मेंद्र यादव ! Akhilesh Yadav| SP

#dharmendrayadavlive #dharmendrayadav #dharmendrayadav #parliamentsession2024 #loksabhaspeaker #parliamentmonsoonsession #budget2024 #livenews #breakingnews #budget2024 #live #unionbudget2024 #2024budget #livenews Dharmendra Yadav Angry On Budget 2024 LIVE: स्पीकर पर भड़के धर्मेंद्र यादव ! Akhilesh Yadav| SP #swadesh #hindinews #latestnews #topnews…

https://spinelessnews.com/dharmendra-yadav-on-budget-2024-live-%e0%a4%b8%e0%a5%8d%e0%a4%aa%e0%a5%80%e0%a4%95%e0%a4%b0-%e0%a4%aa%e0%a4%b0-%e0%a4%ad%e0%a4%a1%e0%a4%bc%e0%a4%95%e0%a5%87-%e0%a4%a7%e0%a4%b0%e0%a5%8d%e0%a4%ae/

Seattle prepares to pass budget with huge increases for safe streets + What CM Saka should do about Delridge

Thanks to Seattle voters, in 2025 the city is poised to invest $21 million in new sidewalks, $4.2 million in sidewalk repairs, $8.6 million in Vision Zero, $1.6 million in Safe Routes to School, $9.8 million in new protected bike lanes, and $1 million to upgrade existing bike lane barriers. To deliver all this, they are also going on a hiring spree, so if you know anything about building sidewalks you should keep an eye out for job listings.

The sidewalks funding line is particularly eye-catching and is the result of a decision to front-load sidewalk construction early in the first four years of the levy. Not only will this result in more sidewalks sooner, it should also help prevent sidewalks from getting cut in future years if some unforeseen issue arises that leads to cuts in the levy spending plan.

SDOT could get an even faster start if the Council dropped their proposed proviso on about half the levy funds for 2025 ($89 million), which would prevent the department from accessing those funds until they have presented a spending plan that the council approves. The council could instead request a spending plan by a certain date without holding up the funds, and they can always take action at that point if they want to change something. SDOT has a huge amount of work to complete in just eight years, including the time-consuming process of finding, hiring and onboarding new staff. Getting a slow start on Move Seattle projects was a huge problem for the previous levy, and a mistake the city should not repeat. The Council should not get in their way unnecessarily.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has put out an action alert urging folks to contact Councilmembers with a set of asks outlined at the bottom of this post. You can find documents regarding the Council’s budget amendments via the 2025-26 budget’s Legistar page. Many are within the “proposed consent amendment package,” though the final outstanding changes are in the “amendments for individual vote.” You may also need to reference Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed budget, which is found on a completely different website. The Council is debating amendments this week and will make their final votes on Tuesday and Thursday next week.

As part of the consent package, City Council has proposed creating a new $7 million per year Council District Fund within the SDOT budget for “neighborhood-scale traffic safety improvements and other district transportation priorities at the direction of the City Council.” In other words, a council slush fund. This would be a rare diversion from the usual way council and mayoral duties are divided in Seattle since Council rarely ever “directs” a department. Usually, the council is limited to providing (or placing conditions on) funding and setting official policy, but the actions of the departments nearly always go through the mayor.

I know “slush funds” have a bad rep, but I’m very interested to see how this new fund works in practice. It could be nice for Councilmembers to actually be able to respond more quickly to reasonable smallish requests from constituents. It’s frustrating for everyone when, say, a group of neighbors ask for a stop sign only to run into a dead end trying to get it onto SDOT’s workplan. But I’m sure the quality of return the public gets from these investments will vary greatly depending on the Councilmember directing the funds. I am also very interested to see what happens if a councilmember directs a project that the mayor opposes. Whose “direction” will win?

There are a handful of items that are still up for debate. We reported yesterday about the Council’s proposed actions to come up with a plan to shut down the South Lake Union Streetcar and remove the Center City Streetcar from the capital improvements list, so I won’t go into that again here.

Councilmember Sara Nelson has proposed a pointless and frankly obnoxious amendment that would “Request that SDOT provide a report on the performance measures and evaluation criteria used for consideration of bus-only lanes.” Specifically, she wants the report to detail how SDOT evaluates things like the “impact on general traffic capacity and congestion” and “any measures SDOT may take to mitigate potential underperformance.” Nelson and the rest of the City Council just passed a massive policy document called the Seattle Transportation Plan, and it includes meticulous explanations for how and why the city will make various transportation improvements including bus-only lanes. Here’s the transit section (PDF), which has a whole section starting on page T-62 about “defining success” that lists all the ways SDOT will measure outcomes from transit investments. Nelson either doesn’t understand what she voted for when approving the Seattle Transportation Plan or she is trying to undermine it. For example, the city very intentionally shifted to metrics that “prioritize person-throughput rather than vehicle throughput,” (page T-66) not metrics that prioritize the “impact on general traffic capacity.” Council should vote no on this one.

The transportation amendment that has gotten the most attention (other than the streetcar) is probably Councilmember Saka’s $2 million project in the consent package to allow left turns into the Refugee and Immigrant Family Center Bilingual Preschool. This is the site of the Delridge Way SW centerline curb that Saka infamously compared to the Trump border wall in an email years before he ran for City Council, as reported by Publicola. We addressed this location and those emails with Councilmember Saka in an introductory interview at the start of the year when he was named Chair of the Transportation Committee. That little curb, which prevents left turns into and out of the preschool his kids attended, was one frustration that helped set him down the path to running for office. The inflammatory border wall comment is hanging over the conversation about this amendment, but that annoying curb is one symptom of larger and genuinely frustrating issues with the Delridge design.

If I were to advise Councilmember Saka on this, I would suggest clearing the air about the border wall comparison. Mea culpa. Then expand the scope of this amendment to address issues at the core of the Delridge design problem so that the benefits expand across the neighborhood rather than just this one preschool, which feels a bit too specific for a public investment of this scale. Folks at the preschool were not the only ones who were ignored during the creation of this Durkan-era planning monstrosity. Many of the oddities on the street design (like the center buffer areas that look like turn lanes but aren’t or the fact that there’s only one bike lane on a two-way street) are because the street has three lanes southbound (one general, one bus and one bike) and one lane northbound, which is pure nonsense. Traffic is not heaver in one direction than the other, so why on earth would the road be designed this way? It’s as though the street thinks people head south and never come back. This is the actual source of Councilmember Saka’s issue. That center line curb is only needed because people would have to turn across multiple lanes plus the bike lane, a scenario we know to be potentially dangerous. The curb itself is not the problem, it’s a symptom of the street design’s illness. With a left turn pocket instead of a second southbound lane, people would only need to turn across one lane plus the bike lane, which is easier to do safely. All the unmarked crosswalks along Delridge would also become much safer with only one lane in each direction, another benefit. The primary tradeoff would be that southbound buses would need to use in-lane stops the way northbound buses already do, and SDOT staff would need to check that this would not negatively impact transit service. It would also be amazing if this project could add the missing northbound bike lane to the street because it makes no sense to have a protected bike lane in only one direction. I’d go as far as to say the Delridge street design is downright embarrassing to the city and the RapidRide name.

Below is the text of the amendment as currently written. Hopefully Councilmember Saka will do a rewrite before final passage:

This Council Budget Action (CBA) would impose a proviso on $2 million of appropriations in the Seattle Department of Transportation’s (SDOT’s) budget to make improvements to Delridge Way SW near the SW Holly St right-of-way to allow for left-turn ingress and egress from adjoining properties, including the Refugee and Immigrant Family Center Bilingual Preschool. These improvements would resolve access conflicts with the operation of the Delridge RapidRide service. It is the Council’s expectation that SDOT shall deliver these improvements, and that SDOT will begin project development and implementation no later than August 1, 2025.

One small note is that the revised budget reverses about $8 million over two years that the mayor’s initial levy-free budget had planned to add for “protected bike lanes and transit corridor improvements,” largely work that had been delayed past the end of the Move Seattle Levy. The plan from the start was to instead use Seattle Transportation Levy funds for these projects if voters approved it, which they did. When I initially saw the reduction in bike lane spending, I was concerned. But after a lot of budget diving and searching (can Seattle please make this process easier to follow?), I finally figured out that the “cuts” were from the mayor’s proposed budget, which had to be written assuming the levy would fail. The mayor’s office had cobbled together funds to finish projects that went past the Move Seattle Levy end point so that even if voters did not approve the levy, those projects could still be completed. Once the levy passed, those cobbled together funds were removed as planned. So really this change is not a problem, but I am leaving this paragraph here just in case someone else discovers those apparent “cuts” and has the same concern I did.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways sent out an action alert calling for the following budget changes:

1. No cuts to Accessibility. There is a massive backlog to make our streets accessible for everyone. Funding from the newly passed transportation levy will make large investments in accessibility, but unfortunately the City Council is proposing to cut some of existing ADA funding in the mayor’s proposed budget. The levy is meant to be additive, not a replacement for existing funds. 
2. Don’t undo valuable safety projects. An amendment proposed by Councilmember Saka would spend $2M of taxpayers’ dollars to remove a safety barrier that prevents an illegal left turn into a parking lot on Delridge Way SW. Traffic safety barriers prevent the hitting and killing of pedestrians.
3. Do not hold Levy funding hostage. Council already approved this levy proposal in July before sending the package to voters. But now they’re proposing a proviso on half the levy, or $89M. This would delay SDOT hiring new staff and hinder their ability to advance projects quickly in 2025, and holds hostage funding that voters just approved by a landslide.
4. Automated camera revenue needs to go back into traffic safety. The 2025 budget includes an expansion of automated school zone speed cameras while diverting revenue from automated enforcement away from physical street improvements that keep kids safe on their way to school. Any automated enforcement cameras should be a temporary solution, and all revenue should go towards physical street improvements.
5. We also stand in support of the Solidarity Budget Coalition’s push against austerity budgeting. We need to shift funding from criminalization to invest in community needs and pass new progressive revenue to adequately fund our city’s needs. See here for more details.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

CM Saka budget proposal would create plan to end service on SLU Streetcar

The future has become even bleaker for the low-ridership South Lake Union (“SLU”) Streetcar line as Transportation Committee Chair Rob Saka has proposed funding a plan for how to wind down and end service on the line. The budget changes would no actually end service, but they set the stage to do so as early as next year’s budget. The action could set up the city to finally make a decision about the streetcar once and for all.

As Seattle Bike Blog argued in August, Seattle decided in 2015 to make the SLU streetcar a dead end when SDOT chose RapidRide bus service on the Fairview/Eastlake/Roosevelt corridor rather than a streetcar extension. The streetcar line’s operating budget sits at $4.4 million per year to serve about 500 weekday trips on average. Ridership peaked in 2017 before SDOT added transit-only lanes to Westlake Ave to coincide with expanded King County Metro bus service along much of the streetcar’s route. In my previous post, several SLU transit riders said they just hop on whatever comes first, a bus or the streetcar. The under-construction RapidRide J line will further improve bus transit service in the SLU neighborhood when it begins operations as early as 2027. So even those 500 daily riders would likely not be stranded without the streetcar. Metro just deleted the Route 20 bus with little fanfare, for example, and that deletion (as well as other bus route changes and deletions) had a bigger negative impact on access to transit than closing the SLU Streetcar would.

Additionally, construction for the South Lake Union light rail station is expected to shut down SLU Streetcar service for eight years, so it makes sense for Seattle to decide sooner than later whether the city sees a future for the streetcar beyond that construction. If the city wants to preserve service they could build 2,000 feet of additional track to bypass the Link station closure, but that would only make sense if we are committing to this thing long-term. If not, then we may as well get the tracks out of the roadway and focus on creating efficient bus pathways. Removing or covering the tracks would also eliminate major hazards for people riding bicycles around the neighborhood, preventing injuries and improving bike circulation within the neighborhood. Removing the tracks may even lead to more new bike trips per day than the streetcar would carry if it kept operating in its current state.

The only possible future for the SLU streetcar line would be to connect to the planned Center City Connector streetcar (AKA “Culture Connector”) through downtown along 1st Avenue and Stewart Street. However, construction on that line remains stalled, and it has a huge funding gap. Seattle Bike Blog has also voiced serious concerns about bike safety along the planned route. As Councilmember Saka noted in an interview with the Seattle Times, “The only viable path I see for ever doing that one would be to create a public-private partnership at some point.” Councilmember Bob Kettle has proposed removing the Center City Connector from SDOT’s capital improvements list, an amendment Saka supports.

The Downtown Seattle Association (“DSA”) pushed back against the proposal to kill the SLU Streetcar line, arguing to the Urbanist, “We’re seeing more residents, workers and visitors in downtown and now is not the time to take existing mobility options off the table. […] With looming major transportation projects like Revive I-5 impacting our network’s capacity, we need to ensure the transit modes we already have downtown are functioning optimally, safely and a providing great experience.”

Seattle Subway has also created an online petition to save the streetcar, arguing:

While the SLU Streetcar suffers from low ridership, it is widely attributed to the lack of connectivity rather than anything inherent to streetcars. We cannot fix the design mistakes of the past, but we can certainly make improvements. SDOT ridership figures for 2022 put SLU streetcar at 500 daily riders and First Hill streetcar at 2,500 daily riders, with ridership trending upwards since the pandemic. By SDOT’s own estimate, the proposed Culture Connector extension would attract 28,000 daily riders, making it more popular than the busiest bus line in the city. This city council also called out the Culture Connector as a key improvement in their own Seattle Transportation Plan which they passed in April. Rob Saka himself said at the time, “It’s time we commit to our transportation goals and give them [SDOT] the resources they need to succeed. That’s what this plan is all about.” They are now prepared to go back on that commitment.

The SLU Streetcar was initially funded by a LID in the area as a way to encourage development of the area into the business and tech hub it is today. So from that perspective, it was a huge success. But as a transit service, not so much. I worry about transit supporters taking the L off someone else’s forehead and putting on their own. Providing effective transit service was not the primary force behind this particular streetcar, so transit folks should not feel like this is something they need to own. The SLU Streetcar is a simulacra of a good transit system, but Metro’s bus system is an actual good transit system. The most important transit priority is to make sure the city builds more bus priority improvements in the area, preserving and improving on the bus-only lanes created when the RapidRide C extended into the area. Perhaps Metro buses could even reuse of some of the streetcar infrastructure like the transit-only pathway along Valley Street. The worst case scenario would be for the streetcar to be removed without any effort to improve bus service.

While the SLU Streetcar’s future certainly hinges on the Center City Streetcar, is the inverse also true? The city’s 20-year plan for transit calls for a 1st Ave Streetcar that connects Seattle Center/Lower Queen Anne to Pioneer Square and the First Hill Streetcar on Jackson Street as well as a 1st Ave extension into SoDo. Would some or all of this line be viable without the SLU connection? Perhaps rather than removing the Center City Streetcar from the capital projects list, Council could add questions to its request for a SLU Streetcar wind down plan about what impact such an action would have on a possible Center City line. This would give the city one more year to give the Center City Streetcar the proper public debate it deserves. Let’s lay out all the facts and options, and then make a damn decision.

If businesses and developers want to foot the bill for both the Center City and South Lake Union streetcar lines, then I’m sure city leaders will shift to support them. Otherwise, well, you may want to make an effort to go out of your way to ride the thing at least once before it is shut down so you can say you did it and buy that clever t-shirt on sale at Pike Place Market.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

Dharmendra Yadav On Union Budget 2024 LIVE: बीजेपी पर संसद में भड़के धर्मेंद्र यादव! Akhilesh Yadav

#dharmendrayadavlive #dharmendrayadav #dharmendrayadav #parliamentsession2024 #loksabhaspeaker #parliamentmonsoonsession #budget2024 #livenews #breakingnews #budget2024 #live #unionbudget2024 #2024budget #livenews Dharmendra Yadav On Union Budget 2024 LIVE: बीजेपी पर संसद में भड़के धर्मेंद्र यादव! Akhilesh Yadav #swadesh #hindinews #latestnews #topnews…

https://spinelessnews.com/dharmendra-yadav-on-union-budget-2024-live-%e0%a4%ac%e0%a5%80%e0%a4%9c%e0%a5%87%e0%a4%aa%e0%a5%80-%e0%a4%aa%e0%a4%b0-%e0%a4%b8%e0%a4%82%e0%a4%b8%e0%a4%a6-%e0%a4%ae%e0%a5%87%e0%a4%82-%e0%a4%ad/

Dharmendra Yadav Angry On Budget 2024 LIVE: BJP पर संसद में भड़के धर्मेंद्र यादव! Akhilesh Yadav| SP

#dharmendrayadavlive #dharmendrayadav #dharmendrayadav #parliamentsession2024 #loksabhaspeaker #parliamentmonsoonsession #budget2024 #livenews #breakingnews #budget2024 #live #unionbudget2024 #2024budget #livenews Dharmendra Yadav Angry On Budget 2024 LIVE: BJP पर संसद में भड़के धर्मेंद्र यादव! Akhilesh Yadav| SP #swadesh #hindinews #latestnews #topnews…

https://spinelessnews.com/dharmendra-yadav-angry-on-budget-2024-live-bjp-%e0%a4%aa%e0%a4%b0-%e0%a4%b8%e0%a4%82%e0%a4%b8%e0%a4%a6-%e0%a4%ae%e0%a5%87%e0%a4%82-%e0%a4%ad%e0%a4%a1%e0%a4%bc%e0%a4%95%e0%a5%87-%e0%a4%a7%e0%a4%b0/

Disability benefit won’t lift Canadians in need above poverty line: advocates
Despite being touted by the Liberals as the budget’s largest line item, critics say the funding won't help the 1.4 million disabled people living in poverty across Canada.
#globalnews #Canada #Politics #2024Budget #Budget
https://globalnews.ca/news/10440310/disability-benefit-2024-budget-poverty/

Disability benefit won’t lift Canadians in need above poverty line: advocates
Despite being touted by the Liberals as the budget’s largest line item, critics say the funding won't help the 1.4 million disabled people living in poverty across Canada.
#globalnews #Canada #Politics #2024Budget #Budget
https://globalnews.ca/news/10440310/disability-benefit-2024-budget-poverty/

Disability benefit won’t lift Canadians in need above poverty line: advocates
Despite being touted by the Liberals as the budget’s largest line item, critics say the funding won't help the 1.4 million disabled people living in poverty across Canada.
#globalnews #Canada #Politics #2024Budget #Budget
https://globalnews.ca/news/10440310/disability-benefit-2024-budget-poverty/

Canada has a productivity problem. Will Budget 2024 help?
Canada’s 2024 federal budget promises about $7 billion to boost productivity. But experts question whether the moves in this budget will actually work.
#globalnews #Canada #Economy #2024Budget #2024FederalBudget
https://globalnews.ca/news/10429984/budget-2024-canada-productivity/

Canada has a productivity problem. Will Budget 2024 help?
Canada’s 2024 federal budget promises about $7 billion to boost productivity. But experts question whether the moves in this budget will actually work.
#globalnews #Canada #Economy #2024Budget #2024FederalBudget
https://globalnews.ca/news/10429984/budget-2024-canada-productivity/

COMMENTARY: Canada has a productivity problem. Will Budget 2024 help?
Canada’s 2024 federal budget promises about $7 billion to boost productivity. But experts question whether the moves in this budget will actually work.
#globalnews #Canada #Commentary #Economy #2024Budget
https://globalnews.ca/news/10429984/budget-2024-canada-productivity/

Growing population means record spending in 2024 Sask. budget
Overall spending in this year’s budget is up $1.5 billion compared with last year, and with it comes a $273.2-million deficit.
#globalnews #Canada #2024Budget #SaskatchewanBudget #ScottMoe
https://globalnews.ca/news/10376419/saskatchewan-budget-2024-record-spending-growing-population/

Growing population means record spending in 2024 Sask. budget
Overall spending in this year’s budget is up $1.5 billion compared with last year, and with it comes a $273.2-million deficit.
#globalnews #Canada #2024Budget #SaskatchewanBudget #ScottMoe
https://globalnews.ca/news/10376419/saskatchewan-budget-2024-record-spending-growing-population/

Kingston city council set for 2024 budget deliberations
As Kingstonians adjust to the new year, Kingston city council is busy preparing for another year of budget deliberations, headed by the mayor.
#globalnews #Canada #Politics #2024Budget #CityCouncil
https://globalnews.ca/news/10207113/kingston-city-council-2024-budget-deliberations/

Kingston city council set for 2024 budget deliberations
As Kingstonians adjust to the new year, Kingston city council is busy preparing for another year of budget deliberations, headed by the mayor.
#globalnews #Canada #Politics #2024Budget #CityCouncil
https://globalnews.ca/news/10207113/kingston-city-council-2024-budget-deliberations/

Germany changes budget deal after farmers’ protests, cuts marine fund https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/germany-changes-budget-deal-after-farmers-protests-cuts-marine-fund/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #2024budget #budgetcrisis #CemÖzdemir #farmersprotests #Germany

Germany changes budget deal after farmers’ protests, cuts marine fund https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/germany-changes-budget-deal-after-farmers-protests-cuts-marine-fund/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #2024budget #budgetcrisis #CemÖzdemir #farmersprotests #Germany

OECD warns France’s deficit projections are too optimistic https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/oecd-warns-frances-deficit-projections-are-too-optimistic/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #2024budget #BrunoLeMaire #deficit #fiscalconsolidation