(The Center Square) – Seattle is already looking for ways to generate more transportation funding, just two years after voters approved a $1.55 billion property tax, the largest transportation levy in city history.
The Seattle Department of Transportation published applications online for the Transportation Funding Task Force this week. The initiative is supported by $1.5 million to $2 million in funding from the 2024 transportation levy, which started at a rate of 65 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2025.
The eight-year levy currently amounts to about $522 in annual taxes for a home valued at $804,000.
The new task force will focus on identifying additional funding for what voters told SDOT was their top priorities when they passed the levy, addressing Seattle’s deteriorating sidewalks, bridges and streets.
“[The group] will explore legally viable, near-term actionable approaches to generating transportation funding,” SDOT posted Tuesday. “This includes evaluating what can realistically be implemented under City authority, understanding tradeoffs, and identifying approaches that could be advanced near term.”
Applications close at the end of the month, with task force recommendations due by the end of 2027.
According to SDOT, members don’t need to be transportation or financial experts and could earn $75 an hour for what’s described as three to six hours of work per month if they demonstrate financial hardship.
Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka, who chairs the transportation committee, did not respond to a request from The Center Square for comment before publishing on Wednesday, and neither did SDOT’s communications team.
Mayor Katie Wilson released an annual report on the levy last month, framing the task force as a way to “explore long-term solutions.” Weeks later, SDOT is now looking for “near-term actionable approaches.”
Roughly $1.5 million of the funding earmarked for the new task force will be used to hire a consultant.
According to Wilson’s report, SDOT spent only $77 million of the 2024 levy funding last year, despite a $177.7 million 2025 budget, arguing that the design and planning work for these projects takes years.
“When many projects are in a planning or design phase, such as now at the start of the levy, we don’t expect to spend as much as when projects are in construction,” according to Wilson’s 2025 levy report.
Seattle underspent the most on street maintenance and modernization, bridges and pedestrian safety, with $31 million leftover for street work, $12 million for bridges and $10 million for pedestrian safety.
SDOT claims it’s still on track to fulfill its promises to voters, touting its progress in a recent blog post.
Charles Prestrud, director of the Washington Policy Center’s Coles Center for Transportation, says that voters will likely face an even larger proposal than the $1.55 billion levy by the time it expires in 2032.
“At the end of the eight-year levy, Seattle’s streets are going to be in worse condition than they are today,” Prestrud told The Center Square on Wednesday.
“They’ve let the condition of streets, bridges and sidewalks deteriorate to the point where it’s going to be far more expensive to fix them in the future,” he added.
Much of the levy revenue is allocated to addressing climate change, bicycle infrastructure and lighting.
Prestrud said Wilson and the council have a few options: reallocate some of the levy to fund sidewalk, bridge, and street paving projects; identify new funding sources; or let conditions deteriorate further.
“When it comes to raising revenue, the people in City Hall are very creative,” he told The Center Square.
