(The Center Square) – One year into Seattle’s $1.55 billion transportation levy, the Seattle Department of Transportation has fallen short of multiple 2025 performance targets, with officials now pinning their hopes on a yet-to-be-seated funding task force to get things back on track.
The eight-year Levy to Move Seattle, approved by voters in 2024, costs the median homeowner in Seattle $530 a year. This year, $176.8 million was allocated, but through September, SDOT is significantly trailing the targets set in its own 2025 Transportation Levy Delivery Plan.
SDOT Major Projects Manager Megan Hoyt acknowledged Tuesday that many new programs needing more thoughtful programming did not have many deliverables in 2025. Street maintenance and modernization – the largest category at $43 million – remains well behind schedule.
The delivery plan outlined 320 blocks of new sidewalks and sidewalk alternatives by 2029. The department said 36.5 blocks of new sidewalks are complete or are in construction through September.
Only 12,000 of the planned 34,000 sidewalk spot repairs (35%) have been completed. SDOT has remarked 1,360 crosswalks – or about a quarter of all crosswalks in Seattle. That still falls short of the goal of up to 3,600 crosswalks established in the SDOT 2025 Transportation Levy Delivery Plan.
SDOT planned to inspect 25 little-known areaways, or underground structures beneath sidewalks, and establish a process for researching and documenting ownership of areaways. Through September, the department inspected 12 areaways in 2025.
SDOT officials told committee members that a Transportation Funding Task Force is close to being established, which Hoyt said will have to handle an important task for the city: developing policy and funding recommendations for Seattle’s long-term transportation needs. The department has already begun efforts to develop the taskforce, including selecting consultants, but it is not seated yet.
“Our end goal is that by Jan. 1, 2029, we will have kind of a long-range strategy to invest some of those main investments and so we are intending to get this transportation funding task force seated in early 2026,” SDOT Levy Portfolio Manager Serena Lehman said during the Transportation Committee meeting on Tuesday.
Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka – the transportation committee chair – said SDOT is off to “a very strong start” for implementing the levy, but noted the importance of delivering on important work mapped out.
“We also need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time so to speak and so looking forward to continuing to support that effort to stand that important body up once and for all noting that there are some past-due deliverables and milestones that we need to reach,” he said.
SDOT’s 2026 Levy Delivery Plan is currently under development and is on track to be submitted by January 31, 2026.
