Seattle is certainly experiencing growing pains these days. Its population has ballooned nearly 60,000 between 2010 and 2015, according to the city Office of Planning & Community Development, with neighborhoods circling the downtown core taking the brunt of it.
With it comes a swelling homeless population, which — based on the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness’ One Night Count last Friday, Jan. 29 — had increased 5 percent in Seattle alone. The count excludes those living in greenbelts near and under Interstate 5, which were considered too dangerous to enter, and shelters and transitional housing, which were still tallying their numbers.
And the student population is expected to increase from 52,000 students last school year to 60,000 by 2020, said Seattle Public Schools demographer Natasha M. Rivers in her “Seattle Public Schools and Housing Report.”
Seattle’s aging infrastructure can’t keep up.
In addition to authorizing tax increases for preschool education, Metro Transit bus service and a parks district in recent years, Seattle approved the $930 million Move Seattle transportation levy last November to tackle the growing list of maintenance projects and implement new improvements.
Seattle Public Schools is asking voters to approve two special levies, totaling more than $1.22 billion, next Tuesday, Feb. 9. The levies include $88 million to build an addition at Ingraham High School in North Seattle and renovate three currently closed schools, and $15 million to purchase more property. This is in addition to monies for the upkeep of the existing school buildings, which need earthquake retrofitting, upgrades and technology support, as well as more pay for teachers’ salaries.
Mayor Ed Murray is expected to double this November’s $145 million housing levy, which will include substantial funding for permanent housing for the homeless.
And we can’t forget that the Washington State Department of Transportation will soon need to replace large sections of I-5’s fracturing roadway through Seattle, instead of patching and filling. The state Legislature will need to find the money somewhere for this.
When will the requests for more funding from taxpayers ever stop and for such soaring amounts?
Seattle may be home to Starbucks, Microsoft, Amazon, Expedia (as of the end of 2018), but for it to become a world-class city that we all think it is or could be, we — residents and big business — need to pay the big bucks to have that.
And it means spending a lot more on the basics first before offering up amenities that residents may not want or need, such as bike-sharing programs and painted crosswalks. No number of such amenities will hide the cracked sidewalks and potholes if we ride or walk on or through them. And no one visiting or planning to move to this “world-class city” will want to, either.