SDOT 24-010QP: Low-Pollution Neighborhood Planning (FHWA)

Project Description:

SDOT received a Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) federal planning grant to develop an implementation and funding plan (Plan) to meet the Mayor’s commitment. SDOT seeks consultant services to support low-pollution neighborhood planning and the development of the implementation and funding plan (Plan). As the City of Seattle continues to plan for climate readiness, we require a Plan that will:

• Improve health and safety
  • Reduce vehicle-miles traveled and increase low- and zero-emission trips through improved access to mobility choices and people-prioritized streets
  • Improve health outcomes in areas with poor air quality, noise pollution, and high concentration of adverse health impacts (e.g., asthma, heart attacks), and high concentration of serious or fatal collisions
  • Improve livability for children and older adults through the reallocation of space from vehicles to people-oriented public spaces
  • Promote activity and public engagement for older adults and children, who benefit from streets without vehicle traffic and places where people of all ages and all abilities can stop and rest
  • Increase access to open space and increase social interaction to positively impact mental well-being, reduce isolation, and increase physical activity
• Increase community connectedness
  • Increase community access to mobility choices including shared mobility and micromobility, active transportation, transit, and micro-transit
  • Make it safe, affordable, and more comfortable for people of all ages and abilities to walk, bike, and roll for short trips in a neighborhood
  • Increase investments in climate resilient streetscapes and neighborhoods
  • Create places in our street rights-of-way where people can gather, connect, and play
  • Increase community climate preparedness through the design of streets and public spaces around community resiliency hubs
• Improve governance
  • By using a community-centered approach in the planning and implementation of low-pollution neighborhoods, seek to build community capacity and resiliency that will equip communities to better respond to the impacts of climate change
  • Establish an agile project delivery and monitoring methodology to increase SDOT’s responsiveness to changing context in project areas, thereby building trust and sustaining relationships between the City and its communities

The project team will build from work the City has done to advance low-pollution neighborhoods. For example, staff have developed the initial list of 7 low-pollution neighborhood focus areas. Project deliverables include a low-pollution neighborhood toolkit, performance metrics, understanding implementation gaps, conceptual design and costing, and neighborhood-level planning efforts in the initial focus areas. The work is anticipated to be completed by end of Q4 2025.

Estimated funding available to support the Plan’s scope of work is not to exceed $1.2 million, subject to budget approval, including a minimum $60,000 set-aside to support direct community collaboration.

The City of Seattle, through its Department of Transportation, SDOT, requests Statements of Qualifications to support the planning of low-pollution neighborhoods in Seattle. In December 2022, Mayor Bruce Harrell signed an Executive Order directing City departments to work together to prioritize and expand actions that equitably reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) within the transportation sector. One of the actions the Mayor called for is to develop an implementation and funding plan to support having at least three low-pollution neighborhoods in place by Q1 2028.