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SeaShore Transportation Forum

Mission:

SeaShore's mission is to serve as an interjurisdictional forum for information-sharing, advocacy, and coordination to resolve transportation issues, and to establish priorities for implementing integrated multi-modal transportation projects and programs consistent with the goals of the Growth Management Act.

History:

The SeaShore Transportation Forum was initially formed in response to the King County Metro Transit Long Range Policy Framework, adopted in 1993, that divided Metro service into three geographic subareas for the purpose of allocating new transit service subsidy.  The “Seattle-North King County” subarea created for this purpose included only the cities of Seattle, Shoreline, and Lake Forest Park, and King County.  Sound Transit created a similar subarea and adopted a subarea equity policy as part of Sound Move.

In about 1995, the SeaShore Transportation Forum began regular meetings, with participation by the City of Seattle, King County, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, Snohomish County, Bothell and the Kenmore Governance Committee, which later became the City of Kenmore.  The primary focus was to develop recommendations for the subarea for the first Six Year Plan for Metro.  Recommendations were developed by consensus, and the Forum was effective in providing input to the first Six Year Plan.  In addition, the Forum endorsed the RTA’s Final Plan, “Sound Move,” and provided joint recommendations to King County Executive Gary Locke concerning 1997 and 1998 transit service priorities.

By 2001, participation in the Forum waned, and only a few elected officials attended meetings.  As a result, invitations to participate in the Forum were extended to other cities in east King County and south Snohomish County to address cross-county and subarea issues.   Woodinville, Mountlake Terrace and Edmonds responded and became members of the Forum.  Recommendations from the group continued to be developed by consensus.

As the Forum became more established, more formal procedures were approved for making recommendations, and each participating jurisdiction was given two votes.  In the process of approving a new interlocal agreement in 2002, the Forum agreed that only the jurisdictions within the boundaries of the subarea would be permitted to vote on recommendations involving to the allocation of financial resources for Metro Transit service and Sound Transit plans.

SeaShore's initial focus was the development advisor recommendations for a six-year plan for King County Metro Transit.  In 1999, and again in 2002, SeaShore participants approved an agreement that formalized its membership and identified a formal role for the SeaShore Transportation Forum in providing advisory input into the following:

  • Development of the King County Metro Six Year Transit Development Plan  
  • Implementation of transit service priorities
  • Recommendations for TEA-21 regional project identification and countywide project selection
  • Modifications to Sound Move Plan implementation related services and projects, and development of future Phase II high capacity planning efforts

Goals: To fulfill this mission, SeaShore adopted the following goals in May of 1997:

  • Develop and adopt a package of transportation priorities based on land use and cost/benefit plans that improves interjurisdictional mobility, freight and goods movement, safety, and addresses peak hour congestion.
  • Jointly implement adopted priorities through leadership education and advocacy and public involvement within communities, cities and counties of the region.
  • Adopt and implement a strategy for increasing funding for multimodal transportation improvements and programs

The Co-Chairs for 2012 are Councilmember John Wright of Lake Forest Park and Councilmember Chris Eggen of Shoreline.

SeaShore Transportation Forum 2010 Annual Report  (456kb PDF File)

Contact Us:

Office of Regional Transportation Planning
Department of Transportation
201 South Jackson Street MS KSC-TR-0814
Seattle, WA 98104-3856
(206) 263-4710
sally.marks@kingcounty.gov