On Tuesday morning, SDOT Director Greg Spotts announced his intent to resign in February from the position he’s held for just over two years:
This morning I notified Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell of my intent to resign my position effective 2/12/25.
On a personal level, moving to Seattle alone has been hard, particularly living so far away from my mother in CA and father in NY. In 2025 I will pursue professional opportunities closer to my loved ones.
I depart the Puget Sound with great enthusiasm for Seattle’s future and profound gratitude to Mayor Harrell for the opportunity to serve a dynamic, innovative and fast growing city with unlimited potential.
I’m also very thankful for the community members who welcomed me so warmly 🙏 ❤️
Greg Spotts came to Seattle after working for over a decade in transportation capital project leadership in Los Angeles. In his two years as Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, he vastly sped up capital project delivery as the 2015 Levy to Move Seattle reached its end, making systemic changes in the City’s path toward Vision Zero by creating a new Chief Safety Officer role within SDOT and establishing No Right on Red as the default setting for any new or modified traffic signal, and maintained a public-facing focus on project delivery, often visiting project crews on weekends to highlight the fundamental work the department does.
PubliCola notes how more recently, Director Spotts has been playing defense against a new conservative council with significantly different transportation funding priorities than the one who approved his hiring, such as practically killing the Center City Connector (rebranded the Culture Connector by Spotts), the elimination of a community-initiated traffic safety project fund, and removal of a hardened centerline on Delridge preventing illegal left-hand turns.
The position of SDOT director has been a revolving door over the past decade as a series of one-term mayors chose to replace the previous administration’s department head with their own. Although his tenure will have been relatively short, his impact on the city and his department will be felt for years. He brought new ideas, reached out to many community organizations, and accelerated many pedestrian, bus and bike infrastructure improvements. His departure coincides with him teeing up SDOT’s kickoff of the recently-approved Transportation Levy. His visible focus on walkability, transit accessibility, and overall dedication to his role as Seattle’s Director of Transportation will be missed.
With Seattle’s population growth slower than the prior decade (which was remarkable at 128K between 2010 and 2020 compared to 18K from 2020 to 2023) the interest in making system changes is going to wane. People generally don’t like change if other things don’t change.
There are also many streets in terrible shape. While there is a tendency to think that bad condition streets encourages slower speeds and less driving, they pose a significantly greater hazard to pedestrians and bicyclists.
SDOT has also added lots more signals that were installed for minor streets and pedestrian crossings. They require maintenance. I notice that malfunctioning signals are more common every year here in Seattle.
All of these things impact what happens at SDOT. I dont see the overall passion nor the need for large scale system changes like there was. The increasing need appears to maintain existing pavement and signals. Even things like the recent installation of no right on red signs in places that frankly don’t need them seem more cosmetic as opposed to practical.
It seems better to hire a new director who is better at keeping the streets in good working order than in putting their stamp on making changes in the future.
“People generally don’t like change if other things don’t change. ”
Even if the status quo is less than optimal? People are tired of so many decades and things still aren’t up to the level of a convenient city. They don’t want to go through more decades of that. And the population IS higher than it was in 2000 or 2010, so more people are concerned and a larger city has less excuses for not doing it.
Several major things are changing in the next few years that will have transportation impacts in Seattle.
– R2O mandates: Amazon is going back to 5 days in office in January. Under Trump’s second administration, there will be general pressure to double down on R2O.
– Multiple Link extensions are opening up. Redmond and the Lake Washington crossing on the east side along with Judkins Park. Fed. Way from the south. This will mean more people entering and moving around the city without a car even if the population growth is more modest.
– Revive-I5 will have major impacts on car traffic in North Seattle, for the next several years. A lot of traffic will divert onto local roads, e.g. 80th ST NE, Winona Ave., Aurora Ave., Greenwood and Freemont Ave., 15th and 25th Ave. NE.
– The city will likely be getting a new NBA team in the coming years, dramatically increasing the events at the Climate Pledge Arena.
These changes demand more than just incremental, spot adjustments!
The only definite new Link stations inside Seattle are Judkins Park and Pinehurst/ 130th. West Seattle’s 3 and Graham are in development but not assured — and that’s pretty much it for the next 15-20 years. In contrast, Seattle saw 16 stations open between 2009-2021 or the last 15 years. So the Link-based system change is over.
And I don’t see adding an NBA team as terribly significant to traffic either. The average Mariners game gets 31K and the average NBA game gets 18K. Kraken averages 18K per game too.
Sure Seattle will have changes. But we just had so much big happen in the past 15 years. The next 5-10 years look very calm in contrast.
@Al S.
“ So the Link-based system change is over.”
LOL.
Over just the next two years we will have DRLE open (2 more stations), Full ELE open (2 more stations), and FWLE open (3 more stations). That is a lot of improvement!
Regional transportation is about more than just travel inside the Seattle urban core. It is about fast, easy, and reliable transportation throughout the region. That is what the expanded Link system will provide, and it will be transformative.
I can’t wait.
@ Lazarus:
I said INSIDE SEATTLE. The post is about SDOT.
Sure the 2 Line trains will arrive and more riders will use existing stations — but those changes are very minor to what has happened since 2009.
Sure Seattle will have changes. But we just had so much big happen in the past 15 years. The next 5-10 years look very calm in contrast.
So what? That doesn’t change what we’ve been saying — people want major improvements. It is like Denny. Will it get a lot worse because of the Sonics (if they return) or the Amazon mandate (to return to the office)? Who cares — things are terrible now! Denny is a mess, every single day. Do you think the people behind this movement: https://fixthel8.com/ are just going to quit, saying “Oh well, things aren’t getting worse.” Please.
Downtown Redmond and cross-lake should be solid openings. Federal Way will be just like Lynnwood: the people on the train will be people who formerly were on buses. There’s no “there” anywhere along Link south of Sea-Tac. Trains need dense town centers to grow ridership.
I’m actually mildly optimistic about Federal Way Link, but to Al’s point it shouldn’t matter much for Seattle. But it should matter for that neck of the woods. A lot of people who work at SeaTac live to the south of it. Highline is a community college and while not a big destination, probably the second biggest destination south of Stadium (although Columbia City has plenty of bars and clubs).
Of course the big question is whether ST truncates the buses in Federal Way or not. If they do then you will see a significant increase in Link ridership (with plenty of fanfare) while overall transit ridership goes down. Because if you really are trying to get to Seattle from south of SeaTac, Link isn’t the best option — an express bus (or Sounder when it is running) is much better. You can’t make transit worse for a lot of people while also being better for some and expect overall ridership to go up.
On the other hand if they keep the expresses but stop at Federal Way (on the way) then it is the best of both worlds. Riders get their express to Seattle and other riders get their fast trip to Highline CC and SeaTac. The other issue is whether ST finally fulfills their promise of fifteen minute all-day service from Seattle to Tacoma. This was suspended because of the driver shortage. If they manage to hire enough drivers then things would be looking pretty good. Otherwise it is merely adequate.
“The only definite new Link stations inside Seattle are Judkins Park and Pinehurst/ 130th. West Seattle’s 3 and Graham are in development but not assured … Seattle saw 16 stations open between 2009-2021 or the last 15 years. So the Link-based system change is over.”
Suburban Link extensions mean more people will take Link to Seattle. They may make more total trips or shift more toward transit because Link will be more convenient and frequent and have more one-seat ride combinations for many trip pairs. That in turn will require more feeder runs in Seattle.
When U-Link opened, asdf2 found much it easier to go from north of U-Village to Capitol Hill for dinner or activities, so he did. He rode his scooter or bused or jogged to UW Station to get to Link, but that need not concern us.
When Northgate Link opened, and much moreso with Lynnwood Link, people in Shoreline and Lynnwood found it much easier to get to north Seattle (Roosevelt, U-District) and Capitol Hill, so they did.
We can expect the same with East Link and Federal Way Link. Maybe not as much, but still some. Right now the only one-seat bus rides are: BellevueTC-downtown, BellevueTC-UDistrict, RedmondTech/downtown-downtown, RedmondTech/downtown-UDistrict. These run every 15 minutes weekdays, 15-30 minutes Saturday, 30 minutes Sunday and evenings. If you’re going beyond those endpoints, you have to transfer, and only a handful of Eastside routes run every 15 minutes weekdays, and only about 1 (the B) on weekends.
In contrast, the full 2 Line will run every 8-10 minutes for 18 hours a day every day, and will go to many more stations beyond the above endpoints, and a same-station transfer will also go to the south end every 8-10 minutes. The Eastside has never had anything like that.
The Federal Way Link cachement area I don’t know as well, but the same thing applies. Some people will switch from buses to Link or bus+Link combinations, Others will find service deteriorated and may stop taking transit (because south end distances are longer and Link is surface in Rainier/SODO so its travel time becomes less competitive than in the Eastside or north end, and there are no major activity areas between SeaTac and downtown unlike in the north). Others will be attracted to Link for new trip pairs that aren’t feasible on the current network.
Link also bypasses road congestion. I got caught in that today on the 550, westbound in the PM peak. We crawled all down Bellevue Way and all across I-90. That will go away with the full 2 Line.
@Al S.,
“ I said INSIDE SEATTLE. ”
You can’t just draw a little dashed line around one part of a larger transportation system and then claim, “This part is independent of all the rest. What happens elsewhere doesn’t affect it”. Transportation systems don’t work that way.
The expansion of Link to a truly regional system will have profound effects on travel within Seattle, and to/from Seattle. Ridership will of course go up, but ridership patterns will also change, and new trip pairs will become viable.
And a trip that has one end inside Seattle, but the other end across the city line in a different jurisdiction, is just as important to Seattleites as trips that are wholly within Seattle.
The expansion of Link to a truly regional system will also allow the bus based modes to adapt their route structures and redeploy their resources too. CT saw significant ridership gains when they deleted their commuter routes and pivoted to more local service and Link feeders.
“You can’t just draw a little dashed line around one part of a larger transportation system and then claim, “This part is independent of all the rest. What happens elsewhere doesn’t affect it”.
The SDOT streets and sidewalks end at the City limits. It literally is a dotted line of responsibility! While what happens a few miles away may affect Seattle itself indirectly, there aren’t staff nor weekly meetings at SDOT ruminating over them — be it the 167 and 509 projects or the Federal Way Link extension. The 405 project going on in Newcastle very likely impacts Seattle more than the Downtown Redmond Link Extension does.
I never said that it doesn’t. You are misinterpreting me. I only said that the system changes in the last 15 years has been fairly major and new things have been on SDOT’s plate. The next decade won’t have executive time and effort on new things in the next decade. SDOT will be much more about maintenance and repair. The referendum was much more about maintenance of sidewalks, streets and transit service than doing anything new.
I really don’t understand why some responses dispute this. It’s just so obvious to me.
Many/Most of the riders from those new Link stations will be going to Seattle, likely more than Bellevue, Redmond, and SeaTac combined. These people will have to be able to navigate within Seattle without their own car (bus, walk, bicycle, rideshare). There are also people doing reverse commutes starting in Seattle, e.g., commuting to Bellevue or Redmond. So this will definitely affect transportation IN Seattle, including roads, streets, bike lanes, bus lanes, and sidewalks that are IN Seattle and under SDOT’s umbrella. Granted, Link extension in and of itself will not be as impactful as the previous 15 years, but combined with other stuff going on in the region, it will be significant. Safety has not really been mentioned here, but Seattle is also on the wrong trajectory when it comes to traffic injuries and fatalities and property damage, which also seems to demand more than incremental spot changes to address.
@Brandon
Since surprisingly no one is actually addressing your top level comment I’ll take an attempt at it.
> R2O mandates: Amazon is going back to 5 days in office in January. Under Trump’s second administration, there will be general pressure to double down on R2O.
It’ll be interesting if this means much more peak ridership. Also if it means the return of more ST Express buss that were originally truncated.
> Multiple Link extensions are opening up… people entering and moving around the city
While it does mean more people moving around, peak ridership hasn’t quite recovered from pre-covid. I don’t think it’d change that much or like there won’t be any new bottlenecks.
> Revive-I5 will have major impacts on car traffic in North Seattle, for the next several years.
It’ll be quite “interesting” to see if the local roads are congested by cars trying to use it as a reroute path. Aurora Ave and the tunnel might more popular to use for a couple years from 2025 to 2027. Or also university bridge and eastlake might be filled with cars.
(Also we should probs have some article about the freeway impacts)
> There are also people doing reverse commutes starting in Seattle, e.g., commuting to Bellevue or Redmond. So this will definitely affect transportation IN Seattle, including roads, streets, bike lanes, bus lanes, and sidewalks that are IN Seattle and under SDOT’s umbrella.
For east side perhaps better enhancements to the montlake triangle for the 544/545 express busses connection.
I’m interested to see if people will use the rapidride G to link light rail a lot more or if they’d just exit at capitol hill station and walk the remainder. Or if say someone from federal way uses link and then rapidride D to reach ballard.
I don’t see the overall passion nor the need for large scale system changes like there was.
I disagree. Proposition One passed by 2/3. People want improvements of the sort that Spotts championed. His approach would have considered radical twenty years ago. But now — even in the face of a reactionary city council — it is the opposite. It is mainstream. People want major improvements to transit, biking and pedestrian infrastructure.
It should be noted that Proposition One is bigger than Move Seattle (even if you adjust for inflation). It is quite likely the measure would have passed even if it was twice as big. The council — acting against the electorate — pushed for a smaller package.
Proposition 1 was stated as mostly about maintenance and not system changes. Here is the Mayor’s press release about it:
https://harrell.seattle.gov/2024/11/08/seattle-voters-approve-transportation-levy-to-maintain-and-modernize-city-streets-with-paving-bridge-repairs-sidewalk-construction-and-connections-to-light-rail/
I think most Seattle residents understand that we are behind on decent sidewalks, pavement and bridges.
Proposition 1 was stated as mostly about maintenance and not system changes.
No it wasn’t. If it was, then it wouldn’t have been supported by every bike/pedestrian/transit group in the city. This was not a “maintenance” budget — quite the opposite. Just read the opposition argument (on the voter’s pamphlet):
Why should you pay the largest tax in city history, when it leaves bridges, streets, and sidewalks in dangerous disrepair while worsening traffic congestion?
Or read the Seattle Times editorial:
Does it deliver what the public wants while balancing the needs of special interests? (See the organizations that participated in the news release announcing the final levy package: Cascade Bicycle Club, Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Transportation Choices Coalition, others).
Got that? The Seattle Times is saying that the Transportation Choices Coalition and Cascade Bicycle Club had too much influence in the package.
The question remains — for $1.55 billion spent over eight years, will the average homeowner, renter, and business owner paying the tax see an appreciable improvement in Seattle roadways? The answer seems to be “No.”
The levy would spend $133.5 million on “Bicycle Safety.” …
It is basically saying that the proposal is the exact opposite of what you think people want. And yet voters rejected the Seattle Times argument in a landslide! People don’t want “just the basics”. Otherwise they would have voted “No”.
They want bike lanes. They want bus lanes. They want safe routes to schools and other pedestrian improvements. They want all the things that the Seattle Times — and Alex Pedersen — think are unnecessary.
I’m not sure where you get the idea that people don’t want these improvements. If anything, it showed that people wanted a lot more. The council was overly conservative (because it is a fairly inexperienced, somewhat reactionary council). They could have asked for a lot more and gotten a lot more. Because just like schools, people in the city want to spend more, not less.
I think the takeaway of the Levy to Move Seattle is that large (>$10M) projects are beyond the point of diminishing returns on infrastructure dollars. Since we’re not likely to see much federal matching for transportation dollars, the levy focuses on delivering a lot of small projects, a capacity SDOT didn’t really have before Spotts. We’ll see fewer new bridges (like Lander), fewer RapidRide projects, and more cheap sidewalks, strategic bus lanes, bike lanes, signals, etc.
We need both: a lot of maintenance, higher bus frequency, and capital improvements for bus corridors. Any of those are welcome. There’s a huge backlog of smallish improvements to bus corridors that would add up in aggregate. SDOT already has a big list for all three of these, so let it do some of them. We can take a break from more streetcars and RapidRide lines for a few years to catch up on some of the backlog on these other things. I mean, everybody hates potholes and want them fixed, and wonder why Seattle takes longer to fix them than other cities. So do something about them. Everybody wants the Ship Canal bridges maintained so they don’t break. And sidewalks have the equivalent: places where one panel has slipped higher than the adjacent panel, and it just sits that way for years and years. Fix it so I don’t trip as much and wheelchairs can get through.
Seattle’s population growth might have slowed a bit, but it is still growing and the Seattle area still has the fastest growing GDP in the country.
The 62 is gonna miss him. (I don’t know if he’s been posting as much about the 62 since I quit Twitter but…
Spotts meant well. Spotts was in charge of the G line implementation; it had flaws (e.g., island height, shelter painting, late capital projects); Kubly made more strategic mistakes (e.g., CCC Streetcar, over promising Move Seattle, infeasible RR phasing). Spotts attempted to rebrand the CCC Streetcar as the Culture Connector; listeners missed the suffix “al”. The CC Streetcar graphic had Seattle Central College in First Hill. No Right on Red may make more sense where there are many pedestrians; on some transit arterials such as Aurora Avenue North, it slows transit while benefitting few pedestrians. The Route 44 project was great. Route 40 project proposed to mess up the great northbound transfer point on Fremont Avenue North between North 34th and 35th streets. The J line alignment in the U District will degrade transit connectivity.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=sdot+graphic+for+culture+connector+streetcar&fr=mcafee&type=E210US1591G0&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsdotblog.seattle.gov%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F10%2F2024%2F01%2FImage-04-1-scaled.jpg#id=0&iurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsdotblog.seattle.gov%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F10%2F2024%2F01%2FImage-04-1-scaled.jpg&action=click
The STB uses an SDOT photo taken at an operating base; most of those pictured are Metro Transit and SDOT managers. Few are operations staff.
The Link extensions of 2025 and 2026 will benefit Seattle. All the one-way peak-only routes serving SR-520, I-90, and I-5 south corridors can be deleted. Two-way all-day service in downtown Seattle could be focused on 3rd and 1st avenues; if several routes are shifted to 1st Avenue from 3rd Avenue, routes 101 and 150 could be shifted to 3rd Avenue from 2nd and 4th avenues; that couplet could focus on bikes and general purpose traffic. The Judkins Link station could allow SDOT and Metro to achieve a powerful restructure with more routes and trips providing crosstown service leaving the radial market to Link along its stations. There may be no ST routes in downtown Seattle; if a few are retained, they might only serve Westlake and have a much lower footprint. Feed Link.