Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson celebrates Prop. 1 win

Take a look at your screen right now. That is Seattle Measure 1. So what that is, is it's going to raise the sales tax in order to pay for more bus service, more transit. You can see it is an overwhelming yes in the city of Seattle. That is 73%. And no is only coming in at 27%. That is a resounding win for Mayor Katie Wilson, who has been pushing this. So we want to go live to the mayor. We understand she's talking at the podium. Take a look and take a listen. I also want to thank the everybody bored? I want to thank all of the transit professionals and funders, the people who make these systems possible, who fund campaigns like this that help to reach voters across our city and advance the agenda, including our partners at King County and Metro. It takes everyone to make a night like this possible. Only half your attention is on me and the rest of it is on the whole nation. I'm almost done here. So, a bit of a story. So, in the depths of the pandemic, the last This year has been a banner year for public transit in our city and our region. We've had some of the highest rebounding ridership in the country. Some of the most ambitious capital infrastructure anywhere in the U.S. Rail station that has the highest ridership of any light rail system in the whole entire country. Lead on progressive transit policies like the ORCA Lift low income fare program. Free across Washington and a state that is committed to fares not being a barrier to people getting where they need to go. We've made possible tonight. This is going to be the single largest expansion of transit service in Seattle history. 100,000 more service hours, and that means more buses, more often, at more times of the day and night. My friend Jacob back there, we were just talking, yes, go Jacob, he was just telling me about how he needs better nighttime service to get home from work. He's also going to fund 100% free subsidized transit passes for $22,000 an opportunity. This measure is going to allow us to invest more in infrastructure that makes our system move, like our streetcars, like bus lanes on Denny and like Grand Street Station. I'm going to drive home the point that this is an affordability measure. When gas is $6 a gallon, when the price of car ownership has never been higher, this measure, fast, frequent bus service, is going to allow more people, more households around our city to get around on our most affordable mode of transportation. I'm not going to stop until Seattle's transit system is irresistibly great. I'm so proud to be here among transit riders, transit advocates, and I'm so proud to be your transit champion in the mayor's office. I believe to turn the mic over to ATU 587 president. News for transit riders, very bad news if you like driving your car downtown. We are going to take a quick break and come back with a whole lot more election numbers and reaction right after this.