Senator King (R-Yakima), co-chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, and Senator Rodney Tom (D-Medina), Majority Coalition Leader, will be travelling the state on a listening tour to hear from the public about improving our roads. The meetings will take place in September and October in the following cities: Tacoma, Vancouver, Seattle, Everett, Wenatchee, Spokane, and Tri-Cities. Last session, a gas tax measure failed to pass in the legislature, and policymakers have hinted that a transportation package could be up for debate later this year. Last week, Senate Majority Coalition members distributed a list of reforms they say will lower the cost of building roads:
- End sales tax diversion
- The state would continue to charge itself sales tax on transportation projects, but the money would be used for transportation and not diverted into the general fund.
- Stormwater treatment funding
- Stormwater maintenance would be funded by an environmental cleanup account, freeing up approximately $40 million a year for transportation projects.
- Ferry Capital Program reforms
- Would allow competitive bidding and design-build for ferry projects.
- Reduce prevailing wage costs
- Current prevailing wage rules artificially increase costs by 10-15%.
- Streamline Environmental Permitting
- Would examine costs related to permitting. Going beyond the federal requirements can increase costs up to 20%.
- Add congestion relief as a funding priority
- Congestion relief and increasing mobility for the public is not currently a funding priority when considering transportation projects.
- Protecting toll revenue
- Requires tolls to end once a road or bridge project is paid for, except for maintenance and operations. Would also protect toll revenue for road being tolled.
- Utilize Public-Private Partnerships
- Reduce risks in design, construction and operation of projects.
- Making regional transit boards elected positions
- Allow voters to keep RTA boards accountable.
- General Reforms
- Improved permitting
- Require WSDOT to report engineering errors and seek approval for project changes
Many of these reforms have been long-standing WPC recommendations to improve transportation policy, as seen in our Roadmap for Mobility and our Legislative Memo published this year. Over the years, bit by bit, unnatural costs have been inflating the price of transportation projects. Ensuring tax dollars are spent efficiently is simply good public policy, especially since Washington State’s 37.5 cent-per-gallon gas tax is already the ninth highest in the nation. WPC is glad lawmakers are encouraging public involvement in finding ways to lower the cost of transportation projects in our state.