Everett, Wash.
Published: Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Modest investment will help get our roadways unclogged

John Burbank

 Summertime. The fish may be jumping, but the driving is not easy. We spend a good portion of these few weeks of blue sky and fair weather stopping and going. It's going to get worse in the next week, with northbound I-5 in south Seattle being shrunk from five lanes to two lanes to replace worn-out metal expansion joints and repair the bridge deck. But that is a good thing, especially when you considered the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last week.

There are other good things happening transportation-wise. The state and King County Metro are coordinating new car pools, van pools, and bicycling to lessen the inevitable traffic back-ups for the I-5 repair. Sound Transit is adding a train. In fact, these things make sense to keep, even after I-5 is fixed.

We are making incremental progress. We can literally watch each week as construction workers build the light rail to Sea-Tac Airport. Total Sound Transit ridership doubled since 2003 to more than 3 million in the first three months of 2007. A few years ago a commuter train from Everett to Seattle was laughable. Now two go in the morning, two come back in the evening and two more round trips are scheduled to be added next year.

Not exactly high speed progress, but a stepping stone to sane transportation.

That's better than we did almost a decade ago. That's when Tim Eyman decided to repeal the motor vehicle excise tax. This tax, based on a car's value, went to fund transportation maintenance and improvements. Mr. Eyman led an initiative that actually increased fees for people who owned cars more than 10 years old, and drastically reduced taxes for people with newer cars. The result was an annual loss of revenue of more than $800 million a year.

But there is something a lot more positive we can do in November instead of just fuming about the watch salesman from Mukilteo. Those of us in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties can actually vote for investing in transportation, including replacing and retrofitting overpasses and bridges susceptible to earthquakes and overuse. We can vote for new and extended rapid transit up and down the Puget Sound area.

We need to. In the past year alone, we have gained another 112,000 people in our state. Since 2000, Snohomish County has grown by more than 80,000 people.

Marysville and Everett, not including annexations, have together gained more than 11,000 new residents. This isn't just an urban phenomenon - Sequim's population increased by almost 1,000 people, close to 25 percent growth.

That's why the Legislature put the Roads and Transit Proposition on the November ballot. This will generate $600 million a year for 20 years to invest in Sound Transit and the highway infrastructure. The revenue comes from a six penny increase on a $10 purchase, and an $80 fee on every $10,000 your car is worth. More than 60 percent of the funding will go to mass transit. Light rail will be extended along I-5 all the way up to 164th Street SW, north of downtown Lynnwood. Plans will be developed for bringing it right into downtown Everett. With this new revenue, government will fund more express bus service, pay for more bicycle lanes and construct new park-and-ride facilities.

Highway 522 will be completed between Woodinville and Monroe, and Highway 9 will be expanded to four lanes from Clearview north to Marysville.

This investment will benefit folks who live all over the state. Puget Sound is the hub of Washington's global trade and economic prosperity. It is also literally the funnel for traffic from the Olympics to the Cascades and from Portland to Canada. Anything we can do to make this funnel more efficient helps all Washingtonians.

So if you are stuck in the I-5 mess, think about what you could be doing if we had an efficient, well-funded transportation system. And if you think that proposed new taxes are too much to pay, then keep sitting in your car!

While you're at it, do some calculations. Let's say you make $20 an hour and you're delayed two hours a week. If you value your free time as much as the time you work (which most of us do), you just lost $40. Six pennies on a $10 purchase is small potatoes compared to that. For a transportation system that works, it's a bargain, especially when we realize that our limited time on this Earth is a little more important than pocket change.

John Burbank, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute (www.eoionline.org), writes every other Wednesday. Write to him in care of the institute at 1900 Northlake Way, Suite 237, Seattle, WA 98103. His e-mail address is john@eoionline.org.
© 2009The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA