Restoring faith in transportation policymaking

Published 12:51 pm Friday, May 2, 2014

In 2005, my first session as a House member, I never guessed my vote on a gas tax increase would — almost a decade later — be the last such vote.

At the time, major infrastructural imperatives drove what was called the Transportation Partnership Act. The 2001 Nisqually earthquake revealed the frailty of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which had served Seattle since 1953. Similarly, the SR 520 Rosellini Bridge over Lake Washington — in service since 1963 — was near its useful life’s end and also at seismic risk.

With lives at stake, a sense of urgency compelled my yes vote — and led almost 55 percent of voters to affirm the increase.

Thus it is frustrating to contemplate where we’re at now. The 2005 gas tax increase long ago stopped providing sufficient resources for maintenance, let alone new project needs like addressing the frightful Interstate 5 bottleneck around Joint Base Lewis-McChord. As Puget Sound’s population has grown, transit needs have too. Overdue bills are piling up.

Yet I’m more cynical about our ability to manage projects. Consider progress on the mega-projects that were such a key component of the 2005 gas tax increase. A state failing to adequately fund life-sustaining home care — the Washington Supreme Court recently affirmed a $57 million judgment — thinks nothing of frittering away more than $208 million fixing design errors in new floating bridge pontoons. To put that wasted $208 million in another context: Proposition 1, which King County voters just rejected, would have generated $130 million for transportation in 2015. Meanwhile, the viaduct tunneling machine known as “Bertha” is stuck underground — perhaps forevermore. Heaven only knows how much it will cost to extricate it; the contractor wants another $188 million.

The viaduct project, particularly, looms as one of the biggest regrets I have from my legislative tenure — and I have many. It defies rationality as to why anyone thought a tunnel under Seattle waterfront was a good idea. House Speaker Frank Chopp had proposed another elevated structure, somewhat redeemed aesthetically by a rooftop park (savaged by critics at the time, the great success since of New York City’s High Line Park suggests this element of Chopp’s proposal was inspired). Personally I wanted a surface boulevard. Yet the only choice legislators got to vote on, in 2009, was the tunnel, and by then I was frustrated over years of dithering and ready to move forward. Lives were imperiled, right?

How did we arrive at this place? In 2005, most authority was transferred from the Transportation Commission to the Department of Transportation secretary. The commission had appointed the secretary. Now the governor would appoint the secretary, who would also exercise the commission’s former budget and legislative duties. This appeared sensible then, as the governor gets credit or blame for transportation anyway. It seemed like a move toward greater accountability, but perhaps it moved us away from that.

While now a single, fallible actor (the transportation secretary answering to a non-expert governor) has inordinate influence over transportation decisions, with the only check-and-balance being part-time legislators (laypersons all), the commission would have been less susceptible to flights-of-fancy — such as the Discovery Institute’s relentless cheerleading, culminating in a blizzard of 2008-10 columns and press releases, for a deep-bore tunnel to replace the elevated Vvaduct (one poignant December 2008 press release was titled “Experts Say Tunnel Costs for Replacing Viaduct a Myth”). It could even have asked the questions necessary to avert the pontoon debacle.

The Legislature must again increase transportation funding. But, at the same time, to restore confidence in transportation policymaking it should restore its citizen oversight through the Transportation Commission.

Williams, a former House Transportation Committee member, served the 22nd Legislative District from 2005-11.