By Susanna Ray
Herald Writer
SEATTLE — A 9-cent gas tax increase and 1.5 percent sales tax on cars would help ease the state’s "big honkin’ traffic problem" and jump-start Washington’s stalled economy, according to a plan Gov. Gary Locke announced Tuesday.
The transportation package would raise and spend $8.5 billion on the state’s roads over the next 10 years, plus an extra $5.1 billion in the Puget Sound region, including Snohomish, King and Pierce counties. The projects would employ 20,000 people, the governor said.
Locke also asked lawmakers to approve higher trucking fees, impose a small surtax on car sales and add a 3-cent-a-gallon surcharge for diesel fuel.
The gas tax would be boosted by 3 cents a year for three years. The tax, currently 23 cents a gallon, would rise to 32 cents by the third year. The tax has not been raised since a penny increase in 1991. Locke said the average motorist would pay $84 a year more during the next six years.
Locke detailed his plan at the final meeting of the Washington Competitiveness Council, a group he created to analyze the state’s business climate after the Boeing Co. announced its plans earlier this year to move its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago. The council is made up of about three dozen business leaders and politicians from across the state.
The draft of the council’s final report, released Tuesday, deals with such topics as taxes, regulations and the availability of employees, but puts a heavy emphasis on getting people out of their cars quicker.
"Of all the issues considered by the council, the transportation problems facing our state stand out as the issue with the broadest mandate for action," the report states. "The most important competitive investment the state of Washington can make is to improve its transportation infrastructure."
"We do have a big honkin’ traffic problem that we need to take care of," said council member Sally Jewell, the chief operating officer for sports gear company REI, Inc.
Locke barely mentioned any Snohomish County road projects in his speech to the council or in a subsequent press conference, but he said afterward that was only because "I can’t focus on just western Washington. If you look through the project list, we’re addressing the major traffic problems in every area of the state."
Snohomish County Executive Bob Drewel, who is a member of the competitiveness council, said he "scrambled" to make sure local projects were high on the list, and he’s happy with the outcome.
"We went through project by project, and when you look at these projects and look at our efforts, they’ll make a significant difference for Snohomish County," Drewel said.
The proposed list includes $42.4 million to be spent widening Highway 522 from Highway 9 to the Snohomish River in Monroe, $48.4 million for a U.S. 2/Highway 522 bypass in Monroe, money to extend the HOV lanes on I-5 through Everett, and other projects.
Locke said he hoped the list of goodies would help sell the plan, adding that he wants the Legislature to pass it within the first week of the session, which starts Jan. 14.
That’s a reasonable goal, said Rep. Barry Sehlin, R-Oak Harbor, even though lawmakers failed to agree on a transportation package in this year’s session, which lasted through July and was nearly the longest on record.
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But for that to happen, said Sehlin, who is a member of the competitiveness council, the plan will need "to convince the people of Washington that whatever money is spent will be well spent and will produce the product promised. And that hasn’t been the history in this state."
Voters wouldn’t get a direct say in the matter, however, according to Locke’s plan.
The Democratic governor had wavered last year on whether a potential gas tax increase should be sent to the voters, but Tuesday he said the issue was too critical to put on the ballot. Any regional revenue plan would have to be approved by voters in the appropriate area, however.
"This is a responsibility of the Legislature, and we need to do it in Olympia," he said.
Boeing’s decision earlier this year to move its headquarters to Chicago, the company’s further consideration of closing other Puget Sound-area plants, and Microsoft’s warnings that it doesn’t necessarily have to expand in the Seattle area changed his mind, Locke said.
Almost immediately, key lawmakers renewed a debate that derailed the proposal during four legislative sessions earlier this year: whether legislators should pass the state plan in Olympia or place it on the fall ballot.
Initiative king Tim Eyman repeated his plans to force a public vote if lawmakers try to pass new taxes in Olympia. Locke and many legislators previously promised a public vote.
"Absolutely, I can guarantee that voters will have the final say on the package one way or the other," Eyman said in an interview. "It will have a better chance of passage if they don’t try to stiff-arm the voters. The faster they come to that realization, the better off they will be."
The huge infusion of construction jobs would spur economic recovery, both in the short term as the state reels from financial blows such as the dot-com bust and Boeing’s massive layoffs, and in the long term as businesses are better able to move their goods and employees can get to work quicker, Locke said.
"The transportation investment will become the economic underpinning for the state for the next 50 years," Locke said.
And although the Legislature will have to somehow make up for a $1.2 billion shortfall in the state budget, Locke promised that "there will be no general tax increase on businesses or individuals."
The Associated Press contributed to this report
You can call Herald Writer Susanna Ray at 425-339-3439
or send e-mail to ray@heraldnet.com.
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