State transportation officials have $110 million to widen Highway 522 in Monroe. Unfortunately, officials fear the money may not be spent to fix the more dangerous and congested part of the road.
If lawmakers don’t give state Transportation Department officials the OK this legislative session, too much design work will have been done on the section of Highway 522 that ends in Monroe. Therefore, the money will be committed to fix that portion of the highway instead of the middle section of Highway 522 that many consider more dangerous.
“When you start moving projects around, you lose your ability to pay for them,” said Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, chairwoman of the Senate Highways and Transportation Committee.
The $110 million for widening Highway 522 from the Snohomish River to U.S. 2 comes from the 5-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase of 2003. That legislation doesn’t allow money to be moved from project to project, or in this case, from one end of a highway to another.
Here, it’s the middle section of Highway 522, from Paradise Lake Road to the Snohomish River that has more cars, more accidents and more frustrated drivers, Transportation Department officials said.
“If you can only do one of those projects, this one has greater benefit,” said Paula Hammond, chief of staff for Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald.
But Haugen said allowing the money to be moved would open the door for others to siphon off money from other projects funded by the 2003 gas tax package and a similar tax package approved by the Legislature last year.
Moving money would break a promise made when the legislation was passed, she said.
“People asked us to be accountable, and by gosh, that’s our No. 1 priority,” she said. “We’re going to be accountable to voters.”
Still, she wouldn’t rule out moving the money.
“It’s not dead,” Haugen said, explaining that she has until the end of the session, March 9. “We’re certainly looking at it.”
Maltby real estate broker Andy Weiss said it’s clear that Paradise Lake, Fales and Echo Lake roads are places along the highway that clog up.
“Why on God’s green Earth don’t you elected officials do your job,” Weiss asked. “If somebody dies, it will be on (their) hands.”
Monroe Mayor Donnetta Walser initially was one of those who wanted to move the funding to fix the highway’s middle section. Now she’s changed her mind because keeping things as they are means there is money to build a new bridge over the Snohomish River.
“Sure, there will be a terrific mess, but my thought now is to keep it the way it is,” Walser said. “It’s getting very difficult to get bridge funding.”
She said leaving the middle section unfinished is the best chance for getting the entire road fixed, saying the traffic congestion in the middle will create leverage to bring additional money to the road.
But that strategy may not work, said Dave Somers, whose Snohomish County Council district includes Highway 522.
He pointed out that a regional transportation package that once included a plan to pay for the middle section of Highway 522 has been recently scaled back.
“I think the DOT’s proposal (to move the money to the middle of the highway) is a good one,” Somers said.
He said leaving the money where it is in hopes of leveraging money for the more congested middle section may backfire.
“I think that’s just playing games with things,” he said.
If no change is made, the $110 million construction project on the Snohomish River-to-Monroe section of Highway 522 is set to start in 2008.
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.
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