Transportation referendum goes before voters

Published 12:00 pm Thursday, February 21, 2008

OLYMPIA – For Jeri Valentine of Edmonds and other motorists at the local gas station, the simple question is deceptively complicated: Is it worth $4 a month?

Washington voters are asked to approve the largest transportation fix in state history Nov. 5, financed by a $7.7 billion tax-and-bonds package that includes a 9-cent increase in the 23-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax.

Despite the eye-popping price tag, sponsors call it a modest down-payment on a multi-decade commitment to unclogging Washington’s highways and boosting mass transit. For an average driver like retiree Valentine, the estimated tab is $45 a year. Or, as sponsors like to say, the price of a couple of lattes a month.

The proposal, Referendum 51, was placed on the ballot by the Legislature, on the premise that voters would demand the final say on such a large tax increase – the largest transportation proposal in America this fall.

A powerful alliance of state and local groups, including labor and business, is pushing the 10-year plan, worried that the state’s severe transportation problems will strangle the economy. Their campaign treasury has swelled to over $4 million, paying for a heavy diet of television and radio commercials, swamping the mom-and-pop opposition.

Nonetheless, polls suggest it’s an uphill battle, and opposition is attacking, pincer fashion, from the anti-tax right and the environmental left. Tim Eyman and fiscal conservatives find themselves in league with folks from the latest Ralph Nader rally.

Valentine, 64, and her husband, Robert Nelson, 71, a retired chemist, say they’re on the fence, wanting to do something about traffic, but not convinced that R-51 is the right package or that government will properly use the money.

“I don’t mind taxes if they’re going to get the job done,” Nelson says.

Some lawmakers, already resigned to a loss, are privately talking about what the Legislature’s next step will be. Eyman and the Greens already have released their own post-51 plans for next year.

And talk about bad timing for a tax measure: The state is mired in recession and has some of the country’s worst unemployment. Gov. Gary Locke shrugs, saying there’s never a good time to ask for higher taxes. He says the measure would jump-start the economy by creating 20,000 new jobs, while addressing the business community’s No. 1 gripe, traffic.

Backers, including the co-chairmen – Democrat Locke and former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton – say the package is an essential down-payment to get traffic moving and to preserve the economy. Their well-heeled campaign is stressing safety, congestion relief and accountability.

Opponents include tax critics who say it’s too expensive and would do little to fix congestion – and environmentalists who say it’s too highway-oriented and proposes the wrong solutions to traffic problems.

There’s little dispute that Washington, particularly the bustling Puget Sound basin, has deep traffic problems. Motorists here spend an estimated 82 hours and $1,605 each year stuck on the highway. King County Executive Ron Sims calls the lost productivity and gasoline a $2 billion hidden tax.

Still, the debate centers on whether R-51 is the right package at the right price.

Washington’s gas tax hasn’t been raised in 11 years, and the state Department of Transportation says inflation and fuel efficiency have erased the purchasing power of the last nickel increase.

The state is trying to keep up with safety and maintenance projects on the 80,000-mile network of roads, bridges and ferries, but the 23-cent-a-gallon tax, shared with cities and counties, can’t begin to finance the billions of dollars worth of highway and transit projects needed by a growing population, says DOT chief Doug MacDonald.

That’s where R-51 comes in.

The Legislature’s plan, plopped in voters’ laps after the House insisted on a public vote, includes taxes and bond authorizations that would generate about $7.7 billion over the next decade.

That would pay for highway projects across the state – concentrated on mega-projects in the most congested areas in central Puget Sound. It also would finance new ferries, rail, car pool lanes and transit.

The tax plan includes a two-step, 9-cent gas tax increase, a 1-percent sales surtax on new and used vehicles, and a 30 percent increase in trucking fees. The state would sell $4.6 billion worth of state bonds.

The referendum calls for regular audits on each project. Gorton says this little-noticed feature is significant, given the “complete mistrust of government out there and a belief we won’t get what we are promised.”

Independent pollster Stuart Elway, whose September poll shows R-51 in big trouble, said Gorton is on target. “The No. 1 reason for opponents voting no is that they doubt the ability of state government to spend money effectively and efficiently.”

The “Yes on 51” campaign, however, said a new in-house poll shows a virtual dead heat.

In Bellevue, Locke acknowledged that it’s tough to combat anti-tax fever. “Nobody wants to pay more taxes, but this is the ultimate user fee. It’s not perfect, but this is a good package. R-51 is a start. Nobody says it’s the end-all.”

State Senate Transportation Chairwoman Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, says “It’s downhill from here” if voters reject R-51. The Legislature will find it next to impossible to deal with highway taxes for years if voters turn down the referendum, she says.

Foes say there’s a better, cheaper plan out there.

Some anti-tax rebels, including Eyman and political consultant Brett Bader, are leading a largely unorganized attack.

“What they are selling is a stinker,” Bader says. “It is a huge tax increase that will not do anything to reduce traffic congestion or restore any more accountability to transportation.”

Eyman says, “It all has to do with trust. It could be $80 billion or 200 bucks. The ultimate question is do you trust these guys? If you think they’re going to flush the money down the toilet, you don’t want to give them anything.”

The greens, oddly enough, use almost the same language. Loosely joined as the Citizens for Real Transportation Solutions, they call R-51 financially irresponsible and poorly planned, financing the wrong priorities and making things worse, if anything.

The plan is too highway-centric, yet spends too little on basic safety and maintenance projects, while committing the state to a breathtaking price tag for mega-projects like I-405, says spokesman Peter Hurley.

“The seven largest projects would require $32 billion more to complete – the equivalent of four more tax increases the size of R-51,” he says.

David Ammons is a political writer for the Associated Press.