The Road Ahead

Submitted by Paul Ellis

Other than the long-awaited opening of the second Narrows Bridge (or, arguably, the ongoing rebuild of I-5 through the middle of Tacoma), the biggest transportation issue this year will be the integrated Roads & Transit vote on the November ballot. This referendum will have a crucial impact upon regional transportation funding for years to come.

Here's the schedule ahead for how the package will be finalized and presented:

□ January-April 2007:
√ RTID gathers public input on draft plan
√ RTID & Sound Transit continue integrating road and transit plans
□ Late spring 2007: RTID & Sound Transit finalize plans
□ Summer 2007: County councils vote to place road plan on ballot
□ November 2007: Public votes on Roads & Transit package

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.

Will Tolling Go Wireless?

Submitted by Paul Ellis

Decaying roads. Rising traffic congestion. Voters distrustful of government and leery about increased gas taxes. Neil Peirce of The Washington Post recently looked at these problems with transportation funding nationwide and suggested that urban areas consider deployment of tolling as a funding mechanism.

RAMP supports the recommendations of the Washington Transportation Commission in its 2006 Comprehensive Tolling Study and believes that the state should use tolling to encourage effective use of the transportation system through congestion management as well as to provide a supplementary source of transportation funding. RAMP further contends that tolling represents the most direct way to charge system users for the cost of the highway system without singling out one specific class of user.

Always a visionary, Peirce goes even further, citing the recommendation of Robin Chase, CEO of Massachusetts-based Meadow Networks, that governments should abandon gas taxes entirely and shift to wireless technology:

A small, low-cost computer on board every vehicle would report (in real time) miles actually traveled, allowing a realistic government user charge. Fees could be adjusted for roadway congestion pricing (premiums to travel on peak roads at peak times), by wear and tear related to vehicle weight and footprint, and by the vehicle's emissions (a carbon tax to encourage vehicles with reduced greenhouse gas emissions).

Science fiction? Not really--in Britain, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling and others have already proposed that automobiles be equipped with onboard equipment to track their use, with drivers paying a higher charge for operation in congested places and at peak times. Closer to home, the Oregon Road User Fee Task Force has determined how such a tax might be calculated and collected; at the task force's request, researchers have developed technology that can distinguish miles driven in Oregon from those driven elsewhere, then allow a mileage tax to be calculated and paid at the pump in place of the state gas tax.

The technical issues are minimal compared with the administrative issues, and especially with tough policy questions about privacy, equity and the environment; nevertheless, the chronic and urgent need for additional sources for transportation funding will undoubtedly leave no stone unturned.

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.

Legislative Wrap-Up (2007 Session)

Submitted by Paul Ellis

The Washington State Legislature's 2007 Session is over, and the dust is just beginning to settle. Today we'll attempt to survey the aftermath with assistance from Bob Gee, contract lobbyist for the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, and Mike Shaw, a lobbyist for Pierce County government.

The transportation budget adopted by state lawmakers keeps all Pierce County projects on schedule, despite the $2 billion increase in estimated costs over 2006. It increases funding for the SR-520 bridge and restores projects slated for delay to their original schedules. One such project in Pierce County--the SR-162/Puyallup River Bridge replacement--was scheduled for delay as the Session began but ultimately ended up accelerated by two years.

Senator Ed Murray’s regional governance bill (SB5803), which RAMP opposed, stalled in the Senate but can be resurrected next Session. Passage of that bill this year would have forced a new vote on funding for major projects. Instead, legislators gave the nod to HB1396, which authorized an integrated roads and transit package, allowing the region's voters to approve the Sound Transit and Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) packages with just one vote. RAMP supported this approach.

SB5207, introduced and advocated by Senate Transportation Chair Senator Mary Margaret Haugen, would have imposed a new tax on freight containers coming through Washington's ports--a measure RAMP opposed. Thanks in large part to the efforts of the Chamber in concert with the Port of Tacoma and other stakeholders, the amended bill sent to the Governor still mentions the container tax but omits any specific funding and the previous intent language. The bill now creates a Freight Congestion Relief Account and directs the Joint Transportation Committee (JTC) to study funding mechanisms for freight infrastructure improvements, with a report due back to the Legislature by the start of the 2008 Session. One of the carrots dangling in the anticipated results of the study will be $188 million to extend 167 to the Port of Tacoma.

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.

One Vote Shall Rule

Submitted by Paul Ellis

On Tuesday, the Washington State Legislature approved a key bill that will keep the Roads & Transit measure moving to the ballot in November. HB1396 passed the Senate on a vote of 44-4, having earlier passed the House 96-1. The bill simplifies the ballot measure, presenting voters with a single question on which to vote.

The single-ballot legislation enables voters throughout the region to vote on an integrated package, eliminating the previous framework under which separate Sound Transit and Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) packages would be presented. The legislation effectively requires that voters now have to pass both packages for either to take effect.

Under the bill’s improved framework, votes on a single Roads & Transit ballot measure will be counted once within the Sound Transit District and once within the RTID District, which extends farther north into Snohomish County. The measure will take effect if it passes in both districts. The area that falls outside the Sound Transit district will only pay for the roads projects.

Extensive public input and surveys show that people want an integrated and coordinated plan that makes improvements to the region's transportation system. The integrated ballot measure was supported by RAMP but opposed by the Sierra Club.

The legislation now moves forward for action by Governor Christine Gregoire.

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.

Invitation to RAMP Participants

Faster Freight – Cleaner Air Puget Sound is a showcase for solutions and resources that can improve operations within the goods movement industry and reduce air emissions.

Hosted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, Port of Seattle, Port of Tacoma and Washington State Department of Transportation, the conference will take place on May 16th at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle. Panels will present industry and government leaders discussing ways to facilitate faster freight and cleaner air.

To register, visit the event's website.

Sierra Club Letter Blasts RTID Plan

Submitted by Paul Ellis

A recent post on this blog chronicled the Sierra Club's over-the-top rhetoric in opposing inclusion of any new road projects in the regional Roads & Transit ballot proposition that will be submitted to voters this November. In a recent letter to Sound Transit Chair John Ladenburg (who is also the Co-Chair for RAMP), the Seattle chapter of the Sierra Club says it will not support the draft proposal now under consideration.

The group's list of problems with the draft package is a long one, including project selection, ballot structure and the revenue sources currently identified to pay for the project. The Sierra Club opines that user taxes--including a new local gas tax--make the most sense for the plan.

The letter concludes with a scathing assessment of the draft package and a recommendation that transit improvements be presented for voter approval independently road projects. "The RTID package contains inappropriate projects and is fraught with structural defects that require changes in the authorizing legislation," the Sierra Club contends. "We do support allowing Sound Transit to proceed separately to the November 2007 ballot."

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.

"Highway 167 plan packs major economic punch"

Submitted by Paul Ellis

Kudos to The News Tribune for Sunday's editorial supporting SR-167's construction as part of the upcoming Roads & Transit package.

The piece offers some well-phrased observations--based upon the economic analysis recently released by WSDOT--about the benefits of the project to long-range job growth in the region:

By 2025, additional port business could create 79,000 new jobs — more than the number of Washington workers employed by Boeing...The Alaskan Way Viaduct and Highway 520 bridge projects can boast bigger safety and congestion-relief benefits, but can’t generate freight growth on the scale that the Highway 167 extension could.

As this blog has observed previously, SR-167 is the South Sound's "mega project"; this recognition by the press will help to make that case with the larger community.

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.

Step It Up!--the Rhetoric, Anyway

Submitted by Paul Ellis

The silliness continues from the Sierra Club as its staff deploys over-the-top invective in support of the group's Step It Up! campaign. They're kicking off the drive, evidently, by stepping up the rhetoric.

In an Earth Day guest editorial in The Seattle Times, Aaron Robins and Tim Gould of the Sierra Club's Cascade Chapter describe the Regional Transportation Investment District's Blueprint for Progress proposal as "an Eisenhower-era roads package that drives us the wrong way on climate change impacts and community planning"; having construction of any new roads "shackled at the ballot to the Sound Transit Phase 2 proposal," they contend, is "like trying to lose weight while consuming triple-fudge sundaes with your whole grains--one negates the benefits of the other."

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.

SR-167 Benefits: $10.1 Billion

Submitted by Paul Ellis

Completing SR-167 could fuel job growth to the tune of $10.1 billion over the next 30 years, according to an economic analysis conducted by Berk & Associates and about to be released by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT).

The direct impact of the full extension, complete with I-5 interchange, is estimated at $940 million. The study estimates the indirect benefits--including economic development opportunities--to be even bigger, primarily from four additional areas of improvement:

• Operational support for greater volumes of container traffic through the Port of Tacoma;


• More efficient use of industrial land in the Puyallup Valley;


• Greater connectivity between Pierce County's urban centers--Tacoma and fast-growing cities like Sumner and Puyallup;


• Avoiding public investment in improvements to surface streets that will become overburdened if the highway is not completed.

The economic analysis is one of several assigned to Berk & Associates in preparation for public discussion over the array of projects recommended by the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) for voter approval in November. The consultants also completed an economic analysis of the Alaskan Way Viaduct earlier this year.

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.

Pierce County's "Mega Project"

Submitted by Paul Ellis

Seattle's arguments over the Viaduct and, to a lesser extent, SR-520 has taken up most of the "air time" thus far during the 2007 Legislative Session. RAMP's position is that SR-167--Pierce County's mega project--is equally important to the growth of the Puget Sound region and should have the same rank in the State's transportation pecking order as these two projects.

Insider talk has it that the two King County mega projects are being singled out in budget discussions to benefit from a special reserve management account so that funding can be drawn from other projects, if needed, to complete them or even just to expedite their completion. RAMP has been informed that Representative Dennis Flannigan and Senator Jim Kastama are working to have SR-167 included in that special account, and RAMP supports equal treatment for the Pierce County project.

To do otherwise, some transportation leaders contend, would represent a de facto implementation of the flawed recommendations from the Regional Transportation Commission.

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.

RAMP Boosts Volume on SR-167 in Olympia

Submitted by Paul Ellis

Participants in RAMP were challenged this morning by Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) Chair Shawn Bunney to help him boost the visibility of Pierce County's "mega projects"--especially SR-167--with state lawmakers.

As the 2007 Session in Olympia enters the home stretch, Bunney is concerned that lawmaker's struggle to balance the budget--and an inordinate focus on two of King County's projects--will eclipse Pierce County's need to keep dollars flowing south into right-of-way aquisition through the Puyallup Valley. RAMP participants pledged to follow up with messages to their state senators and representatives as lawmakers work on final drafts of legislation and the state budget.

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.