I-985 ignores the congestion audit
In a Seattle Times op/ed piece, Floyd McKay nails I-985 for its duplicity. The measure claims that it’s carrying out the recommendations of Washington’s recent congestion audit. But it does no such thing:
Eyman maintains that I-985 supports Auditor Brian Sonntag’s “congestion” audit of the Department of Transportation. Of 22 major recommendations in Sonntag’s
report, only synchronization of traffic lights is addressed in I-985. The audit doesn’t recommend limiting tolls on Seattle’s bridges or high-occupancy toll lanes (HOTs), or opening HOV lanes in off-peak hours. It doesn’t deal with freeway artwork or red light cameras. Eyman’s initiative assumes car-generated congestion can be fixed cost-free without other forms of transportation. One of Sonntag’s four general recommendations is “increasing efforts to have people use carpools, transit and telecommuting.” Yet funds in Eyman’s RTC account are barred from buses, rail or park-and-ride.
You heard that right. Initiative 985 almost completely ignores the congestion audit, despite its claim to the contrary. (Traffic light synchronization is already underway in most places.)
Actually, I’m being too nice about this: Initiative 985 actively undermines the congestion audit. The reason State Auditor Sonntag recommended expanding alternative travel is because it is an extremely cost-effective way to solve congestion and mobility problems. It’s hard to get a better deal than multiplying the efficiency of the existing system by filling those empty seats. But 985 shuts down HOV lanes, ties-up key revenue streams, and just generally gives buses and carpools the short end of the stick.
That’s not congestion relief; that’s either confusion or ideology.
A problem for replacing SR 520?
Filed under: Noteworthy Columns
Over at Horse’s Ass, the inimitable David Goldstein fillets I-985 in a sarcastic “endorsement.” Along the way, he makes an intriguing point:
But my favorite provision in I-985, the one that earns my endorsement, is the one that requires that tolls only be used to pay for the construction of the particular section of freeway or bridge on which they’re levied… Let’s be clear: the 520 floating bridge is going to be replaced before it sinks into the lake (or perhaps, shortly thereafter)… And all the current financing plans heavily rely on tolling both the 520 and I-90 bridges to pay for it. Remove I-90 tolls from the equation, and we not only lose a big chunk of federal funds that were predicated on tolling I-90, we also make it impossible to put any substantial toll on 520 without shifting the bulk of the traffic to its toll-free alternative.
This means we’re going to have to find a billion or so dollars elsewhere to pay for the new 520 bridge, and that money is going to come at the expense of other DOT projects throughout the region and the state.
Interesting.
The thing is, I-985 is confusing and tangled enough that it might still be possible for clever accountants to fund the proposed “congestion relief account” with toll revenue and then use the “congestion relief account” to fund the 520 replacement. So it could end up being a shell game of sorts, though it’s not entirely clear. And in a way that’s really one of the problems: there’s a real danger that I-985 will make transportation planning more bureaucratic and opaque, rather than clearer and more efficient.
Read Goldy’s entire post here.