Election 2005: Gas Tax Looms Large for County
By KATHIE DURBIN , Columbian staff writer
When Rep. Deb Wallace saw an early list of projects to be included in a state transportation funding measure last March, she hit the roof.
For her 17th District in east Vancouver, where explosive growth has spawned daily traffic snarls at major intersections and freeway interchanges, the list included just $7 million in project dollars.
Wallace, the House Transportation Committee’s Democratic vice chairman, told Chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle, she would be voting against the package.
"I said that was unacceptable," she recalled. "Clark County needed more."
Adjustments were made. The final package, approved in April on a bipartisan vote in both the House and Senate, includes $244 million for 13 projects in Clark County. It’s part of an $8.5 billion list of projects to be paid for over 16 years, mostly through a 9.5-cent gas tax increase to be phased in over four years.
Initiative 912 would repeal that tax increase and eliminate $5.475 billion in new revenue and net bond proceeds, cutting more than 80 percent of the money slated to fund 265 projects statewide. The measure would not repeal the increase in the diesel fuel tax or affect new weight fees on passenger vehicles.
I-912 was placed on the Nov. 8 ballot by anti-tax activists and endorsed by the Washington Republican Party.
Two Seattle KVI radio talk show hosts, former state legislator John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur, used the airwaves to galvanize opposition to the gas tax increase. Gas tax opponents gathered 420,000 signatures, more than twice as many as necessary, in just four weeks.
Their campaign accuses the Democrat-controlled Legislature and Gov. Christine Gregoire of embarking on a spending spree. It contends there is no guarantee the money raised will actually be used to reduce traffic congestion.
There’s also residual bitterness among Republican leaders over the outcome of the contested 2004 governor’s race.
State GOP Chairman Chris Vance recently told the Seattle Post- Intelligencer: "What’s driving this campaign is a lot broader than just transportation policy. It’s an anger about the arrogant, out- of-control culture of the Democratic aristocracy that runs the state of Washington. .. The people elected Dino Rossi, and somehow Christine Gregoire ends up as governor."
The pro-repeal campaign has raised about $400,000, most of it in donations of less than $100, according to campaign spokesman Brett Bader. A judge required Carlson and Wilbur to report the value of the air time they spent promoting the initiative as an "in-kind" donation.
Opponents of I-912, including many of the state’s corporate heavyweights, have contributed more than $1 million, with major contributions from Microsoft, Weyerhaeuser Co., the Seattle Mariners and the state’s asphalt paving association. Their campaign hopes to raise $2 million for fliers and television and radio ads.
Economic benefits touted
Though the Republican Party has endorsed I-912 and the Democratic Party opposes it, transportation funding is not strictly a partisan issue in Washington.
Eleven Republicans in the House and seven in the Senate voted for the transportation package. Local chambers of commerce, the statewide Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable, an organization of chief executive officers of large companies, oppose repealing the tax.
They argue that Washington’s unfunded transportation project backlog is hurting economic development.
In 2002, former Gov. Gary Locke’s Competitiveness Council concluded: "Washington’s currently overwhelmed transportation system threatens jobs and economic vitality, wastes people’s time and money, diminishes quality of life, and degrades our environment."
That’s even more true today, Vancouver transportation manager Thayer Rorabaugh told county commissioners last month.
"We are competing with the world in terms of the things we import and export," he said. "This is a huge economic issue for the state of Washington."
Vancouver consultant John D. White, who represents developers, governments and other clients, urged a no vote on I-912 in his latest newsletter.
"If we choose to eliminate the new gas tax, in the short term, traffic will get worse, safety deficiencies will get worse, and development moratoria will be the norm," White said. "In the long term, our children and grandchildren will be forced to live, work and play elsewhere because we didn’t choose now to build the foundation for healthy growth in the future."
Transportation officials in Clark County hope the funding for long-sought projects survives the repeal. They’re counting on the money to ease traffic at major choke points and address safety at hazardous intersections.
"We’re all in this together," Rorabaugh said. "The public largely doesn’t know whether they are on a county road or a city street. All they want is for it to work."
Local projects
At stake for motorists: $40 million to widen state Highway 14 through Camas, an unsafe stretch known locally as "death alley"; $50 million to widen state Highway 502 west of Battle Ground; $58 million for a new Interstate 205-18th Street interchange to relieve pressure on the busy Mill Plain interchange; $26.3 million for a new state Highway 500-St. Johns Boulevard interchange; $10 million to update the Interstate 5-Ridgefield interchange; and several smaller projects.
Also at risk is $50 million for environmental studies that will help determine how the region addresses the need for a new I-5 crossing over the Columbia River.
Don Wagner, the state transportation department’s regional administrator, says the Transportation Partnership Act responds to local needs.
"These projects did not get on the list because we said they were needed, but because local people asked for them," he told Clark County commissioners last month. "There are some things, like love, that money can’t buy. And there are others, like roads, that only money can buy."
Money to widen state Highway 502 is critical to Battle Ground’s future, says public works director Sam Adams especially because a new I-5 interchange at 219th Street, paid for with a 5-cent gas tax increase the Legislature adopted in 2003, already is on the drawing board. Without the widening, vehicles will spill off the new freeway exit ramp onto a two-lane road choked with traffic.
"Battle Ground serves 40,000 people in north county," Adams said. "Without this, we’re going to see growth stifled, and travel time will increase."
Ridgefield, the county’s fastest-growing city, needs an updated I- 5 interchange to accommodate a growing population and future industrial, commercial and office park development, said public works director Justin Clary. Between April 2003 and April 2004, the population of Ridgefield grew by 20 percent, to 2,630. Clary’s office issued 221 building permits this year through Sept. 30.
The existing interchange, built in 1961 to serve a rural community, is at capacity, Clary said. It will be woefully inadequate to handle new traffic generated by development on 1,500 acres between the freeway and Northwest 45th Avenue. Clary said he gets almost daily inquiries from developers. "Often, the limiting factor is the capacity of that interchange."
Passage of I-912 could jeopardize $15 million of the $55 million needed for the I-5/Salmon Creek interchange, one of the county’s gnarliest traffic messes, said Bill Wright, traffic manager for the Clark County Department of Public Works. The $15 million was included in the 2003 "nickel" gas tax, which is independent of the tax hike targeted by I-912, but things could change if the 2006 Legislature is forced to reassess its priorities.
Reducing accidents
State transportation officials say investments in safe roads made possible by the gas tax increase will reduce the number of injury accidents statewide by more than 3,000 per year. One of the most dangerous stretches is state Highway 14 through Camas and Washougal.
"We’ve got a section of a state route that is causing more casualties than any other state highway," said Washougal public works director Scott Sawyer. Between January 2002 and December 2004, the state tallied 112 accidents in that stretch.
New gas tax money will widen the highway between state Highway 500 in Camas and 6th Avenue in Washougal.
Routing city streets onto a fast-moving highway is a recipe for accidents, Sawyer said.
Highway 14 "looks like a freeway, people drive it like a freeway, they drive it at 60 miles per hour," he said. "Then the freeway ends when you come into Camas. You are asking thousands of people per day to pay attention and make a decision on whether to slow down."
Even if the gas tax survives I-912′s challenge, growth in Clark County will outstrip the region’s system of freeways, highways, county roads and city streets, said state traffic engineer Bart Gernhart.
"We will never have less congestion on the roads than we have today," Gernhart said. "The question is, how much worse will it get, and how much will we invest in the system?"
Campaign tightens
Despite the high stakes, the campaigns both for and against the gas tax repeal have been low profile in Clark County. With ballots scheduled to go in the mail next week, there’s been virtually no broadcast media advertising here.
The pro-initiative campaign recently changed its name from Nonewgastax.com to Yes912.com to avoid voter confusion in an election where saying no to the tax means saying yes to the measure on the ballot.
For the same reason, the campaign opposing I-912 also has changed its name, from Keep Washington Rolling to No on 912.
Privately commissioned polls indicate that 55 percent supported repeal of the gas tax last summer. But a poll by Seattle independent pollster Stuart Elway released in early October showed support for repeal slipping to 41 percent, with 48 percent opposed.
The single biggest factor mentioned by voters who plan to support I-912 is rapidly escalating gas prices. In a September Elway poll, 44 percent of initiative supporters cited the price of gas at the pump as the reason they would vote to repeal the tax.
But though the cost of a gallon of gas in Washington has jumped $1 in a year, "not one cent of that dollar has gone into Washington’s infrastructure," Gregoire said in a September visit to a busy Vancouver intersection.
The 3-cent increase that went into effect July 1 boosted the state gas tax to 31 cents per gallon, tying Washington for the eighth-highest gas tax in the nation. But according to the Washington Research Council, the 37.5-cent tax motorists will pay after July 2008, when the full 9.5-cent increase takes effect, will still be less than motorists paid in 1969 in constant dollars adjusted for inflation.
Winners, losers
Clark County has historically contributed more in state gas tax revenue than it has received in project dollars. That won’t change under the new gas tax distribution formula. Over the next 10 years, the county will get back 70 cents in federal and state transportation investments for each $1 in gas tax it contributes, or $1.14 billion for the $1.63 billion it spends.
In contrast, the Puget Sound region will receive $1.2 billion more in projects than it contributes in gas tax revenue.
But though Wallace herself lobbied for more money for Clark County, she says pitting one region against another ignores the many ways in which the state’s regional economies are interrelated.
"People will say, ‘Why should we pay for roads in Eastern Washington?’" For Vancouver, the answer is simple, she said: "Our port is the largest grain port on the West Coast. And Puget Sound is our economic engine. They pay a lot of taxes that fund services across the state."
There’s another reason Seattle projects should matter to all Washington residents, she added: The elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct, which serves the Port of Seattle and carries more than 103,000 vehicles a day, was damaged in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, and engineers say it could collapse in a major quake. The transportation package provides $2.5 billion to replace the elevated highway.
"There are transportation people who won’t park under the Alaskan Way Viaduct now," Wallace said. "What we are really talking about is people’s lives."
If I-912 passes, there really is no Plan B, Gregoire said at a news conference in Olympia last month.
One possible scenario is that each part of the state might go its own way. For example, Seattle could try to raise money on its own to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the city’s earthquake- vulnerable Highway 520 Floating Point Bridge.
"That’s very risky," Wallace said. "Puget Sound will get its projects, but the rest of the state could be left out of the game."
A scenario that’s unlikely, Wallace said, is a repeat of what lawmakers achieved last spring. "It was so amazing we were able to get a bipartisan transportation funding package out of the Legislature," she said. "I don’t know that the stars line up to do that again."
Kathie Durbin covers politics and the Legislature for The Columbian. She can be reached at 360-759-8034 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.
Did you know?
* The transportation funding measure targeted by I-912 shares state gas tax revenue with local governments.
* In 2008, when the 9.5-cent tax increase is fully phased in, 1 cent from each gallon of gas sold in Washington will be shared with counties and incorporated cities. That will mean an additional $1 million for Clark County and $700,000 for Vancouver money they can use to match federal grants.
On the Web
Read the text of Initiative 912 at:
www.secstate.wa .gov/elections /initiatives/text /i912.pdf