This after­noon, at a press con­fer­ence held elec­tron­i­cal­ly, the Ever­green State’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic trans­porta­tion chairs and vice chairs took the wraps off of a pro­posed trans­porta­tion pack­age dubbed Move Ahead Washington.

Nego­ti­at­ed by teams led by House Trans­porta­tion Chair Jake Fey and Sen­ate Trans­porta­tion Chair Marko Liias, Move Ahead Wash­ing­ton would make sub­stan­tial, bil­lion-dol­lar mul­ti­modal invest­ments in roads, bridges, fer­ries, and pub­lic tran­sit over the next sev­er­al years, financed through fund trans­fers, bonds, and mul­ti­ple fee increas­es along with high­er tax­es on jet fuel and export­ed fuel.

Repub­li­cans were not involved in the craft­ing of the pack­age, though Fey and Liias stressed to reporters that they are in fre­quent con­sul­ta­tions with their Repub­li­can coun­ter­parts and will wel­come their com­men­tary on the pro­pos­al as it gets put under a micro­scope as part of the usu­al leg­isla­tive process.

“Wash­ing­ton is a nation­wide leader on so many issues, and we can con­tin­ue to show our pro­gres­sive val­ues in the trans­porta­tion sec­tor,” said Liias. “From let­ting kids ride free on tran­sit and fer­ries, to increas­ing pub­lic tran­sit options and invest­ing in pedes­tri­an and road safe­ty projects, this is a win for our entire state.”

“This pack­age is key for an acces­si­ble, sus­tain­able future in Washington’s trans­porta­tion sec­tor,” said Fey. “We’ve worked hard over the last two years to lis­ten to com­mu­ni­ties all across Wash­ing­ton, and they told us that their top pri­or­i­ties includ­ed pre­serv­ing our infra­struc­ture, fin­ish­ing projects we’ve start­ed, tak­ing action against cli­mate change, expand­ing mul­ti­modal options, and address­ing the harm of past trans­porta­tion poli­cies. I’m proud that this pack­age reflects all those things to invest in every Wash­ing­ton community.”

“Move Ahead Wash­ing­ton,” unveiled by Sen­a­tor Liias and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Fey today, includes a his­toric invest­ment in pub­lic tran­sit ser­vice. said Todd Mor­row, Wash­ing­ton State Tran­sit Asso­ci­a­tion Board Pres­i­dent and Island Tran­sit Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. “This new fund­ing will sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve access to oppor­tu­ni­ties for all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, through pub­lic tran­sit ser­vice that is more robust, acces­si­ble, and envi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able. It is crit­i­cal that this pack­age be passed.”

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee released a state­ment declar­ing his sup­port for the package.

“The Move Ahead Wash­ing­ton pro­pos­al will pro­vide major ben­e­fits to com­mu­ni­ties all across our state,” said the gov­er­nor. “As our state con­tin­ues to grow, we need to make sure peo­ple and busi­ness­es have safe, reli­able trans­porta­tion options.”

“Impor­tant­ly, this pack­age rec­og­nizes the need to reduce emis­sions in our trans­porta­tion sec­tor by pri­or­i­tiz­ing bil­lions of dol­lars to clean trans­porta­tion ini­tia­tives includ­ing fund­ing for four new hybrid-elec­tric ves­sels, sup­port for new state and local decar­boniza­tion projects, and his­toric invest­ments in tran­sit, bicy­cle and pedes­tri­an infra­struc­ture,” Inslee added.

“I am espe­cial­ly appre­cia­tive this pack­age includes fund­ing to replace the I‑5 bridge over the Colum­bia Riv­er; keeps our legal com­mit­ment to remove fish pas­sage bar­ri­ers on our state high­ways; and con­tin­ues work on ultra-high-speed rail.”

“I would like to thank House Trans­porta­tion Chair Jake Fey and Sen­ate Trans­porta­tion Chair Marko Liias for lead­ing on this effort. I encour­age the House and Sen­ate to move this pack­age through ses­sion as quick­ly as possible.”

The basics of Move Ahead Washington

Past Wash­ing­ton State trans­porta­tion pack­ages have been extreme­ly high­way-cen­tric. NPI’s research shows that vot­ers would pre­fer a more safe­ty and cli­mate focused approach, and Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors have respond­ed by offer­ing a pack­age that is far more bal­anced than those of bygone years.

• High­way con­struc­tion: Leg­is­la­tors are propos­ing to invest approx­i­mate­ly $4 bil­lion in high­way projects, includ­ing the rebuild­ing of State Route 520 through Seat­tle and the Colum­bia Riv­er Crossing.
• Main­te­nance: The pack­age would pro­vide $3 bil­lion to address the state’s grow­ing road and bridge main­te­nance needs, which are significant.
• Tran­sit and Mul­ti­modal Projects: $3 bil­lion would be invest­ed in pub­lic tran­sit and in projects that make walk­ing and bik­ing safer. $150 mil­lion would be ded­i­cat­ed to ultra high speed rail planning.
• Fer­ries: The state would invest in four new hybrid elec­tric ves­sels as well as the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of cur­rent ves­sels and ter­mi­nal improvements.

With respect to rev­enue, the pack­age would rely prin­ci­pal­ly on rev­enue gen­er­at­ed from the state’s cap and invest ini­tia­tive, the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act, along with fed­er­al dol­lars and a one-time trans­fer of funds from the oper­at­ing budget.

Addi­tion­al rev­enue would come from sell­ing bonds, tax­ing export­ed fuel and jet fuel, and increas­ing more than half a dozen fees, such as the fee to get an enhanced dri­ver’s license, the stolen vehi­cle check fee, and deal­er tem­po­rary per­mit. How­ev­er, unlike in past trans­porta­tion pack­ages, such as those enact­ed in 2003, 2005, and 2015, this one does­n’t include a gas tax increase.

Delving deeper: Where to go if you want to read more

Here’s the text of the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion that would autho­rize the package:

• SB 5974 (resources)
  SB 5975 (invest­ments)

Here are sup­port­ing documents:

• Spend­ing Sum­ma­ry — Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act Spend­ing Sum­ma­ry (LEAP 2022‑A)
• Spend­ing Sum­ma­ry — 18th Amend­ment & Other
• Rev­enue Summary
• High­way and Oth­er Cap­i­tal Projects (LEAP NL‑1) — 2/8/2022
• Pedes­tri­an and Bike Project List (LEAP NL‑2) — 2/8/2022
• Tran­sit Project List (LEAP NL‑3) — 2/8/2022

Where would the transit investments go?

Here is a high lev­el break­down of the tran­sit invest­ments cour­tesy of WSTA:

Fund­ing increas­es for cur­rent programs

• $600 mil­lion in trans­porta­tion invest­ments for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties; dou­bling the cur­rent fund­ing levels.
• $200 mil­lion to the Green Trans­porta­tion Cap­i­tal Grant Pro­gram; dou­bling the cur­rent fund­ing levels

Fund­ing for new tran­sit programs:

• $1.45 bil­lion in Tran­sit Sup­port Grants, for­mu­la-based funds that will be dis­trib­uted to every agency in the state to ensure that those 18 and younger can ride free.
• $400 mil­lion in Bus and Bus Facil­i­ty Grants to sup­port agen­cies in their cap­i­tal needs such as bus replace­ment and expan­sion, and facil­i­ty refur­bish­ment, expan­sion and/or replace­ment. These grants will pro­vide near­ly $50 mil­lion per bien­ni­um in com­pet­i­tive cap­i­tal grants.
• $293 mil­lion in tran­sit-spe­cif­ic projects to agen­cies includ­ing King Coun­ty Metro, Com­mu­ni­ty Tran­sit, Pierce Tran­sit, Spokane Tran­sit, C‑TRAN, Kit­sap Tran­sit, Inter­ci­ty Tran­sit, Island Tran­sit, Ben Franklin Tran­sit, What­com Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty, Yaki­ma Tran­sit, Skag­it Tran­sit, and Colum­bia Coun­ty Pub­lic Transportation.
• $80 mil­lion to a Trib­al Grant Pro­gram to sup­port trib­al tran­sit service.

The tran­sit project list linked above goes into more detail.

Our assessment

We have been exam­in­ing the details of the pack­age and have some thoughts.

The good

NPI applauds the deci­sion to abol­ish fares for Wash­ing­to­ni­ans under the age of eigh­teen for all modes (local tran­sit, Amtrak Cas­cades inter­ci­ty rail, and fer­ries). While we would have liked to see fares go away for every­one, this is a good start towards accom­plish­ing that impor­tant long term goal.

We’re also glad to see fund­ing for safe routes to school, green tran­sit grants, trib­al tran­sit mobil­i­ty grants, and com­plete streets.

This pro­pos­al def­i­nite­ly offers “big” pub­lic tran­sit invest­ments, which a large major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans say that they sup­port, along with pri­or­i­tiz­ing fish pas­sage, road main­te­nance, and bridge safety.

Right now, accord­ing to WSTA, the state pro­vides tran­sit agen­cies a col­lec­tive $265 mil­lion every two years. The new fund­ing increase pro­vides an addi­tion­al $382 mil­lion per bien­ni­um for a total invest­ment per bien­ni­um of near­ly $650 mil­lion. That’s a mean­ing­ful increase, on top of the fund­ing the state is pro­vid­ing to enable all youth to ride tran­sit with­out pay­ing fares.

We’re glad that mon­ey for new fer­ry­boats is includ­ed, too, although Wash­ing­ton needs more than what has been pro­posed in this package.

And it’s good that mon­ey is includ­ed for safe­ty-ori­ent­ed projects like the Colum­bia Riv­er Cross­ing, although those projects need to be designed thought­ful­ly, with­out pro­vid­ing for tons of expen­sive new ramps and mas­sive near­by interchanges.

The not-so-good

The Leg­is­la­ture is still propos­ing to spend sig­nif­i­cant sums of mon­ey on projects that would increase high­way capac­i­ty, includ­ing the widen­ing of State Route 18 and the com­ple­tion of State Route 167 in Pierce County.

Con­trary to what many law­mak­ers have said, widen­ing high­ways like SR 18 won’t make them safer, nor will it reduce congestion.

When high­ways are widened, or when new high­ways are built, that encour­ages peo­ple to dri­ve more, a phe­nom­e­non known as induced demand.

WSDOT knows all about induced demand, but it’s still going ahead with already-con­cep­tu­al­ized high­way projects that will induce demand.

We have seri­ous con­cerns about the one time pro­pos­al to trans­fer $2 bil­lion in state rev­enue out of the oper­at­ing bud­get and into trans­porta­tion. This move does­n’t set a good prece­dent, and we favor remov­ing it from the pack­age, or at least reduc­ing the amount of mon­ey to be transferred.

Our schools, col­leges, and uni­ver­si­ties remain under­fund­ed, and the Leg­is­la­ture needs to ded­i­cate more mon­ey to edu­ca­tion. While mak­ing tran­sit free to ride for youth could help get kids to school, we have utter­ly failed to prop­er­ly fund pri­or­i­ties like spe­cial edu­ca­tion, school nurs­es, music and the arts, or cap­i­tal projects to ensure all school­child­ren have safe build­ings to learn in. Those needs are no less impor­tant than any of the trans­porta­tion pri­or­i­ties dis­cussed above.

On bal­ance

We like this pack­age and will be sup­port­ing it, while urg­ing that the oper­at­ing fund trans­fer idea be removed from the package.

We thank Sen­a­tor Liias and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Fey for their lead­er­ship in putting this togeth­er. Mak­ing the most of an oppor­tu­ni­ty to deliv­er for Wash­ing­to­ni­ans in a short leg­isla­tive ses­sion is exact­ly what our law­mak­ers should be doing.