Move Ahead Washington transportation package gets final legislative approval

Today, hours ahead of adjourn­ing Sine Die, the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture signed off on a rare even-num­bered year trans­porta­tion pack­age that would make sub­stan­tial invest­ments in pub­lic tran­sit and fish pas­sage, while con­tin­u­ing to allo­cate size­able sums to high­way con­struc­tion and widening.

The Move Ahead Wash­ing­ton trans­porta­tion pack­age, nego­ti­at­ed and cham­pi­oned pri­mar­i­ly by Sen­ate Trans­porta­tion Chair Marko Liias (D‑21st Dis­trict: Sno­homish Coun­ty) and House Trans­porta­tion Chair Jake Fey (D‑27th Dis­trict): Pierce Coun­ty, con­sists of two parts: a rev­enue bill and an appro­pri­a­tions bill.

The rev­enue bill (SB 5974) stip­u­lates that the pack­age shall be fund­ed with Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act pro­ceeds, fed­er­al dol­lars, trans­fers from the gen­er­al fund and the pub­lic works trust fund account, and increas­es in a num­ber of fees, such as the fee to obtain a dri­ver’s license.

The appro­pri­a­tions bill (SB 5975) allo­cates that rev­enue to spe­cif­ic projects and needs, like the revived Colum­bia Riv­er Cross­ing project in South­west Wash­ing­ton, the com­ple­tion of State Route 520 through Seat­tle, sev­er­al new fer­ry­boats, grants for local pub­lic tran­sit agen­cies, and ultra high speed rail planning.

Past trans­porta­tion pack­ages have been devel­oped by leg­is­la­tors from both par­ties, but Move Ahead Wash­ing­ton was not, to Repub­li­cans’ chagrin.

With pre­vi­ous rounds of nego­ti­a­tions led by for­mer Sen­a­tor Steve Hobbs hav­ing failed to yield a pack­age, Liias and Fey opt­ed for a dif­fer­ent approach to get across the fin­ish line in a short ses­sion, pledg­ing to enter­tain Repub­li­can feed­back and cri­tiques despite not hav­ing includ­ed Repub­li­cans at the nego­ti­at­ing table.

The roll call vote in the House on the rev­enue bill was as follows:

Roll Call
SB 5974
Trans­porta­tion resources
Final Pas­sage as rec­om­mend­ed by the Con­fer­ence Committee
3/10/2022

Yeas: 54; Nays: 44

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bate­man, Berg, Bergquist, Berry, Bronoske, Callan, Chap­man, Chopp, Cody, Davis, Dolan, Don­aghy, Duerr, Enten­man, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Gregerson, Hack­ney, Hansen, Har­ris-Tal­ley, John­son, J., Kir­by, Klo­ba, Leav­itt, Lekanoff, Macri, Mor­gan, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Peter­son, Pol­let, Ramel, Ramos, Ric­cel­li, Ryu, San­tos, Sells, Senn, Sim­mons, Slat­ter, Springer, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Tay­lor, Thai, Tharinger, Valdez, Walen, Wicks, Wylie, Jinkins

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Abbarno, Barkis, Boehnke, Caldier, Cham­bers, Chan­dler, Chase, Cor­ry, Dent, Dufault, Dye, Eslick, Gil­day, Goehn­er, Gra­ham, Grif­fey, Har­ris, Hoff, Jacob­sen, Klick­er, Klip­pert, Kraft, Kretz, MacEwen, May­cum­ber, McCaslin, McEn­tire, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Paul, Robert­son, Rude, Rule, Schmick, Shew­make, Steele, Stokes­bary, Suther­land, Vick, Volz, Walsh, Wilcox, Ybar­ra, Young

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dave Paul, Ali­cia Rule, and Sharon Shew­make joined Repub­li­cans in vot­ing no on the rev­enue bill. All oth­er Democ­rats vot­ed yea.

In the Sen­ate, the roll call was:

Roll Call
SB 5974
Trans­porta­tion resources
Final Pas­sage as Rec­om­mend­ed by Con­fer­ence Committee
3/10/2022

Yeas: 29; Nays: 20

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bil­lig, Car­lyle, Cleve­land, Con­way, Das, Dhin­gra, Hasegawa, Hawkins, Hunt, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, Lovick, Mul­let, Nguyen, Nobles, Ped­er­sen, Ran­dall, Robin­son, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Shel­don, Stan­ford, Trudeau, Van De Wege, Well­man, Wil­son, C.

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Braun, Brown, Dozi­er, For­tu­na­to, Frockt, Gildon, Holy, Hon­ey­ford, King, McCune, Muz­za­ll, Pad­den, Rivers, Schoesler, Sefzik, Short, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son, J., Wil­son, L.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor David Frockt opposed the bill. Repub­li­cans Tim Shel­don and Brad Hawkins crossed over to sup­port the bill and vot­ed yea.

All oth­er Repub­li­cans vot­ed nay.

The roll call vote in the House on the appro­pri­a­tions bill was as follows:

Roll Call
SB 5975
Addi­tive transp. funding
Final Pas­sage as rec­om­mend­ed by the Con­fer­ence Committee
3/10/2022

Yeas: 57; Nays: 41

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bate­man, Berg, Bergquist, Berry, Bronoske, Callan, Chap­man, Chopp, Cody, Davis, Dolan, Don­aghy, Duerr, Enten­man, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Gregerson, Hack­ney, Hansen, Har­ris-Tal­ley, John­son, J., Kir­by, Klo­ba, Leav­itt, Lekanoff, Macri, Mor­gan, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Paul, Peter­son, Pol­let, Ramel, Ramos, Ric­cel­li, Rule, Ryu, San­tos, Sells, Senn, Shew­make, Sim­mons, Slat­ter, Springer, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Tay­lor, Thai, Tharinger, Valdez, Walen, Wicks, Wylie, Jinkins

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Abbarno, Barkis, Boehnke, Caldier, Cham­bers, Chan­dler, Chase, Cor­ry, Dent, Dufault, Dye, Eslick, Gil­day, Goehn­er, Gra­ham, Grif­fey, Har­ris, Hoff, Jacob­sen, Klick­er, Klip­pert, Kraft, Kretz, MacEwen, May­cum­ber, McCaslin, McEn­tire, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Robert­son, Rude, Schmick, Steele, Stokes­bary, Suther­land, Vick, Volz, Walsh, Wilcox, Ybar­ra, Young

And in the Sen­ate, it was:

Roll Call
SB 5975
Addi­tive transp. funding
Final Pas­sage as Rec­om­mend­ed by Con­fer­ence Committee
3/10/2022

Yeas: 30; Nays: 19

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bil­lig, Car­lyle, Cleve­land, Con­way, Das, Dhin­gra, Frockt, Hasegawa, Hawkins, Hunt, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, Lovick, Mul­let, Nguyen, Nobles, Ped­er­sen, Ran­dall, Robin­son, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Shel­don, Stan­ford, Trudeau, Van De Wege, Well­man, Wil­son (Claire)

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Braun, Brown, Dozi­er, For­tu­na­to, Gildon, Holy, Hon­ey­ford, King, McCune, Muz­za­ll, Pad­den, Rivers, Schoesler, Sefzik, Short, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son (Jeff), Wil­son (Lyn­da)

Sen­a­tor Frockt was a yea on the appro­pri­a­tions bill. No oth­er sen­a­tors vot­ed dif­fer­ent­ly on the appro­pri­a­tions bill than on the rev­enue bill.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus staff high­light­ed the fol­low­ing invest­ments in a news release cel­e­brat­ing the adop­tion of Move Ahead Washington:

• $5.4 bil­lion toward car­bon reduc­tion and mul­ti­modal expansion.
• $3 bil­lion for main­te­nance and preservation.
• $3 bil­lion for pub­lic trans­porta­tion; free fares for pas­sen­gers 18 and younger on all pub­lic transportation.
• $2.4 bil­lion to fund fish pas­sage bar­ri­er removals.
• $1.3 bil­lion in active trans­porta­tion, includ­ing Safe Routes to School and school-based bike programs.
• $1 bil­lion to fund Washington’s por­tion of an I‑5 replace­ment bridge across the Colum­bia River.
• $836 mil­lion to build four new hybrid-elec­tric ferries.
• $150 mil­lion towards ultra-high-speed rail.
• $50 mil­lion for walk­ing and bik­ing infra­struc­ture in under­in­vest­ed com­mu­ni­ties, and more.

“From the begin­ning, this pack­age has been about lis­ten­ing to people’s needs and mak­ing sus­tain­able invest­ments in our future,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jake Fey.

“We received crit­i­cal feed­back through­out the leg­isla­tive process and incor­po­rat­ed that input into the final pack­age. I am glad that we stuck with our pri­or­i­ties like preser­va­tion and main­te­nance, fin­ish­ing crit­i­cal projects, expand­ing acces­si­ble trans­porta­tion options, reduc­ing green­house gas emis­sions and address­ing past harms caused by our trans­porta­tion system.”

“We said when this pack­age was announced that it was a first draft, and now we’ve passed a pack­age that incor­po­rates the feed­back we’ve received over the last month,” said Sen­a­tor Marko Liias. “We’re invest­ing in projects from rur­al to urban areas across our state, let­ting kids ride free on our bus­es, fer­ries and trains, and so much more — and all with­out punt­ing the cost to work­ing families.”

“Move Ahead Wash­ing­ton ded­i­cates near­ly 18% of the total pack­age to pub­lic tran­sit and 25% to mul­ti­modal,” not­ed Wash­ing­ton State Tran­sit Asso­ci­a­tion Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Justin Leighton fol­low­ing pas­sage. “To put that into per­spec­tive, Con­nect­ing Wash­ing­ton, approved in 2015, only ded­i­cat­ed 4% to tran­sit and 6% for all mul­ti­modal projects. Move Ahead Wash­ing­ton will add one and half times more fund­ing for pub­lic tran­sit than it gets today.”

Although the pack­age still has too much fund­ing for high­way widen­ing in it, it is def­i­nite­ly more safe­ly and cli­mate focused than past pack­ages. Mak­ing tran­sit fare-free for all youth under the ages of eigh­teen will be a big win and is an impor­tant step towards a tran­sit-for-all future. NPI con­grat­u­lates the Leg­is­la­ture on get­ting a new trans­porta­tion pack­age adopt­ed in a short session.