With I‑976 kaput, transit advocates focus on navigating out of the coronavirus pandemic

Ear­li­er this month, the Wash­ing­ton Supreme Court ruled Tim Eyman’s I‑976 uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. This was the right-wing sabo­teur’s lat­est con against vot­ers, which promised cheap vehi­cle fees with no men­tion of any consequences.

The poor­ly con­ceived ini­tia­tive was nev­er like­ly to with­stand judi­cial scruti­ny; we have been point­ing out the ini­tia­tive’s glar­ing vio­la­tions of Wash­ing­ton’s Con­sti­tu­tion since Eyman qual­i­fied it to the bal­lot in 2018.

The deci­sion strik­ing down Ini­tia­tive 976 in its entire­ty was wel­comed by advo­cates for free­dom of mobil­i­ty. In a state­ment, Andrew Kid­dle of 350 Seat­tle’s Trans­porta­tion Team not­ed: “The Wash­ing­ton Supreme Court’s rul­ing pro­vides much need­ed relief for tran­sit pro­grams all over our state, and gives a boost to healthy, cli­mate-friend­ly, safe, and afford­able transportation.”

A coali­tion of local gov­ern­ments, tran­sit agen­cies, and pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions went to court eleven months ago to put a stop to I‑976 after Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling’s efforts to defeat the decep­tive­ly word­ed mea­sure at the bal­lot fell short.

With I‑976 now kaput, pro­gres­sives have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to go back on offense and pos­i­tive­ly influ­ence trans­porta­tion pol­i­cy in Wash­ing­ton State.

While need­ed and wel­come, the rul­ing against I‑976 is a defen­sive vic­to­ry that needs to be built upon, NPI allies heav­i­ly involved in the I‑976 fight say.

The Tran­sit Rid­ers Union, Cli­mate Solu­tions, and Wash­ing­ton ADAPT were all pleased with the Court’s rul­ing, but empha­sized the need to resume mak­ing progress on fund­ing mul­ti­modal trans­porta­tion infrastructure.

“The court’s deci­sion to over­turn Eyman’s I‑976 is a win for tran­sit rid­ers and for every­one in Wash­ing­ton State who ben­e­fits from a func­tion­al trans­porta­tion sys­tem — and that’s all of us,” said Katie Wil­son, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Tran­sit Rid­ers Union. “It’s also a win for democ­ra­cy, affirm­ing the rights of vot­ers in cities and trans­porta­tion dis­tricts around the state to make their own deci­sions about how to fund trans­porta­tion improve­ments and pub­lic tran­sit. Now it’s time to get to work. Ful­ly fund­ing an equi­table, sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion sys­tem will be essen­tial to our state’s eco­nom­ic recov­ery from the COVID-19 recession.”

“Over­turn­ing I‑976 is a win for any­one who rides tran­sit and wants safer streets, hates pot­holes and con­ges­tion, and wants clean air and a healthy cli­mate,” stat­ed Vlad Gut­man-Brit­ten, Wash­ing­ton State Direc­tor for Cli­mate Solu­tions. “The Wash­ing­ton Supreme Court restored vot­er-approved tran­sit ini­tia­tives. Now that this sor­ry saga is behind us, it’s time to focus on invest­ing in the sus­tain­able, afford­able, equi­table trans­porta­tion sys­tem Wash­ing­ton needs.”

“The Wash­ing­ton State dis­abil­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty will ben­e­fit from the I‑976 deci­sion if these funds go to more acces­si­ble pub­lic tran­sit ser­vices,” said Janine Bertram of Wash­ing­ton ADAPT. “I‑976 would have left dis­abled tran­sit rid­ers around the state strand­ed. 30 years after the Amer­i­cans with Dis­abil­i­ties Act was signed, we still have inad­e­quate ser­vice and dys­func­tion­al ele­va­tors. It’s long past time to make our trans­porta­tion sys­tem acces­si­ble to all.”

The post-976 trans­porta­tion pol­i­cy land­scape will be close­ly linked to the state’s recov­ery from the nov­el coro­n­avirus pandemic.

With­out a final rul­ing to go on, the Seat­tle City Coun­cil opt­ed to go with a sales tax only trans­porta­tion levy this year. The levy seeks to pre­serve fund­ing for sup­ple­men­tal bus ser­vice and oth­er trans­porta­tion improvements.

Coun­cilmem­bers are now dis­cussing reau­tho­riz­ing all or part of the city lev­el vehi­cle fee that I‑976 unsuc­cess­ful­ly tried to repeal to aug­ment the levy.

The Trans­porta­tion Choic­es Coali­tion was also hap­py about the out­come of the case. It called the rul­ing “a win for tran­sit,” but not­ed that the pan­dem­ic and the uncer­tain­ty lead­ing up to the rul­ing have tak­en a toll on tran­sit funding.

Wash­ing­ton present­ly relies on a mix of vehi­cle fees, gas tax­es, tolls, fer­ry fares, and bus/train fares to fund its trans­porta­tion system.

Although low income fam­i­lies can qual­i­fy for reduced bus and train fares, the sys­tem is not based on abil­i­ty to pay, which is a problem.

Lack of sta­ble fund­ing results in ser­vice cuts, per­pet­u­at­ing social dis­rup­tion and harm­ing the envi­ron­ment by forc­ing peo­ple to drive.

Cuts take a long time to restore.

And once cuts get imposed, it gets hard­er to con­vince vot­ers to fund a dilap­i­dat­ed tran­sit sys­tem, as we’ve seen in Pierce Coun­ty with Pierce Transit.

Unre­li­able sales tax fund­ing has also been a pain point for Sound Tran­sit. In the Pierce and South King sub­ar­eas, the Great Reces­sion caused a severe rev­enue short­fall which neg­a­tive­ly impact­ed the agen­cy’s plans to extend Link light rail to Fed­er­al Way. That project has now moved for­ward to the con­struc­tion phase thanks to a sig­nif­i­cant infu­sion in fed­er­al money.

Oth­er Sound Tran­sit 2 projects are also hum­ming along — light rail to Red­mond is under con­struc­tion and so is light rail to down­town Lynnwood.

But the agen­cy’s abil­i­ty to deliv­er its ST3 projects (approved in 2016) is imper­iled due to the reces­sion induced by the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Vot­ers autho­rized Sound Tran­sit to bring light rail to Issaquah, Everett, and Taco­ma; put a bus rapid tran­sit line on I‑405; and expand Sounder and ST Express.

Vot­ers in Sound Tran­sit’s juris­dic­tion chose to stay the course last year by reject­ing Ini­tia­tive 976. That vote of con­fi­dence was good news for Sound Tran­sit. How­ev­er, the agency will like­ly need fed­er­al mon­ey to get its ST3 projects built and built on time. Fed­er­al mon­ey has been essen­tial to build­ing most of Sound Tran­sit’s Link seg­ments thus far and will be just as impor­tant to the ST3 lines.

Amtrak’s Cas­cades ser­vice has also been hurt by the pandemic.

Due to the bor­der clo­sure, it has­n’t run north of Seat­tle for months. Dai­ly trips between King Street Sta­tion and Ore­gon are half of pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els. COVID con­cerns mean that many poten­tial rid­ers sim­ply dri­ve and take I‑5 instead.

To safe­guard free­dom of mobil­i­ty for Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, the Leg­is­la­ture must act deci­sive­ly to mod­ern­ize our tax sys­tem and strength­en trans­porta­tion funding.

Tran­sit is infra­struc­ture. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans today ben­e­fit from that invest­ment through employ­ment. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans tomor­row will thank us for pro­vid­ing them with more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly options for get­ting around.