Traffic's so bad, we might actually be willing to pay a toll
Puget Sound policy-makers have been taking the public pulse. Their surveys reveal that people are generally pessimistic about the future, frustrated with traffic, and willing to pay to cross Lake Washington in a car – as long as it's really cheap.
Deep in the bowels of the Puget Sound Regional Council are people who are planning our future. What will the Puget Sound area look like in 2040? They compile data, conduct studies, talk with experts, and plot our course with impressive – and sometimes impressively complex – flow charts. If the devil is in the details, these folks are on a first name basis with Satan.
One of the groups plotting your future (and your children's children's future) is the so-called Pricing Task Force, which is charged with figuring out issues like tolling, congestion pricing, dynamic tolling, variable pricing, freeway network tolling, area pricing, HOT lane networks, etc., etc. It's all pretty straightforward: They envision a time when driving in the metro area will be a pay-as-you go proposition. You don't convene a Pricing Task Force unless you think our "free" ride is coming to and end.
But it's new and tricky stuff, so there are a lot of concepts to be considered, lots of research to chew over. The Pricing Task Force is sorting out the options to fund transportation with user-fees. They're looking at what the effects of various pricing tactics will be on the economy, gridlock, the environment, property values, and human behavior. They have cities like London, Stockholm, and Singapore to look to for examples of how to boost transit ridership and punish people for driving, among other things, using tools like radio transponders, car scanners, and networks of surveillance cameras.
At this month's meeting, the task force heard about data from two recent surveys about transportation and tolling, one conducted by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) [60K PDF] by McDonough Associates and the other for King County by EMC Research.
The surveys presented some pretty encouraging numbers for advocates of bridge tolling – especially the Highway 520 floating bridge cross Lake Washington. But they also painted a grimmer picture of how our transportation system is viewed overall. And some of the numbers seem like a wake-up call concerning priorities. So much emphasis in Seattle transportation discussion is about mass transit (light rail, streetcars, bus rapid transit) and other "green" solutions (biking, walking, greater density). But people in the region continue to be hopeful that we can still build our way out of traffic congestion with more lanes and bigger freeways.
In addition to the surveys, WSDOT also conducted focus groups [203K PDF] in December around King County on tolling and road pricing strategies. Lets go through some of the survey highlights, with a few tidbits added from the focus group results.
Priorities
WSDOT talked to 1,200 registered voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties in December. When asked to name the priorities of state government, the number one answer was education (19 percent) with transportation a close second (16 percent) and cutting taxes third (15 percent). When you add up the responses related to transportation (congestion, mass transit, etc.), the transportation-related number jumps to 50 percent.
King County's telephone survey of 500 residents, also conducted in December, indicated that 54 percent of respondents believe that traffic and transportation are "the most important problem facing King County." The WSDOT focus group concluded: "Participants almost unanimously felt that traffic is getting worse."
When WSDOT asked tri-county residents to name the major transportation priority in the region, the top vote-getter was replacing the 520 bridge (45 percent), with road safety and replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct tied for second with 29 percent each. A close third was expanding major highways like Interstate 90, Interstate 405, and Interstate 5. Green solutions were given a lower prority. Mass transit, for example, came in at only 5 percent, light rail at 2 percent, and more buses at 1 percent. In short, ask people an opened-ended question, and they want more and improved roads. When asked about preferred mass transit strategies, more buses at 28 percent topped the list.
The King County survey rated the public's priorities on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being most urgent and 1 being not at all urgent. The top priority (rating 6.05) was reducing traffic congestion. Next were taking action on the Viaduct (5.28), expanding bus service (5.03), expanding light rail (4.75), adding lanes to roads (4.68), and replacing 520 (4.55).
In terms of 520, the King County poll found that 82 percent in King County agree that the floating bridge needs to be replaced. Interestingly, concerns about safety did not significantly increase support for replacement. What motivated most people was that the 1963, four-lane span is old and over capacity. In other words, it's too small for the traffic it's carrying. A six-lane version got strong support.
Tolling
The surveys indicate that people are pretty comfortable with the idea of tolling 520 to pay for replacing it. King County's survey says 84 percent of respondents think tolling is preferable to higher general taxes, more expensive license-plate tabs, or an increased gas tax. WSDT found that 77 percent of tri-county voters support helping to pay for a portion of 520 replacement with tolls.
Comments:
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 8:23 a.m. inappropriate
Don't go out on a limb, there, Knute!: --------------------------
If tolls are implemented and they turn out to be higher, more widespread, or permanent, and if the benefits are not readily visible, there could be trouble with voters who are already in a sour mood.
---------------------------
Sour mood? "Could" be trouble? You haven't seen anything yet! If Eyman, or anybody else, introduces an initiative to ban highway tolling altogether, not only will I vote for it, I'll gather signatures for it!
I'll move out of this state altogether before I let any m-----f----r put a transponder on my car. And there are hundreds of thousands who feel the same way about it, make no mistake.
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 8:36 a.m. inappropriate
Our initiative this year will determine voter attitudes better than any biased poll: From: Tim Eyman, co-sponsor of ReduceCongestion.org I-985
Here's some details on I-985 that have not, as yet, been widely discussed.
This year's initiative -- ReduceCongestion.org I-985 -- continues our mission to protect taxpayers. We've included provisions in the measure that shield us from politicians' lustful appetite for a bigger percentage of the family budget. Besides implementing common sense transportation policies recommended by the State Auditor, I-985 protects taxpayers in numerous ways:
* Whether it's taxes, fees, tolls, fines, penalties, or other government charges, they all increase the taxpayers' burden. They all decrease the family's budget. Politicians seem to think that calling tax hikes something else somehow sounds better to voters. That's why Gregoire says she got the voters' message from the defeat of Prop 1 last November when she says "Voters said no to taxes, so I'm not raising taxes, I'm imposing tolls." Voters deserve an alternative approach: instead of taking more of the people's money, I-985 uses existing transportation-related taxes that aren't being spent on transportation. Right now, transportation-related taxes are being diverted to non-transportation spending. It is wrong for politicians to keep taking more of the people's money while continually diverting the taxes we already pay to other things.
* Speaking of tolls, politicians keep pushing for tolls but without any taxpayer protection included. Politicians continually say that what they can do with the revenue must be 'flexible', meaning it can be spent on anything, including general fund spending. I-985 doesn't create or impose tolls, but it protects taxpayers if politicians impose tolls:
1) If politicians impose tolls just for the 'privilege' of driving on roads we've already paid for with gas taxes (without improving the roads), then 100% of the money collected is dedicated and deposited in the "Reduce Traffic Congestion Account" in I-985. Politicians' appetite for tolls will certainly be soured when they learn they can't divert the revenue to anything they want.
2) If politicians impose tolls to improve a road, I-985 requires that the toll revenue can only be spent on improving that road and no other. Once the improvement is done, the toll must end. Politicians keep saying they need 'flexibility' to impose tolls to pay for other things -- I-985 protects taxpayers from politicians' bait-and-switch tactics.
* One of the fastest growing revenue-raisers for governments are so-called "automatic traffic safety cameras". Politicians say they're putting up these cameras to increase safety, but you know and I know they're doing it to confiscate more money from the taxpayers. I-985 removes the profit motive to put up these cameras. After a court ruled in North Carolina that the cities there couldn't keep the money generated from these cameras, they 'suddenly' discovered the cameras didn't improve safety after all (they found they actually increased accidents) and took them all down. I-985 is 100% clear that 100% of the profits earned from these cameras MUST be dedicated and deposited in the "Reduce Traffic Congestion Account" in I-985. It's already having an effect (Initiative forces Simpson to hold off on red light cameras, Aberdeen Daily World, February 16, 2008)
Just like our previous initiatives, this year's I-985 protects taxpayers. Politicians have a one-size-fits-all, the only-solution-is-a-tax-increase mentality. We ask everyone to help us work super hard to give voters a better option. If we don't, then taxpayers will quickly watch their family budgets get smaller and smaller.
Learn more by going to our website:
http://www.ReduceCongestion.org
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 11:06 a.m. inappropriate
Can I help you pack?: Folks like Ivan are all the rage. That's all they do -- rage. They've got no solutions, just threats. When people are asked how they want to pay for projects, they want the users of the thing to pay for it -- and for a bridge, that means tolls. It's worked since the Roman Empire, and it worked for the construction of many of our major bridges. Just because people like Ivan and Eyman may not be old enough to remember these tolls does not mean they are not effective at achieving goals. Both the old 520 bridge and the Hood Canal bridge were paid off early because projections of users were too conservative, just like the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
So Ivan, I hereby offer to help you pack so you can quickly get the Hell out of here and find yourself a place with no taxes and tolls.
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 1:19 p.m. inappropriate
All I do is rage?: Don't you wish? Actually, I organize politically, I raise money, and I lobby in Olympia. Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose, but that's life.
We're already paying gas taxes, and unlike Timmy Boy, I want to see the return of the motor vehicle excise tax, so that RV and Hummer drivers, and the owners of luxury items like ATVs, snowmobiles, and jet skis get taxed through the nose.
I support each and every mass transit program that comes along and will gladly pay taxes to establish and maintain them. I want to see a Democratic president elected so that we can end this insane war and get the federal money flowing toward infrastructure again so that WA taxpayers don't have to foot the entire bill.
Tolls are regressive, punitive, intrusive, and coercive, and they affect those at the bottom of the economic ladder disproportionately. You can leave the state, Mr. Smart Guy, because we intend to beat you on this one.
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 3:16 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Our initiative this year...: Aside from making you money, and improving your image, Tim, please let us know what transportation-related taxes are being diverted to non-transportation spending, and if they will cover the cost of building a new 520.
Trying to appease the populists out there, this state foolishly took tolls OFF both bridges. Tolls that HAD THEY BEEN KEPT ON, would have more than paid for the repair and replacement of each bridge.
Once again you claim it all can be funded by exsisting taxes, just vote for your simple no tax, no responsible solution initiatives... and keep NOT running for office lest the world ask how YOU would solve these infrstructure connundrums.
SO TIM, WHAT part of this states budget would YOU cut? Lets hear it! Remember that what is not paying for debt service, and mandated by our constitution cannot be cut... (like education).
What would YOU cut so the folks who use the infrastructure can continue to have it subsidized?
This "I-got-mine-and-I-want-more-but-no-more-taxes" attitude is so short sighted. Sadly, I am sure your measure will pass. Once again you can screw up the process that already costs us billions to insure everyone gets to chime in (we just ranked the 4th best in the country for open govenment process)...
Once again, rather than take the time and sit in on long standing review boards, Or be a part of the budget process, Or run for office to try to deal with all the issues, it is once again best to have a hissy fit, convince the masses that Your's is the best idea - Just say no, and help fund Tim. Innsure the state cuts what YOU don't use so it can build bigger wider freeways so your undertaxed land yacht does not have to idle so long.
It is Voodo economics... trickle down stupidity to take a complex issue, and boil it down to something you can run yet another initiative campaign, which of course YOU profit from. Simple solutions (tax me no more for using the roads than you already do, I don't care what you have to cut to make it happen) once again.
You seem to have more ideas of what to do with our budget than Rossi. PLEASE RUN for office, instead of picking off simple targets.
At the VERY least, Please enlighten us on what "waste" you identify that can be cut so we can pay for new bridges and infrastructure without new funding sources.
Because once this pot shot passes, and it will, something more will have to be cut, and you will be far too busy to be bothered with it, making it everyone elses problem but yours.
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 4:32 p.m. inappropriate
Use fees: I'm sorry, but I don't see what's wrong with a use fee. If I'm going to see the Mariners, I'll pay for a ticket. If I'm going to ride a ferry, I'll pay for it. I have no problem paying to use a road --- whether it's a bridge or a highway.
I agree that the fees raised by tolls should be required to be used for building and maintaining the tolled roads.
One reader asked "what should be cut?" How about the insane pension obligations for state employees? That is an absolutely irresponsible use of our taxes. How about requiring accountability for education spending? We see teachers (state employees) repeatedly coming to the taxpayers with their hands out for raises but not accepting any accountability for better education. Perhaps we could do without spending $400,000 of taxpayer money for the "Lucy Exhibit" at the Pacific Science Center. Or perhaps it is not a good use of taxpayer funds to spend $600,000 over the last two years for the KCTS v-me initiative.
With gawdawful spending like that, why should we trust our lawmakers to use the additional revenue from tolls wisely?
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 6 p.m. inappropriate
You Can Start Tolling: and at the same time, REDUCE the state gas tax by the projected amount the tolls will generate AND thereafter, adjust the gas tax down as projections become actual data.
OR
you can forget about tolls !
Oh, and while i'm here, start the state cutting with DSHS and the dept of health. Follow up at the dept of public instruction.
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 8:10 p.m. inappropriate
A closer look at the poll: Environment not a concern for voters? My guess is that support for mass transit is rooted in environmental concerns, as is some of the concern about congestion and transportation. After all, autos are the most serious source of global warming pollution, as well as air and water pollution, and contribute to sprawl. Anyway, just add up support for mass transit, concern about land use, environmental concerns and the health of puget sound and you are up to 20% of the voters naming an environmental issue as a top priority. Assume that some of the concern with traffic and congestion is not just a concern about inconvenience, but a concern with environmental impacts, and you get even higher results.
This is actually quite consistent with exit polling that showed approximately 20% of the no vote on Prop 1 was motivated by environmental concerns. And these are progressive voters that are prepared to vote yes on new taxes and tolling if they see an environmental upside. It is very clear that the path to financing transportation improvements means responding to the environmental concerns of Puget Sound voters. In this regard, tolling starts looking pretty smart. It is a fair user fee that can pay for repairs, manage traffic congestion and improve the environment.
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 8:34 p.m. inappropriate
More misleading interpretation: The author above claims that the poll shows that the highest transportation priority for voters is various road projects, with green solutions like mass transit getting only 5% support as a high transportation priority. But the question he relies upon for this conclusion is about road priorities:
"What would you say is the top transportation project priority for our region, for highways, roads, and Bridges that must be addressed as soon as possible?"
Given that the question suggested the answer, of course poll respondents identified high priority road projects that needed attention. It is remarkable that a number of respondents blew off the framing of the question and still identified mass transit as a priority.
Either Mr. Berger did not closely review the bias in the question, or he approached this article with some pretty serious bias himself against believing that voters cared about the environment. It's understandable, a lot of opinion leaders don't believe the public is ready for better transportation solutions than new roads. But it is not accurate reporting.
Posted Tue, Mar 4, 9:32 p.m. inappropriate
Tax all roads: Is it fair to tax only users of 520 orI-90 by putting tolls on them? If the state is responsible for maintaining roads, user fees should pay for all roads.
Want to charge big gas guzzlers more?
That's why the gas tax makes so much more sense. Require that a percentage of gas tax revenue MUST be used in the county in which it was raised to be fair to other areas of the state.
I agree with the assumption that most supporters of tolls are people who don't expect to ever pay them. "Don't tax you, don't tax me. Tax that other guy behind the tree"
Posted Thu, Mar 6, 5:04 a.m. inappropriate
greenism and save-the-planetism: "worry about global warming and the effects of pollution are pretty far down the list.... many much-discussed green issues barely rated."
Pols and media wants to shove greenism down everyones throats whether they like it or not, and naturally the public doesn't respond favorably to that, government force and pressure.
As for global warming, there has been so much hype and hysteria around this issue, the public's just not buying it. They know the media sometimes lies, and they know politicians sometimes lie, and as regards global climate, they're just not buying what the politicians and media are trying to sell them.
The establishment talks in terms of "saving the planet." No reasonable-minded man or woman thinks media and/or government can so-called save the planet, and they know the media and politicians are full of it when they talk like it's their job and crusade to save us all from the imagined catastrophy they've been hyping up for years now. I believe the public believes it's a power grab more than anything else.
Another thing I would imagine the public doesn't appreciate too much is the silencing of dissent on the issue of global climate. If you have to silence one side of the argument, then you must not have an argument of your own to begin with, so your only option is to try to silence dissent in order to keep perpetrating your claims/lies as fact to a willing and lemming-like media.
Posted Thu, Mar 6, 8:20 a.m. inappropriate
Deferred Sales Tax to be paid by Tolls?: The DOT's own estimate for the Sales Tax to be paid for the 520 Bridge is 180 Million Dollars. The interest rate is approximately 4.3% over the life of the Bond (20) years. Basically, the plan appears to be to "defer" the ST and pay it out of tolling revenues down the road. So the project will generate 300+ Million to the legislature that will not be applied to the project. Perhaps it is time that the Legislature consider NOT collecting ST on Capital Projects that are built using tax dollars for public benefit. Returning dollars to the General fund off of Public Capital Projects is double taxation with interest and counter productive to catching up on the backlog of infrastructure projects. Just as a side note The State DOT alone paid 35 Million in ST to the State for its Capital Projects over the last FY.
Posted Wed, Mar 19, 12:32 p.m. inappropriate
Tolling has advanced with new laws passed by legislature: See this summary.
Posted Fri, May 30, 9:40 a.m. inappropriate
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