Are tolls the new income tax?
The public doesn't like current tolling strategies, and they aren't yet ready to accept more aggressive ones. That leaves our questionable mega-projects in a bind.
I am reminded almost every week by the Seattle Times' Joni Balter, my round-table companion on KUOW, that Washington voters have defeated the income tax. Don't bring up the topic, she says. It's a non-starter.
And it's true. Voters turned down a golden opportunity to create a tax-the-rich scheme that would make our system more progressive and raise need revenues. If Bill Gates, Sr. and the Great Recession can't convince state voters that a limited income tax would be a benefit, what will? The suspicion of and antipathy toward a state income tax runs deep here.
Now, it's virtually certain ("a slam dunk," says sponsor Tim Eyman) that a measure to limit road tolls (I-1125) will be on the fall ballot. And voters will get to weigh in on who sets tolls, how they are charged (fixed vs. variable), and what tolls are used for. The polls are already showing a general distaste for tolling. New surveys have showed that folks object to tolling I-90 (70% say don't toll it), which is key to the expansion of SR-520, they hate the idea of tolls on 520 generally, and soundly oppose a proposal to toll the Express Lanes on I-5 (63% say it's a bad idea). Opponents of the downtown tunnel have also criticized its proposed tolls.
Passage of I-1125 will likely put major crimps in oxygen hoses for two huge transportation mega-projects that are still not fully funded, even with future tolls. If tolls are limited on SR-520 and I-90 remains toll-free, it would severely limit funds for a more than $4 billion project which is still $2 billion or so short. And if tolls are limited or eliminated from the post-Alaskan Way Viaduct tunnel downtown, it'll put a huge hole in that project's revenue picture too.
Washington has a tradition of limited tolling: build a new bridge, toll until it's paid for. Tolls were instituted on the first two Lake Washington bridges, Hood Canal too, and removed.
But policy makers have been moving toward more widespread tolling for some time. They want more funding for big projects, they'd like to penalize drivers and force them into transit or staying home, they'd like car and truck drivers to pay more of the true costs of maintaining the transportation system, they'd like something to replace the gas tax. It's a way to raise money, change behavior, and reduce congestion. It's a full embrace of tolling as part of social policy.
In short, instead of tolling being like a ferry fare, it morphs into a ubiquitous, electronic revenue stream that begins to define broadly how we do things when we leave the house or apartment. Forget the toll-booth — that's a phantom of the past. Eventually, tolling would be on every major highway, even arterial. We go way down the road to become a user-fee society.
That's very much the opposite of the income tax model, which asks people to pay in proportion to their wealth. It also cuts into the notion of commonwealth. You don't pay a little something to benefit everyone, you pay what benefits you. In this way, tolling is a kind of libertarian slippery slope: she who pays, gets; she who can't pay makes other plans, or gets a little more broke. This wouldn't be as big a problem if public transportation worked, but alas, it's facing major cutbacks.
Of course there are good arguments for limited and even widespread tolling. But the public has not sufficiently been prepared to accept it: The groundwork has not been laid to achieve public buy-in, at least if the polls are correct. Tolls are still seen as another tax increase, another hassle, another way to fleece us for over-built, too costly transportation projects that seemed to be planned for futures that don't exist. Take 520, for example: A recent Sightline analysis shows that the Washington Department of Transportation has been wrong for a decade about increased traffic on the bridge. Why is it going to six lanes when traffic is flat or declining?
This gets at the issue of trust, as with the income tax. The income tax was defeated in part because opponents successfully argued that you might start by taxing the rich, but soon tax levels would sink and snatch the rest of us. And no one really believed that any existing taxes, like sales or property or B&O, would go down to compensate. Taxes always seem to defy Newton's laws.
So there is resistance to tolls for practical reasons, but also because there is skepticism about how they will be used. Eyman's initiative wants to limit tolls to the facilities that are tolled so they won't slowly become a general tax for other purposes. It's true that tolling authorities elsewhere have sometimes used toll revenues for other things. New York City's Robert Moses, much of whose power rose from his iron-clasp on tolling revenues, was able to help fund things like an unsanctioned and unprofitable world's fair with tolls from unrelated projects. In California, road tolls have been proposed to fund local schools.
Worse for green tolling advocates is that WSDOT is pursuing projects that sustainability advocates, like the Sierra Club and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, are questioning. Assuming that tolls are the right tool for managing traffic, funding transportation, and getting people out of their cars, the hope for expanded tolling will be damaged to the extent that WSDOT builds projects that are too highway-centric, or not transit-focussed. Expanding 520 and the waterfront tunnel, which with tolling will likely spill a lot of traffic onto surface streets without enough mitigation, work against green goals, and offer an excuse for voters to use the Eyman initiative as a monkey wrench. One can vote to limit tolls if you hate them, but you can also vote for I-1125 if you think it will, for a limited time at least, force WSDOT to reconsider its plans.
The Eyman initiative can draw support from a statewide, natural base of toll-haters (many from places that will never see a road toll), and add to that opponents of the big projects the tolls would enable: People who might be pro-toll in theory, but are alarmed at the funding, scale, and impact of some big road projects that seem to be designed for a false future, per Sightline. Such opposition will make for strange occasional bedfellows (some anti-tunnel folks might find themselves situationally on the same side as anti-Sound Transit Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman, Jr.), but we shouldn't be surprised.
Like the income tax, the case for the spread of tolling and where it's taking us has not yet been made.
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism. Become a member of Crosscut today!
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feeds
Comments:
Posted Tue, Jul 19, 3:43 p.m. Inappropriate
Ah, 1098... sad about that one, still. It was a bit clumsy in execution and got eaten alive for not having things in order. ... but it's where we should be going. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out and now we're back way below zero on this fight. Anyway, more on that in a bit.
If I-1125 passes, who would it harm? It wouldn't harm SR99. Or SR520. These both use money in the way prescribed by the initiative. The tunnel proponents and eastside SR520 boosters are crying crocodile tears over this whole ordeal.
And the other effects of I-1125? It would make I-90 into exactly the same type of freeway tunnel proponents are pushing. No dedicated transit, capacity for cars is made the major goal and maybe a few buses are put on paper in case people question them. Buses that are non-essential (as Gregoire's veto proved).
The overreaching worry of tunnel proponents is having to come down on one side or another of a tolling binary they've created. If they acknowledge the existence of good tolls versus bad tolls, they've given tunnel opponents support. If they come out and say "we support tolls", they've given Eyman support.
When tunnel opponents talk about the negative aspects of poorly executed tolling plans, tunnel proponents immediately launch into nonsense tying the opposition to Eyman in a desperate attempt to defame and obfuscate instead of confronting the reality of a questionable financial and transportation plan based on tolls, tolls attached to a huge freeway. That's not what opponents mean when they say "toll diversion".
I think I-1125 highlights the structural flaws in the tunnel plan. If I-1125 is such a frightening ogre to you in spite of not applying to your project, then perhaps you need to worry about getting your house in order?
Overall you're absolutely right on one fundamental truth: a poorly executed plan can certainly damage a virtuous brand for years to come. We saw this with 1098 and we're seeing it with SR520. Let's hope the SR99 replacement doesn't join the party to completely demolish a useful transportation planning tool.
Posted Wed, Jul 20, 9:50 a.m. Inappropriate
I-1125 will harm SR520 in that it will make the tolls on that road last much longer. I for one will avoid paying the toll when I have a choice, and when will that be? Off hours driving. It's 6 of one half dozen of the other to drive to I-90 when crossing the lake. If I'm a typical driver just putting a toll on 520 should cause all the traffic congestion on it to decrease by an incredible amount. I-90 on the other hand in the reverse commute direction is going to get hammered. But since I commute via bicycle it's not going to matter a whit to me.
And fundamentally I like that a toll is to pay for a section of road/bridge/tunnel until it's paid for then removed. Yes I know that congestion pricing is an effective tool to get people to do something else, but so is sitting in traffic, ie the congestion itself. I suspect that adding a toll to a congested road is just going to make people even madder, and more likely to vote for things like I-1125, and "scr*w you environmentalists, I've had it." Of course the rise in gasoline prices will come no matter what we do with tolls and that will change people's habits even more.
Posted Wed, Jul 20, 10:19 a.m. Inappropriate
A couple additional thoughts:
Tolling is far more widely used, and accepted, in eastern states where there is a long tradition of same. After all, we call them "freeways" here in the west.
There is a good case to be made that tolls should be instituted until the
bridges, highways, tunnels, etc. in question have been paid for. Those who use them pay the tab---just as purchasers of other goods and services pay excise taxes on them. The costs are not borne by general taxpayers.
The key thing: The tolls should stop once the projects are paid for. The temptation for policymakers, especially when public budgets are squeezed, is to simply extend any existing tax or fee as a revenue source for other purposes. We've seen this often in our state.
Washington voters have opposed an income tax in large part because they do not trust elected officials to do anything but impose an income tax atop other, existing ones. Its only chance of passage will come when voters are convinced that it is part of general tax reform which, among other things, wipes out the huge number of subsidies and tax breaks extended in Wsshington to chosen sectors and companies.
Posted Wed, Jul 20, 10:19 a.m. Inappropriate
Autophobes will have chest pains, headaches, heartaches, and numerous skin irritations when I-1125 passes; at least Obamacare covers their pre-existing mental and physical pre-existing conditions.
Posted Wed, Jul 20, 10:43 a.m. Inappropriate
This story notes that “Passage of I-1125 will likely put major crimps in oxygen hoses for two huge transportation mega-projects that are still not fully funded [SR-520 and SR-99]”.
Another thing I-1125 purportedly would do is prohibit WSDOT from transferring I-90 corridor highway infrastructure to Sound Transit (as ST2 calls for). Here is the URL to I-1125:
http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/initiatives/text/i1125.pdf
Let’s ignore for the purposes of commenting on this story the fact that the justices made it very clear in the “Freeman v. Gregoire” majority opinion a couple of months ago that the constitution already may preclude WSDOT from transferring that infrastructure to Sound Transit. What I’d like to address here is how it's clear I-1125 violates the “single-subject” rule of the constitution.
Just because I-1125’s limitations on uses of toll revenues and its bar on the planned transfer of highway infrastructure by WSDOT to Sound Transit relate to transportation “in general” does not mean those two things are the same subject.
A broad inquiry about whether or not several subjects of an initiative relate “in general” to the same thing is not what courts use. For example, Eyman’s I-695 was struck down under the two-subject rule in _Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587 v. State_, 142 Wn.2d 183 (2000). Both of the (separate) subjects in I-695 related to governments raising revenue “in general.”
I-1125 violates the single-subject rule because those two subjects put “citizens in the position of being asked to decide two unrelated laws with only one vote.” Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587, supra. at 256. Take somebody who is a big-time transit fan – he might want to vote against I-1125 because of that language relating to Sound Transit, but he might want the provisions in that initiative that prevent variable toll rates. Those are “unrelated laws”, and he’s only got one vote.
I’ll wrap this up by elaborating on what “unrelated” means in the context of this kind of “single-subject” constitutional inquiry. The Supreme Court stated, in that 2000 case where it struck down Eyman’s I-695, that a single-subject violation exists if “neither subject is necessary to implement the other.” _ATU Local 587_ at 216. That is the case here. The amendments to the tolling laws I-1125 would make bear no relationship to the part of the initiative that says it would bar WSDOT from transfering that highway infrastructure to Sound Transit. Likewise, the terms in the initiative that purport to bar WSDOT from handing off that highway infrastructure for train use are not needed to effectuate the changes to the laws respecting tolling and how toll revenues may be used that this initiative also would make.
This is pretty basic stuff. We’ve been through it all before, with I-695. The lawyers who wrote up this dog’s breakfast of an initiative that Eyman now is fronting know it is improper. They want the litigation though, as the justices invariably go out of their way to make the financial beneficiaries of megaproject revenue-raising schemes VERY happy.
Posted Wed, Jul 20, 11:32 a.m. Inappropriate
No tolls, fine. Index the gas tax to inflation. The base gas tax (excluding the recent project-specific nickel and TPA packages) has not been raised since 1991. We are currently asking government to sustain our transportation system with the same pot of money we had in 1991 only the revenue is worth 40% less (in terms of buying power). Complete insanity!
Posted Wed, Jul 20, 2:31 p.m. Inappropriate
Nationally and locally, we lack a coherent philosophy of public finance.
That's predictable, since our first attempt at national unity foundered on resistance to taxation--and we still have no generally-agreed principles of valuing or paying for social services.
Is a rapid conduit down Aurora/99 to the West Seattle Bridge (or the reverse) more a public good or a matter of personal choice and convenience?
Is tolling an equally good strategy for a ferry trip across the sound, a drive across Lake Washington, an HOV or the aforementioned drive under downtown Seattle?
In my view, tolling is not a good way to finance the tunnel (assuming for the moment that it should be constructed), since in economic terms it has inherent distortions and high "excess burden." The question is whether a near-Sound, north/south route (the third accompaniment to I-5 and I-405) is valuable or not, and if so, what's the most efficient way to pay for it?
We continue to look at these financing needs through narrow, single-case lenses (the perverse effect of narrow referenda, a la Eyman); a vote against tolling isn't linked with optional ways of financing the underlying project, which in fact may be a public good.
Posted Wed, Jul 20, 3:04 p.m. Inappropriate
"What I’d like to address here is how it's clear I-1125 violates the “single-subject” rule of the constitution."
Yeah I saw that reference in a Seattle Times article and wondered what the heck is Kemper Freeman and his lawyers thinking? They aren't the one's selling the bonds on this project. I figure that they think there is no way it would pass on it's own. But since it will take down both issues what was the point of this whole exercise? Who other than the lawyers benefits?
Posted Wed, Jul 20, 4:54 p.m. Inappropriate
C'mon Knute, parking meters are unpopular too. I would expect them to poll at 30% or under. Is it a big social issue, like regressive taxation? well it is in the same way paying for your car tabs are I guess. I think my neighbors BMW pays the same tab fee as my pickup and that is due mainly to a popular uprising, blame the voters. Also remember that 520 had a toll on it for 10-15 years. Was that regressive? well not so much because back then most of the people who crossed the bridge were high-income folks who commuted to work in Seattle. At that time you had the option of using Highway 10 for free and I think some people did but plenty of people didn't.
Final point: if the toll prevents near capacity usage of the tunnel then the tolls will be reduced. The key here is that the tunnel must produce maximum income to retire those bonds. In order to do that the tunnel toll will be adjusted to maximize gross revenue and that will mean (probably) a sliding scale and tolls that drivers are willing to pay. Fortunately that means that traffic diverted to surface streets will be minimized for the same reason the tunnel income MUST be maximized. A virtuous circle.
Posted Thu, Jul 21, 1:17 p.m. Inappropriate
Both Knute and Ted seem to long for the days when tolls were lifted after the bonds were paid. This approach overlooks the considerable operations and maintenance costs for expensive facilities like a mile-long bridge.
I suppose you could try to make the case that operation of the 520 and 90 floating bridges is of statewide importance, worth as much to folks who commute from Ballard or Beacon Hill into downtown as to Mercer Islanders who drive downtown and Microsofties who drive from Laurelhurst to Redmond. But if that were the case, why lift the tolls when the bridges are paid off, while still charging for the ferries?
Posted Tue, Jul 26, 10:09 p.m. Inappropriate
The state can't even figure out how to run a bridge toll correctly, how are they going to manage the construction of the deep bore tunnel?
They won't. It's a financial albartross that we cannot afford.
Login or register to add your voice to the conversation.