Seattle's car-tabs measure: no sale
Proposition 1 is the kind of measure the writer, an experienced government hand, would ordinarily support. But the uses of the money are too poorly defined to meet the urgent needs for basic street and bridge maintenance.
Douglas MacDonald
Too often, as taxpayers, we are told that a levy or extra fee is vital to the preservation of an important resource, service, or infrastructure. Having been on the government as well as private sector side, I am generally receptive to the request. But the levy and special funding requests have reached an avalanche every election cycle that leads the average voter to ask: What are all the taxes and fees we already pay really doing?
The follow-on question should be: Shouldn’t existing taxes and fees pay for the basic municipal services like transportation, police and fire, parks, and libraries? Utilities are fundamental as well, but they are funded separately from the general fund, through rates and fees.
All of this comes to mind as we enter into an election season in which we will hear a great deal about the need for city of Seattle voters to approve a $60 per year increase on vehicle tab fees to pay for one of those very basic local responsibilities: transportation services and facilities. A little background is needed to give the context for why I won't support the measure on the November general election ballot.
Beyond basic services, big cities tend to have other functions that are important as well, like arts and culture, environmental conservation, planning, and economic development. Mayors often leave their stamp on a city or demonstrate their commitment to an issue by creating a new office or department. Or they put new emphasis into an existing office or program. My old boss, Greg Nickels, did this with energetic local efforts on climate change, many through the city's Office of Sustainability and Envirnonment. He wanted to build momentum to force the George W. Bush administration to address global warming. Norm Rice developed the first Families and Education Levy and created the city’s Office for Education because he thought the city needed to be more engaged in public education.
Paul Schell created the Strategic Planning Office to integrate all of the departments’ planning functions into one office. Nickels moved the planners back to the departments and created an Office of Policy and Management, an effort to create a catalyst for development and special projects like the South Lake Union Streetcar.
Reorganizations and additions of new departments are not new or unusual. It is the norm. Problems arise, however, when the proliferation of these new activities begin to eat away at the basics — such as a road maintenance program. This is a good part of why we will continue to see efforts by the city council and the mayor to put levies on the ballot that really should be covered by existing resources. New programs and departments have constituencies that make is hard to eliminate a function once created. The average person on the street may not know it even exists, but interest groups keep a close watch during budget time.
Unfortunately, today's economy means that we must focus limited resources on those programs that we need to have and, for the time being, put the nice-to-have programs on the back burner. This is the debate we should be having at all levels of government, not how big or small government should be. Basic maintenance and repair should not have to go to the ballot.
This brings us to the debate about the $60 car tab that the City Council has put on the ballot in November, as the Seattle Transportation Benefit District's Proposition 1. The stated purpose is that it will provide the funding to catch up on deferred maintenance of our streets and get us two new street car lines — well, at least the planning for them. It will also help the city to make changes to the streets to help buses move faster and more efficiently. There is also a commitment to build sidewalks and bike lanes. Who could be against that?
It does sound great until you remember the promises of prior levies and until you begin to look ahead at commitments to existing infrastructure, which we must maintain.
Consider our backlog of street maintenance needs. Former Mayor Nickels pushed a series of funding measures aimed at attacking the maintenance backlog that had grown over the past 30 or so years. The reasons for this backlog, which largely continues, are as old as time. Chief among them is the tendency of elected officials to do new and innovative things and to neglect the more mundane needs of existing infrastructure. Politicians like to cut ribbons and create legacies. Patching up roads will never get your name on a plaque. To Nickels' credit, he wanted to focus on the nuts and bolts of this problem and he worked hard to get new funding to catch up. The Bridging the Gap program was born with voter support in 2006.
While I disagreed with some of the funding components of that program at the time, particularly the now-repealed “head tax” on employment as well as the “square footage tax,” I wholeheartedly appreciated the focus on the basics. Later in Nickels' administration, that back-to-basics approach was neglected and we know what happened in the 2009 election.
But let’s be clear: The Bridging the Gap strategy was an effort to catch up on the street maintenance backlog, which was creating a bow wave that threatened to eventually swamp the city’s budget.
Recently, however, the Seattle Department of Transportation told the SeattlePI.com's Scott Gutierrez that the Bridging the Gap levy was never intended to bridge the gap. Thus, we need the $20 car tab increase the city already passed with an additional $60 to truly bridge the gap. There is a problem, however: Only 29 percent of the revenues in Proposition 1 will actually be used to "bridge the gap," with the rest going to parts of the measures outside of street, bridge, and trail maintenance. So, if this is an emergency and we need the money right away, why is so little actually going to, pardon the repeat, bridge the gap?
If you’re feeling duped, you’re not alone. Much of the money is essentially a blank check for transportation planning for an administration that has shown little interest in getting the basics right. But it will be a boon to consultants. At the end of the day, will we have much to show for the extra money? There is no guarantee.
Witness bike lanes painted on streets that are falling apart. Roosevelt Way is a perfect example. While we have a new bike lane, which I like and use, the street is splitting apart. Worse, the new configuration forces cars to drive on top of the split in the street increasing the decay.
Doug MacDonald recently wrote in Crosscut that the current maintenance schedule for SDOT is over 500 years! This is not a new problem and will only get worse. That's why Proposition 1 is so dissappointing. And while potholes and decaying streets are a pain for drivers, they can be lethal to cyclists. Shouldn’t we focus our energy on correcting this first? Isn’t this fundamental?
There are other reasons to reconsider this package.
Given the state of the economy, the struggles of families to make ends meet, and the well-publicized increases in other fees and taxes, is this the right time to ask for people to pay for planning? There is no doubt that this package will be a boon to consultants. Just look at the parking studies that SDOT is conducting. They may end up spending an additional $150,000 figuring out how the parking rate structure is impacting parking availability. So far, they’ve figured out that where rates have been increased, more spots are available. Where they have decreased, more spots are available. They want to find out why. Maybe less people are coming downtown? How much money from the new car tab fees will go to similar “important” pursuits? It’s hard to say, since the package is so vague.
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Comments:
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 8:32 a.m. Inappropriate
"Mayors often leave their stamp on a city or demonstrate their commitment to an issue by creating a new office or department."
Uh-huh. So do County Executives, County Councilors, Governors, Senators, Representatives and Presidents. All building edifices to their ego - or their special-interest - with the public's good will and money.
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 9:51 a.m. Inappropriate
The goal is to get things rolling for the future. We've seen time and again the absolute pain of correcting past errors like our rejection of Forward Thrust (or even subway plans in the 20s). By equipping ourselves now we end up jumping further into the future.
The same people selling you this idea that we don't need to fund future planning are the same that told us that we don't need to aggressively pursue sidewalks or snow plowing in the mid-00s or mass transit in the 70s, the ones that said we should rip out rails in the 40s and 50s and that our city doesn't need a subway line to meet its future transit needs way back in the teens and 20s.
This is about making streets for all of Seattle and investing in the future. If dedicating ourselves and billions a year to a single 4-wheeled mode has caused such a maintenance backlog and headache, maybe that's a sign?
Maybe the future needs more than just one choice?
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 10:02 a.m. Inappropriate
I agree with alexjon - we shouldn't pump billions into just maintaining a 1950s status quo. Let's make the streets safer for everyone (with signals, crosswalks etc.) and improve transit when we go back and fix the street. Crosscut, i would love to see a rebuttal from Charley Royer, who is strongly supporting this ballot measure!
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 10:09 a.m. Inappropriate
We can tell that this car tab proposal goes too far when even pro-transit people are saying uh-uh. I'm among them.
The main problem with this car tab tax, as with any car tab tax, it that it's inherently regressive. No one with a progressive mindset, including pro-transit people, can reconcile being a progressive with any car tab tax. They are fundamentally philosophically contradictory. Yes, it's only $60 - which, if you make $60,000 is not breaking the bank. But $60 *is* breaking the bank for people driving $2,000 used cars living on $18,000 a year, whose ranks are not few in metro Seattle.
Otherwise, I could not agree more with everything Mr. Royer writes. Seattle has no shortage of "vision" when it comes to the environment and progressive ideals and what-not, but Seattle also has an unfathomable shortage of sidewalks in huge tracts of the city and an unfathomable excess of basic roadwork *maintenance* projects.
Simply put: the politicians have their priorities all wrong when it comes to infrastructure and its funding.
I have so many questions: Why are we potentially dumping money into streetcars and the Mercer Mess while a good third of the city's kids are walking to school on sidewalkless streets? Why are we striping bike lanes over roads in dire need of repavement? (And why are bikers still dying at a higher rate here than in other bike-friendly cities?) Why are we sinking more money into transit without actually increasing routes or the number of runs per hour? Why do commercial districts and wealthy neighborhoods enjoy timelier infrastructure work compared to middle class and low-income neighborhoods?
Definitely vote "no" on Proposition 1.
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 12:21 p.m. Inappropriate
This $60 car tab increase is really $100 when you add the $20 the city has already imposed and the $20 the county is imposing. For those of us living on a fixed income, this is a real hardship. I support government services, but do we really need two more street cars? Street maintenance more rightly needs to come from general funds. I cannot support this increase.
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 4:23 p.m. Inappropriate
smacgry makes a good point: who has determined that car ownership is the way to divide the haves from the have-nots? I see people on the bus with laptops that probably cost more than some of the cars that get people to work. Good piece by Mr. Royer.
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 6:09 p.m. Inappropriate
It'll be hard to get my vote on this one.
The thing reeks of pandering to special interest transportation lobbies as opposed to being based on a solid thoughtful approach to making the streets better.
A yes vote would be viewed as an endorsement of Mayor McGinn's administration and transportation policy, which may be why the whole thing looks like a special interest playground for an odd "now" crowd. The same bunch that's causing all sorts of delay and driving up costs of other things.
These taxes are regressive and do come at the wrong time for a whole bunch of people.
If somebody would successfully explain that the focus is on putting people to work and securing our streets for the future I might buy it.
But no one out front on this seems to care about any of that real stuff.
So for now I'm siding with: does more harm than good. Wrong thing at the wrong time.
I'm thinking a lot of people will want to shore up our schools and make sure people aren't going hungry and without the basics before we spend more on this sort of stuff.
What ever happened to McGinn's promises on light rail for Ballard and the seawall? Is that next year's tax ask?
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 6:57 p.m. Inappropriate
I voted for Bridging the Gap and what did I get? Apparently nothing! Ballard didn't get Rapid Ride, roads didn't fixed...so where did the money go? Oh yeah, expensive consultants and overpaid city workers with pensions (must be nice that they will be able to retire, while I despite saving will be eating cat food) I know what I am talking about, left a job this spring where I worked as a contractor with government employees, the laziest most incompetent people I have ever worked with, couldn't take seeing the uwaste, mismanagement and I am untouchable attitude so went to another company. Now you want more money from me? Guess what, going to have to say hell no because you still won't get it done Seattle.
I also agree the tax is regressive. I drive a 1999 car with 41,000 miles...why should I pay the same as a Microsoft millionaire driving a new SUV or BMW?
Not going to take it anymore. Viva le Revolution! OH, it's coming
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 8:04 p.m. Inappropriate
The tax is extremely regressive. My wife has a 1986 car, and I have a 2002 motorcycle (nothing fancy, 50mpg) that I use to commute to work, year round. She lost her job last January, and no luck so far. Indeed, we are to pay $120/yr for the sin of possessing two tired vehicles?
Posted Tue, Sep 20, 9:16 p.m. Inappropriate
I agree with the author and most of the posts here. This is the wrong tax at the wrong time for the wrong things.
Why would I vote to pay an extra $60 per year on my 2001 Ford Escort to give the city council a blank check which we all know they will spend on garbage like streetcars, road diets and bike lanes? Especially when Seattle has a backlog of over $1 billion in deferred maintenance on roads and bridges? This is just stupid on its face.
Vote NO on Prop 1, the $60/year car tab tax increase. Here is the website for the NO on Prpo 1 campaign:
http://citizensagainstraisingcartabs.com/
Posted Thu, Sep 22, 11:44 a.m. Inappropriate
What? The gist of this article is that because we have a huge backlog of street maintenance problems, and less tax revenue from past taxes than we expected due to the crumby economy, we should vote no on this tax to fund fixing any of those problems??
Convoluted nonsense it is. Vote yes if you want the city to repair the streets. Vote No if you want more potholes. Good Grief.
Posted Thu, Sep 22, 3:35 p.m. Inappropriate
Since vehicles wear out roads, consume fossil fuels, and spew out pollutants largely in proportion to their weight, why isn't the proposed car tab tax proportional to vehicle weight? I know the cost of car tabs in some other states is proportional to vehicle weight.
If Seattle is pursuing "green" strategies, why aren't we considering a car tab fee of this kind rather than the regressive fee that is actually on the ballot?
Posted Fri, Sep 23, 6:40 a.m. Inappropriate
"If Seattle is pursuing "green" strategies, why aren't we considering a car tab fee of this kind rather than the regressive fee that is actually on the ballot?"
For exactly the same reason we already have the most regressive tax regime in the country - individuals and families don't have lobbyists in Olympia working to further their financial interests.
That's why we have the highest sales taxes in the country, among the highest property taxes, substantial car tab fees, etc. The state legislators are rewarded for both delegating those types of taxing powers to local governments and imposing such taxes themselves. That's why the taxing regime here is out of balance.
Posted Sat, Sep 24, 10:33 p.m. Inappropriate
David Smith, the answer to the question you pose you already know: "the incumbents running for re-election face only token opposition."
Why is that you then ask: For starters, it takes a lot of generally behind the scenes backing to run a successful city-wide Council election. All "tokens" run for the experience and the off-chance of a lightening strike between the declaring and the final vote. Beyond that, the backers are currently happy and the voters distracted by staying afloat or put off by the either/or clash of ideologies, which in Seattle is rather remote (as in far away) since the last Republican Councilmember left office years ago. The result is that there is only a single mantra to be reconciled between all the behind-the-scenes backers, short, that is, of a gross faux pas the likes of "stripper-gate."
"Me, Myself, and i Have Just One Point of View"—http://www.tsrocks.com/b/billie_holiday_texts/me_myself_and_i.html
Posted Sun, Sep 25, 7:26 p.m. Inappropriate
Contrast Prop 1's proposal with the King County Council vote to raise car tabs $20.
The county had a pretty clear math problem, and the solution was $20 to sustain bus service for two years, until the state proposes a sustaining funding model.
You don't have to like or agree with the $20 car tab council vote, but there is little mystery to what the money was for.
Prop 1 is so muddled in its definition and what it claims to be a solution for that you do not get a solid idea of what you would be voting for.
29% for roads, uh, what does that even mean?
How many miles or feet, potholes, and patches does that fund in the current backlog?
If we are still falling behind on that then what is the point, other than what people want to do with the other 71%.
It's not a solution, it is a slush fund.
City Council, propose a real solution that has an actual conclusion. If we pay x-y-z then all of the backlog is caught up by year 20XX, and sustained thereafter. A solution has a conclusion.
McGinn, propose a real train-ish solution. If we pay x-y-z then we connect the treetcar lines up by year 20XX, and expanded thereafter.
That is not what Prop 1 is, it is not a proposal of solutions, but more churning of expensive ideas.
If transportation is so darn important for the business community then how about they step up and fund some of this stuff. Why is it always the car drivers car tabs or bus riders trip increases. We are not all on some weird vacation here, we are going to work, or to shop, and I'm not seeing the multinational corporations that are banking record profits being asked to pay more.
WTF?
Posted Sun, Sep 25, 7:53 p.m. Inappropriate
David Smith, obviously the Council views voters as a winning mixture of the following: with them in general (the token opposition), as generous or gullible as ever, distracted by other things and not paying attention. They may well be right. Sad commentary, if so.
Posted Mon, Oct 10, 5:34 p.m. Inappropriate
First, I hold nothing in principle against taxing for worthy transportation improvements for all stake-holders. However, I have no confidence that these revenues gained from the $60 car tab fee would be used efficiently.
To be specific, a recent project (I have no idea how much $$$$$$ it cost) reduced what was 2 motor vehicle lanes each way on Nickerson Street between Seattle Pacific U and the Ballard Bridge to 1 lane each way, with a center turning lane and bike lanes running each way as a revised transportation system in that area.
Currently, a project is proceeding parallel to the above completed project, 1 block away, which will connect the ship canal trail for bicyclists and pedestrians to the down-town trail via Magnolia, and the locks. This project makes a lot of sense - bicyclists intuitively choose a flat trail with no cars and scenic benefits along the ship canal (no hills) as opposed to climbing Nickerson Streert, and then descending.
The point: These projects together duplicate very expensively a result that proper planning would have done much more efficiently. Also, the result of implementing the ship-canal trail extension from the get-go, and leaving Nickerson Street alone (except for routine maintenance) would also not have caused frequent traffic gridlock and dangerous conditions for entering trasffic due to longer lines of cars than was the case before 2 lanes each way were reduced to 1.
The transportation needs of Seattle obviously require innovation and practical solutions, while keeping cost-overruns under control. This example of duplicated effort indicates to me poor planning and careless use of the tax dollars that we must use more efficiently.
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