If you think transportation issues are bad now…
Everyone knows that neither public transportation infrastructure or traffic congestion mitigation are core competencies of the Puget Sound region. Whether you ride the bus or drive a car, you know you spend far too much time in traffic. In fact, Seattle area drivers spend about 45 hours in traffic delays - equivalent to more than a week of vacation! The transportation system as a whole is a mess.
An article in the Seattle P-I dated May 22 titled, “We’re stuck with nation’s worst road funding gap” noted that “by 2040, the population of the Seattle area is projected to grow by 1.7 million new people, with 1.2 million new jobs… that’s like dropping the population of greater metropolitan Portland into the Puget Sound area.” Scary stuff. The article goes on to say that “the Seattle-Puget Sound area has the largest gap between transportation infrastructure needs and secured funding of any metropolitan area in the country.” The shortfall amounts to nearly $800 per person.
Recent suggestions from Olympia that SR-520 may actually be replaced before it sinks are encouraging. The Kirkland and Redmond City Councils have a joint meeting planned on May 27 and on the agenda is regional transportation. The items listed on the agenda are Sound Transit 2, King County Metro Transit Service and Regional Transit Tolling.
Each of these plans are being implemented to help solve our transportation issues. What is of interest is tax increases these plans will require. Sales tax increases and the new installation of tolling booths along SR-520 (which I faintly recall as a kid and I think the toll was ten cents!) are in our future.
Our region has been poorly served in the past by our lack of foresight and planning on transportation issues. We are soon going to have to pay for the lack of infrastructure this region will need going forward.
Whether it is roads, bridges, buses or rail, the public is going to be paying more. Taxes and tolls are going up to pay for these items and sooner than you may think. The WSDOT plans to start tolling SR-520 in 2009 - that’s next year! If you think congestion is bad now, just wait until toll booths line our freeways.
What are your views? How much do you think the toll on SR-520 bridge will be? What projects should be our transportation priorities? Do you think WSDOT has a good plan in place going forward? What changes are needed by decision makers to address the needs of both today and tomorrow with regard to transportation?
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6 Responses to “If you think transportation issues are bad now…”
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I finally decided to write a comment on your blog. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your posts.
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Developing an efficient regional transportation system is going to take vision and leadership - commodities that have been in short supply recently. Hopefully this latest round of proposals will lead to some real progress and solutions, but it is going to take some hard choices and the willingness to make some people unhappy.
Infrastructure needs to be paid for - by taxes or by use fees. Since the issue has been ignored for so long, the cost to the current populace is going to be more than if it had been managed properly all along, but that is no reason not to step up to the plate and pay the tab now. Funding stopgap measures will simply exacerbate the problem in the long run. The City Councils in the region need to use their collective brain power and resources to come up with a plan to address the needs of the whole Puget Sound area - not just their little fiefdoms. One way to do this would be to look at obtaining a coordinated payment system for tolls, parking, and transit. These systems currently exist and by creating a centralized payment system for all services it would ease the burden on the user slightly. Although there are privacy issues with having a electronic payment system that would know when you took the bus, paid a toll or parked your car - the benefits of having one card/transponder that would work in Seattle/Redmond/Kirkland/Bellevue for your parking/bus/toll needs would be substantial.
Tolls are a fact of life for bridges and road in most of the country. The Golden Gate and Bay Bridges cost $4 to cross and the George Washington Bridge is now up to $8 to cross. Pricing the 520 Bridge around $4 is not unreasonable. It stands to reason that the I-90 bridge would also have to be tolled or else the increase traffic from people trying to avoid the tolls could be problematic. Effective use of electronic payment systems would mitigate some of the traffic flow problems.
The KCC should also look at alternative forms of public transit. One way to exploit the benefits of Kirkland’s waterfront, expand the consumer base to Downtown Kirkland, and provide alternative transportation options would be to actively work to ensure that the ferry route proposed across Lake Washington between Kirkland and UW actually gets up and running. There are issues (such as the lack of a Downtown parking garage), but these could be addressed and if managed properly could provide a key element to Downtown development.
There are hard choices to be made, but if our leaders take the opportunity to work together to come up with a plan to serve all of the region and do not shy away from implementing the taxes and tolls needed to pay for the services, then there could be smoother sailing ahead for commuters in the area.
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This is the new financial system that we have. People don’t want to pay taxes, so they rebel with initiatives to contain them. Then government doesn’t have money for our infrastructure, and leaders don’t want to risj their political lives by imposing more taxes. So we are reduced to user fees to fund all sorts of services. Thank Tim Eyman for this.
The state already forced the public to pick up a chunk of the cost of maintaining Bridal Trails State Park, and the cost of that is nothing compared to the cost of a new 520 bridge.
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Thank you, Mike for your nice comment - welcome to Kirkland Views!
DCD: I hope you are right about tolls on 520 only being $4. I heard they could be even higher. Your point about the return of ferry service to Kirkland is great. I know King County has spoken about starting up a passenger only ferry to Seattle when Sr-520 construction gets under way but downtown Kirkland parking will be an impedament if we don’t solve that problem. I would love to see a future where a fast and efficient ferry operated from Moss Bay Marina. Could this be the incentive needed for movement on the parking issue? Would a future ferry service to Madison Park or South Lake Union make anyone change their stance on building more parking downtown Kirkland? Would the additional computers be welcome or only make congestion here worse? Food for thought.
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The tolls on 520 will vary based on demand at a particular time of day. $4 one way is actually on the higher side of the various numbers proposed for peak commute hours (6-9am, 3-6pm), with a likely round-trip, peak-hour toll of about $7. But at other times of day, the round trip toll will be in the $2-$3 range
The PI missed a few key details on that article about the funding deficit. It’s not $800 per person. It’s $800 per person per year. And the PI thinks the ULI was only considering roads mainteance, but the $800/person/year is attempting to estimate total transportation infrastructure needs, including high-capacity mass transit, improvements to the Port of Seattle, and airport expansion.
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Hi Rob,
I agree with your thoughts about the ferry coming to Kirkland. The issue is where to park all the cars for ferry users. We will need the appropriate infrastructure first for the ferry system to work. Otherwise, it will be a waste of time and money.
On another note, one of the reasons we have so many problems with transportation is we have not established one entity to deal with transportation. There is WADOT, The Port of Seattle, King County, The Puget Sound Regional Council, and the City of Kirkland. There are too many fingers in the pie and, consequently, things do not get resolved.
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