State Rep. Ed Murray’s proposal to reform the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID), which would have opened up the taxing district’s project list to transit and relied less on (regressive) sales tax and more on a (progressive) motor vehicle excise tax (MVET) on cars, was drastically amended in the Senate by transportation chair Mary Margaret Haugen, to the chagrin of enviros and transit advocates who were tentatively supporting Murray’s flawed, though far more progressive, proposal. Among other changes, the amended legislation:

• Forces Sound Transit to put any new taxing proposal on the same ballot as RTID, theoretically making the roads-heavy regional tax more palatable to transit supporters;
• Increases the motor-vehicle excise tax (the same tax that would have paid for the monorail) from 0.6% to 0.8%, confirming monorail supporters’ fears that road proponents in the legislature would view the monorail’s demise as an opportunity to increase RTID’s reliance on MVET;
• Quintuples the amount of sales tax allowed in the regional funding package; and
• Limits transit funding to “construction mitigation”; Murray’s bill allowed the tax to pay for transit operations and maintenance.

The amended legislation is now awaiting action on the Senate floor. Environmentalists and transit supporters are almost certain to oppose the amended bill—which is roads-heavy, unfriendly to transit, and regressive—unless it is amended to resemble Murray’s original proposal. The RTID taxing proposal, which encompasses the same three-county taxing district as Seattle, will likely go to a region-wide vote in 2007.