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News & ArtsWednesday, August 4, 2010
Transportation Fuck It, Let's Just Toll 520, I-90, I-5, the Aurora Bridge, and the West Seattle Bridge
Posted by Dominic Holden on Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 4:49 PM
How else can the state afford to rebuild the city's crumbling road infrastructure? Mike Lindblom has a strong piece today on the $2 billion financing hole to rebuild the 520 Bridge while the state simultaneously is reaching its limit for debt capacity:
There soon will be no money from gas taxes approved in the 2000s that isn't already spoken for by other projects or bond debt. The forecasts errantly assumed growth in gasoline use, which instead has gone nearly flat. As a result, long-term projects that leaders promised — such as Stevens Pass safety rebuilds and the redecking of worn I-5 through Seattle — are now underfunded.
Sustainable 520 release an excellent report on the state's abysmal financing projections (.pdf). Here's one of the graphs that shows the impacts 520 and the deep-bore tunnel on our debts and debt capacity:
- Via Sustainable 520
- Bonds for SR 520 and SR 99 would put the state over its debt limits
The tolls on 520 won't be enough to pay the $2 billion we need. Even tolling I-90 may not be enough. Meanwhile we'll be working on the viaduct replacement and then we have to fix I-5... and these are just the projects near Seattle. The state doesn't have the money or the debt capacity for it. All of this suggests—to say nothing of what happens if these projects run over budget and the state needs more money—that the state needs some dough. Rep. Deb Eddy speculates in Lindblom's article that the legislature might raise transportation taxes without asking the public in a ballot measure. But Sustainable 520 leader Fran Conley says today, explaining her conversations with leaders in the legislature, "There is not going to be an appetite for taxes on transportation in the next few years." Indeed, voters may do the opposite this fall, passing Eyman's measure that handicaps the legislature's ability to raise taxes. And voters sure as hell don't seem keen on raising their taxes at the ballot.
So what do we do to fund the road projects?
Toll the shit out of this city's expressways. It should cost at least a $1 (maybe $2 or $3) to cross 520, I-90, I-5, the Aurora Bridge, and the West Seattle Bridge. Oh, people will stamp their feet and kvetch and ask why fixie-riding mustaches hate cars—but tolls are a source of revenue. That revenue comes from the folks who use those roads. And they won't solve our transportation funding problems, but they'll help. We could install tolls beginning this year and start collecting the dough by next year for road projects that benefit drivers. For the cars! Think of the cars! And then, if the legislature does get the gumption to raise taxes for transportation, there might actually be money for transit, bike lanes, and mustaches that ride fixies.
3
Everything is all being sucked into the giant maw of the Billionaires Tunnel - the 520 bridge is underfunded, and so is the Billionaires Tunnel, so it's time to get real and kill the Billionaires Tunnel before it harms our city any more.
4
Progressive income taxes. All these user fees and tolls and sales taxes are regressive and they are unsustainable. The only way you can raise enough funds to run a civilization that way is to crush the poor and middle class with untenably high taxation.
Have you ever wondered why the city, county and state budgets around here are in a permanent state of crisis?
This idea that there ought to be a 1 to 1 relationship between those who use a government service and those who pay for it is libertarianism. I.e., childish balderdash. If there were a 1 to 1 relationship between the funds in the pockets of users to pay for every government service and the per user cost of that service, then private enterprise would have already stepped in and provided it.
Seriously. Think about that. If the economics pencil out that well, then our national parks and our health care system and our military defense would be provided spontaneously by entrepreneurs.
But in reality, a small fraction of the population holds most of the wealth and so of course it is to them, the wealthy, that you have to go to pay for anything worth building.
Fuck tolls, and the electronic surveillance state infrastructure that now accompanies them.
6
@4) I'm all for a progressive income tax, too (which I've said many times 'round these parts). But I don't foresee the state legislature able to do that any time soon and I don't see I-1098, if it passes and doesn't get tied up in court, producing enough money to pay for all these road projects in the next few years. So progressive income tax = great for lots of stuff in the future. Tolls = great for urgent road projects.
8
Time to put a Billionaires Tunnel surtax on anyone with income - cash, dividends, options, small furry creatures on caffeine - above $1 million to pay for them.
10
The fact that Gregoire won't even broach the subject of raising taxes just pisses me off. She's a worthless, third way Democrat who needs to go.
That would fucking suck.
16
The problem is we have too much infrastructure.
I would be better to remove the 520 bridge entirely and route all traffic to I90 and I405.
DemoLibs are using these overbuilt "infrastructures" as reasons for the Rotton Urbs to tax the suburbs.
17
tolls on bridges require hiring tolltakers and building toll collection systems. Add in some more employees to oversee the accounting and other managerial overhead. Most likely a lot of the toll collection would be electronic, so add in paying some third party to build/provide that system. So some % of that toll revenue will be swallowed by overhead. Then, add in a buying/billing system. On top of that, add in the added delays to cross the bridge, even for a purely electronic system.
or...
just raise the freaking gas tax by a tiny amount. No new collection system, no traffic slowdown, no new employees or department, no complicated regulation, and the govt will net 100% of the added revenue with no overhead. Consumers won't even notice the added tax - gas prices fluctuate widely anyway.
22
2. Eliminate the Eyman tab crap.
3. Toll I-5, I-90, I-405 by the airport, and the tunnel if it's built. Toll entry onto each highway into WA from the border: coming in from Canada, Idaho, Portland.
4. Build up the commuter lines for inbound bus service. Make it easy to park and ride from OUTSIDE the city (Shoreline, points south, etc). The ultra-rabid anti-car clowns that hate that idea can jump off the Aurora Bridge. Reality time, kids. You can't expect people commuting from towns by Tacoma to give up their cars locally.
5. what @17 said. Progressive allocation of roads monies based on usage. If Seattle-metro roads get 40% (tossing a number out randomly) of all traffic and we pay 40% of all the money in the "roads" fund from Seattle-metro people, guess what? We get 40%. If some region (lets say Spokane) is say 20%/10% on paying/usage, split the difference: 15% of the total goes to their region. Allocate a fixed amount FIRST for key areas for state operation: tunnels, bridges, overpasses, mountain passes. Split up the rest like that. If that means someplace like Omak has to do without their shiny new freeway, that's fine. That's the free market and libertarianism. That's fair.
And tolling local bridges would be stupid, FYI. A toll on the Ballard Bridge, Fremont, West Seattle? That's literally the LAST resort. You guys ever drove across a NYC bridge at rush hour with the tolls going? Ugh, fucking horrible.
simple. clean. elegant. obvious. politically impossible.
MOAR GAS TAX, plz. Those that use it should pay for it (and STFU welfare slobs, sell your escalade and feed your kids).
26
Oh, and license and sell MJ in WSLCB stores. Fuck the feds.
27
Oh, and license and sell MJ in WSLCB stores. Fuck the feds.
30
http://www.ntta.org/
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