By: Joel Connelly
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
June 27, 2008
Link to original column
A small, satisfying liberation for Easterners resettling out West is no longer throwing quarters into baskets on turnpikes, and seeing tolls come off bridges the instant they are paid off.
Our freeways are just that -- free ways.
But reality is setting in. There is no free lunch, particularly no money stream to pay for $50 billion in unmet transportation needs in central Puget Sound counties, with two of our mega-projects -- the state Route 520 Bridge and the Alaskan Way Viaduct -- in danger of falling down.
According to a recent national Traffic Scorecard, we rank as the ninth most congested place in America, while we are its 15th most populous urban center.
Hence, with apologies to Ernest Hemingway, do not ask for whom the tolls bell. They'll soon be ringing for thee.
The Cascadia Center for Regional Development brought experts together Thursday afternoon for a workshop on tolling and traffic management.
Acronyms flew, bold concepts were introduced, and artists' depictions showed what a new $4 billion bridge over the Columbia River -- with high capacity transit -- might look like.
The problem, as on our highways, is getting there.
"The needs are outstripping our revenues," said Art James of the Oregon Department of Transportation. His state hasn't raised gas taxes in more than a decade.
In Washington, which has moved ahead -- e.g. the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge -- the 2003 and 2005 gas tax increases won't cover the bill for SR 520. Three toll formulas for a rebuilt bridge are under consideration.
"We need to quit feuding and put in place the plans we need," urged David Dye, deputy secretary of the state Department of Transportation.
Nice thought, but major choke points lie in the way:
Tolling timing: Is tolling a way to pay for new bridges, or to save time by using HOV lanes on state Route 167, or a device to make people change their commuting habits?
Should tolls be put on the existing Evergreen Point Bridge, or a completed 520, or both state Route 529 and Interstate 90?
In nanny state Seattle, officialdom supports tolls not only to pay for highways and bridges, but as "part of our climate action plan and traffic management," Seattle City Councilwoman Jan Drago told the conference.
Not so fast, said Rep. Doug Ericksen of Bellingham, ranking Republican on the House Transportation Committee. The GOP wants tolls imposed only when projects are completed. It opposes penalties for using roads at certain hours of the day.
"Two different philosophies" are at loggerheads, added Ericksen. "Mobility is freedom for many people," he argued.
Decision makers: The state's worst freeway parking lots and fuming motorists can be found in the corridor roughly from the Skagit-Snohomish County line to the Lewis County line south of Olympia.
"We have to pass legislation where a regional entity has the authority to establish tolls and set rates," state Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, vice chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said Thursday.
He'll get a vociferous argument from mass transit advocates, and Sound Transit will offer the kind of tenacious resistance of a bureaucracy defending itself.
The current boundaries of Sound Transit give a big voice to Seattle and "green" suburbs on the Eastside. Add more localities and you lose leverage for light rail.
Public-private: British Columbia has turned to public-private partnerships for projects from a new Port Mann Bridge over the Fraser River, southeast of Vancouver, to a span in the wild Kicking Horse Canyon in the Canadian Rockies.
The province retains ownership, but is offering a 40-year toll concession to a private partner. The partner's job would be to get a new bridge built and assume the revenue risk.
Former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, acting as a consultant for Goldman Sachs, privately shopped the partnership concept to local officials on a recent Seattle visit.
"It's a tool we need in our box," said Murray, citing success in Britain and France.
State House Speaker Frank Chopp, a fellow legislator from Seattle's 43rd District, adamantly opposes the concept.
Chopp was the driving force behind the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which took advantage of public financing and the international clout of the contractor that built it. "We own it, we control it, and we financed it," Chopp said in an interview Thursday.
Two deals in the Midwest have given road privatization a bad name.
In 2004, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley sold a 99-year lease on the Chicago Skyway to an Australian-Spanish consortium. The city's coffers were enriched to the tune of $1.8 billion, but the Skyway's new masters can make money for a century.
The state of Indiana, officially the "Crossroads of America," promptly sold a 75-year lease on the Indiana Toll Road to the same Australian-Spanish team. The price: $3.8 billion.
"It's terrible: The toll payer, the consumer, has to pay a lot more over time," Chopp argued.
Tolling seems to make sense: We've just about reached the limit on how high we can hike gas and sales taxes.
Still, something makes me blanch at the idea of peddling America's infrastructure, especially if foreign interests get a license to print money.
P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com.
