By: Erin Covey
KIRO-AM 710
June 26, 2008
Audio recording of long version
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KIRO-AM ran shorter versions of this story throughout the afternoon and evening and into the next morning, some mentioning Cascadia Center's sponsorship of the event.
TRANSCRIPT OF LONG VERSION
REPORTER: (over whooshing highway sounds) “Paying to drive on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge or Highway 167 is the exception right now. But on major roads throughout the region, it won’t be for long.”
STATE SENATOR ED MURRAY: “Tolls give us the potential of an ongoing source of income.”
REPORTER: “Democrat and State Senator Ed Murray says the government just doesn’t have the money for status quo.”
ED MURRAY: “Our transportation needs in Central Puget Sound alone are about $50 billion....”
REPORTER: “Support for tolling is building, beginning with city and state leaders, Democrat and Reublican.”
STATE REP. DOUG ERICKSEN: “I think tolling should be used as a way to increase capacity and help reduce congestion.”
REPORTER: “State representative and Republican Doug Ericksen also says he also wants to use the money raised to give people more options on the roads. And options are just what community leaders heard about today at a traffic conference.”
JACK OPIOLA: “The big thing is going to be making your life easier.”
REPORTER: “Interestingly enough, Jack Opiola of Booz Allen Hamilton promoted toll technology as making life simpler, more efficient. The tech consulting firm demonstrated what other regions are doing. From the common......”
JACK OPIOLA: “...video tolling. Capturing video images.....”
REPORTER: “...to the more complicated....”
JACK OPIOLA: “Rather than paying with metal coins or paper tickets or...ticket books (moving instead) to now contact-less smart cards and....mobile phones.”
REPORTER: “That’s right, paying with your cell phones.”
SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JAN DRAGO: “We need a systems approach that will minimize diversion.”
REPORTER: “Councilwoman Jan Drago is among the leaders who say that putting a toll along 520 could simply divert the traffic elsewhere. Which is why support for widespread tolling could be inevitable.”
STATE SEN. ED MURRAY: “The challenges are great. People believe, at least in the Northwest, that these are freeways and that they should be free. They believe that they’ve already paid for them, regardless of the fact that they haven’t.”
REPORTER: “For ‘The Big Story At Six,’ I’m Erin Covey, NewsTalk 710 KIRO.”
