By Andrew Kidde and Larry Luton

As anyone dodging the potholes in Spokane’s roads understands, Washington State’s transportation infrastructure is failing. Traffic jams abound. Many bridges, like the Post Street bridge, are either out of commission or face deferred maintenance. Why? The cost of maintaining our roads is outpacing the gas tax revenues that are allocated for this task. Moreover, most of our residents lack transit options. Less than 4 percent of our current state transportation budget supports transit, biking, and walking. 

Our legislators hope to fix this mess. Senator Hobbs, Senator Saldana, and Representative Fey have all released transportation packages, and the first hearings (HB1135 and SB5165) on those packages took place on March 23rd.

The packages present quite different visions of the future, all of them affecting the next 16 years. All the plans increase the gas tax, the House plan (Fey’s) more than the others. They all assume that the state will adopt one of the two carbon pricing plans being considered this year. Other taxes could include an air quality surcharge tax on the sale of cars or a road usage charge. Budget negotiations remain active until the session ends, and this year there are many options on the table.

All the plans fund major bridge repairs and substantial road maintenance on our existing road system. 

But Fey’s and Saldana’s plans are more ambitious and transformative, and include increased investment in transit, pedestrian, and bicycle infrastructure. These plans include only a few new roadway or highway widening projects. The Senate plan continues with the failing status quo approach – funding new roads and highway lane expansions. 

We think the House approach makes most sense. Here are seven reasons:

1. Expanding road capacity inevitably results in more traffic jams. Traffic engineers call this “induced demand” — the more roads and lanes we build, the more cars fill them up with congestion. We can expect this to happen with the north-south freeway in Spokane if that project is ever completed.
   
2. Building more roads and lanes will make maintaining our transportation system even more costly. Under the status quo we cannot afford to maintain our current roads. For many families the cost of car dependency has become increasingly burdensome. According to the American Public Transportation Association, “A household can save nearly $10,000 (per year) by taking public transportation and living with one less car.” Instead of more highways, we need more and better transportation choices. The “Division Connects” project is a great example how to deal with this problem.

• We need more transportation choices. Twenty-five percent of Washingtonians do not have a driver’s license — people who either can’t drive or can’t afford a car face substantial mobility challenges with our current system.  Folks without a driver’s license can feel essentially trapped in their homes if local roads are dangerous for active transportation or public transit is inaccessible. People with driver’s licenses would also choose to bike, walk and take a bus more if it were safer and more convenient.

• Better infrastructure for walking and biking leads to better health. As the draft WSDOT Active Transportation Plan states: “[W]alkable neighborhoods result in more walking, improved health, and lower emission of pollutants.”  

• Better walking and biking infrastructure would also lead to fewer deaths. As the Active Transportation Plan states, “Past efforts have not succeeded in eliminating or even reducing the annual number of traffic deaths and serious injuries for people who walk and bike.” 

• The House approach leads to more jobs. Active transportation projects lead to more jobs than fossil fuel transportation infrastructure.  Also, the smaller size of active transportation projects invites smaller companies to participate in the work.

• We must drive less to save our climate. The Senate approach encourages more driving, but we need to reduce vehicle miles travelled (VMTs). The transportation sector is the largest source of of GHG emissions in Washington (44.6 percent).  Funding active transportation and public transit helps reduce VMTs. A recent study by Climate Solutions shows that reducing VMTs is critical for reaching our state GHG reduction goals. 

We need to change our transportation system. Changing the transportation budget is key to making that happen. We must maintain the roads we have, but we should not expand road capacity. We need to invest more in transit and active transportation. The House package is the better way to reduce traffic congestion, make our transportation system more affordable, provide more transportation options, promote health and fitness, reduce traffic collision deaths, create more jobs, and reduce GHG emissions. Please consider signing on to our Clean & Just transportation platform and help us advocate for better transportation in Washington State.

Andrew Kidde is on the leadership team of 350 Seattle. Larry Luton is vice chair of 350 Spokane.