Legislature Must Pave The Way

All over Spokane, potholes crater the streets. And it isn’t even spring yet. These aren’t ordinary potholes. Some resemble canyons, winding down busy city arterials where tires have worn away the pavement.

Spokane is not alone. Other cities, such as Seattle, likewise suffer from the state’s grossly inadequate commitment to local road maintenance. Funding formulas that are inadequate in Seattle are doubly inadequate east of the Cascades because Western Washington’s roads aren’t hammered by the freeze-thaw cycles of a snow-country winter.

Other than the popular stampede to cut taxes - ironic in the context of neglected basic infrastructure - nothing on the Legislature’s 1997 agenda is more important than transportation funding. Repeat: Nothing. Cops need roads, business needs roads, school buses need roads, job seekers need roads. The Legislature has neglected roads funding.

It shows.

It will take more than one simplistic bill to fix this. The Legislature errs, and badly serves the people, if members focus on single remedies like a gas-tax increase, a fairer share of Motor Vehicle Excise Tax revenue, authorization for cash-rich transit districts to help with street maintenance, or passing the buck (again) to staggering local taxpayers.

An acceptable solution will involve a combination of remedies, for the problem is severe and a method that helps one community may not fit another community’s circumstances.

For today’s discussion, however, let us focus on a bill that would offer considerable assistance to the Spokane area. The bill is an option, not a mandate, and therefore it should not be a threat to any community that does not find it useful.

Here is all it would do: Authorize transit districts, such as Spokane Transit Authority, to help cities or counties with the cost of road maintenance. Nothing could occur, under Senate Bill 5430, unless both the transit agency and the local government agree. A negotiated contract would govern the amount of aid.

Years ago, transit was a part of city governments. When city buses pounded holes in streets, city crews fixed them. But now, cities and transit authorities are separate. Cities, financially, struggle to make ends meet. But some transit agencies - Spokane’s in particular - wallow in cash. And while buses pound streets in exactly the same way that semitrucks pound freeways, transit authorities are parsimonious about helping cities repair the damage: Sorry, we don’t do windows, state law frowns on it.

That’s ridiculous. STA maintains an astounding $33 million in its reserve account. Among other nice things, this enables it to pay cash for buses, saving interest costs. The city of Spokane, by way of comparison, has a $2 million reserve in its $100 million operating budget, a budget three times as large as STA’s. And the city’s street budget, obviously, resembles Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.

Granted: Reserves are good. Buses reduce car traffic on the roads. Transit is an asset.

But excessive reserves are a sign of excessive taxes, shirked obligations, or both.

STA should be authorized to support the cost of street maintenance on bus routes. Clearly, it can afford to do so - and jolly well ought to, once SB 5430 is enacted.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board