Economy Paved With Good Roads

While Washington’s legislators unpacked, their leaders took a few minutes Tuesday to give journalists a preview of the coming session. They expect to argue about how to cut taxes, how to show their love for schools, how to crack down on crime (again), how to reform welfare and whether to subsidize another new playpen for the poor oppressed millionaires of professional sports. And for the amusement of the media they might even carry on about same-sex marriage.

What fun.

But for a few awful seconds the loudest sound in the room was that of politicians gulping, when someone asked about paying for the maintenance and expansion of Washington’s clogged, traffic-beaten, weather-damaged roads.

How strange.

Roads are basic. Taxpaying businesses need them to receive and deliver merchandise. Children need them to get to school. Police need them to take criminals to jail. Welfare clients need them to get to work. Sports fans need them to get to the Kingdome. Moralists need them to get to church. Politicians and reporters need them for the pilgrimage to Olympia.

Washington state’s roads are in trouble - from potholed city streets to mudslide-weakened bridges to the avalanche-pounded mountain passes to our growth-stressed arterials and freeways. In the next budget cycle the state transportation department will have enough revenue to patch current highways but it will not have enough revenue to expand them so they can carry more traffic.

Every day, the people of Washington grumble and suffer as a result of road conditions.

But the political parties aren’t in the habit of fighting over roads, the way they fight about education, crime and social issues. They neglect roads. And that’s not entirely the politicians’ fault, for they are a representative body. And roads are an expensive duty of government, at a time when popular opinion wants both taxes and government to back off.

It’s time for legislators to lead and for the public to accept responsibility concerning this essential service.

It’s a good time. The state’s economy is booming and so are tax revenues. State law bars the Legislature from spending all the revenue it’s getting on general-fund programs such as education. The Legislature could - and should - shift more of the lucrative motor vehicle excise tax to the highway fund, whose primary revenue source, the gas tax, is stagnant. Lawmakers also should consider boosting the state’s gas tax, lowest in the West.

Maybe it’s more glamorous to argue about another stadium for Seattle. But the Legislature’s leadership obligations should lead it back to basics. That means roads.

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