Transportation campaign launches
TACOMA – Former Democratic Gov. Gary Locke has joined conservative radio host John Carlson in leading a campaign to put a hefty package of regional transportation taxes on the November 2007 ballot.
Locke says he hopes other leaders in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties will help him educate voters about the need to invest more in roads, buses and rail. The tax package could total $13 billion to $16 billion, the amount Sound Transit and the Regional Transportation Investment District plan to put on the November 2007 ballot.
“Our efforts will not end with just an investment package,” the two-term governor wrote to business, government and labor leaders last week. “During the first half of 2007 we will mount an aggressive public education effort in support of the proposed investments before handing matters off to the actual ballot campaign.”
Locke, now a Seattle lawyer, invited executives at Microsoft Corp., Costco Wholesale Corp., Starbucks Corp., The Boeing Co., Weyerhaeuser Co., Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the Seattle Mariners, auto dealers, labor representatives and politicians to meet with him later this month.
Also involved in the campaign is Jessyn Schor, executive director of Transportation Choices, a pro-transit group. Carlson’s involvement is significant, considering that he was instrumental in a failed campaign to repeal the 9.5-cent gas tax hike the Legislature approved last year.
Last week, Sound Transit and the investment district announced plans to assemble a list of mass transit and road and highway projects to submit to the three county councils, and later to voters.
The Legislature raised the gas tax by 5 cents a gallon in 2003, and again by 9.5 cents in 2005, with the latter hike phased in over four years. It will rise by 3 cents a gallon on July 1, and by mid-2008 it will be 37.5 cents.
Those tax hikes will pay for about $12.7 billion in transportation projects, most of them in the central Puget Sound area.
Some mega-projects in the region will require more money, though. Replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct in downtown Seattle alone could cost between $2.8 billion and $4.5 billion. The state will cover $2 billion for the viaduct.
The three-county region is expected to come up with matching funds for that and other projects, including construction of Highway 704 across Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base between Frederickson and Lakewood.
Sound Transit is also about to launch a second 10-year plan to expand light rail and bus service in the region, which might include extending the light rail line south from Sea-Tac Airport to Tacoma.