Down The Road Nobody Knows What The Impact On Roadbuilding Would Be If I-695 Passes, But One Thing Is Certain; A Large Source Of Funding Would Be Eliminated

Licensing cars would be cheaper if voters approve Initiative 695, but Spokane Valley drivers might end up spending more time in them.

After years of clamoring about traffic congestion, major road work is finally under way in the Valley.

And while money has already been set aside to complete significant portions of most of the largest improvement projects, the future of a few biggies is tangled in with the fate of I-695.

Multi-year, multi-million dollar plans to widen Interstate 90 all the way to Sullivan hang in the balance if voters pass the measure to reduce car tabs to a flat $30.

Portions of the Valley couplet project which will carry traffic between the Sprague Avenue I-90 interchange and University Road and, perhaps eventually, extend all the way to Liberty Lake also could hinge on the outcome of the November vote.

Or maybe not.

“Some people feel all these things might go away if it passes,” said Rep. Larry Crouse, R-Spokane Valley, who supports I-695. “I don’t. I’m not a gloom and doom type of person.”

Why the confusion?

In reducing car tab fees, I-695 would save the average driver $142 a year, with owners of expensive cars or motorhomes saving hundreds or even thousands each year.

But the ballot measure also would eliminate the state’s motor vehicle excise tax, which was expected to bring in $1.5 billion in the next two years alone. If the initiative passes, about $1.1 billion of that money would be returned to vehicle owners as a tax cut.

One-third of that $1.1 billion currently goes directly into the state’s Transportation Department, which uses the money for highway reconstruction and ferry projects, among other things.

If the initiative passes, it’s not clear how the state Legislature would replace those funds — or if lawmakers would do so at current levels.

As a result, transportation officials have said they plan on sending some future projects out to bid with a caveat, giving the state the right to yank the work out from under contractors if the money dries up.

Initiative supporters, such as sponsor Tim Eyman, a Mukilteo, Wash., salesman, predict lawmakers would simply use the roughly $1 billion state surplus to cover all the losses from I-695. Since the surplus could only be used once, supporters then hope the tax cut would spark more vehicle sales, help boost the economy, and thereby bring more revenue into the state in later years.

If it doesn’t work that way, others, such as Valley businessman John Hansen, a banker, contend the state should be able to make up the difference through efficiencies, or by cutting less important programs. Suggesting otherwise, he said, is “extortion.”

“I’m fed up with a lack of accountability and efficiency in government,” he said. “Every business I know has to go through revenue fluctuations. I don’t know any business that couldn’t adjust. Why can’t the state?”

Initiative opponents contend, however, that whether next year or the year after, the state would have to slow road construction because the money simply would run out. Giant projects, such as the billion-dollar North Side freeway, may get shelved. Smaller projects, too, could be abandoned or delayed, which would only increase the price later.

While Valley Chamber of Commerce members have not taken a position on I-695, it clearly makes chamber president Loren Mitchell uneasy.

“I look at the traffic every day, and I see it getting worse,” he said. “What we should be doing is widening I-90 to three lanes right to the (Idaho) border. But barring that, we need to finish what we’ve started.”

The problem is, I-90 widening has only been partially funded.

The state plans its highway construction program six years in advance, but only gets money every two years, as lawmakers approve it — usually with some amendments.

Jerry Lenzi, regional director for the state Transportation Department, said several I-90 projects are already paid for, and under way.

The $21 million (including easement purchases) Evergreen Interchange is a go. A loop ramp for the Harvard Road interchange near Liberty Lake is funded. Construction of new lanes on I-90 is covered east to Argonne.

Planned for, but not paid for, are several related projects. The $25 million I-90 westbound across Sprague into town is, “subject to future funding options,” Lenzi said. To the east, freeway widening from Argonne to Pines and Pines to Sullivan — in both directions — requires future money. Each section would cost $15 to $17 million.

“We were doing design work on it,” Lenzi said, and that will continue “at least for a while.”

That’s not the only project in question.

Spokane County Engineer Ross Kelley said the plan to extend the Valley Couplet for 10 miles east of University Road could be affected. The 2.5-mile stretch from I-90 to University, is expected to open by 2001. That section of the couplet will cost $16 million.

The remaining sections are split into four separate projects — about $20 million in work, 80 percent of which the county hoped the state would cover.

The state anticipated the money would be there as a result of last year’s Referendum 49, which raised $2.4 billion for road work. But that $2.4 billion was to come from selling $1.9 billion in bonds, which would be repaid with the motor vehicle excise tax I-695 eliminates.

The county also was looking toward the state for a longterm project to improve the Valey-North Side Bigelow Gulch route from Forker Road to Sullivan. The $25 million project was to be designed in 2001 in four phases, stretched over six years.

Another project is the “bridge the Valley” concept.

The chamber has talked with the Burlington Northern-Sante Fe Railroad — and has been trying to communicate with Union Pacific — about abandoning or bypassing many of the region’s railroad crossings.

The idea: Eliminate many rail crossings by convince the two railroads to move tracks into one railbed, then building overpasses or underpasses to carry vehicle traffic over or under the rail lines.

It’s a longterm project, one that Mitchell said would only happen with public money.