Freight Mobility Board Gets First Executive Director

Rep. Karen Schmidt will become the first permanent executive director of the Washington Freight Mobility Strategic Investment Board, just in time to see what voters decide on Initiative 695.

Members of the board picked Schmidt for the job during a meeting Friday in Spokane.

Schmidt, R-Bainbridge Island, said she will resign from the Legislature next month to assume her new post. She has served in the House since 1981, most recently as co-chairwoman of the Transportation Committee.

She will earn $84,000 a year as head of the freight mobility board, an office within the Department of Transportation.

The board was created by the 1998 Legislature to find ways to expedite transportation projects critical to moving goods through Washington.

Members appointed from the public and private sectors rank projects according to priority, then determine how much funding to provide - as little as 10 percent to as much as 65percent.

Schmidt said the board has a $4billion budget for the current biennium, but half of that was to come from the motor vehicle excise tax under attack by I-695.

The initiative would cap the tax on all vehicles at $30, costing the state about $500 million per year.

Board members meeting at the Airport Ramada Inn spent much of their time discussing how to respond to what will likely be a cut in funding, even if I-695 fails.

Schmidt said members of all four legislative caucuses and Gov. Gary Locke want to respond to the voter frustration manifest in the initiative.

“The message is still there, that we need to do something,” she said.

Whatever the Legislature and governor do, the board voted to stick with the recommended project list. Reshuffling priorities, said Department of Transportation Director Sid Morrison, would break faith with legislators and other public and private entities participating in the projects.

Spokane-area projects are relatively far down the list, which by law splits allocations three ways: Puget Sound; the rest of Western Washington; and Washington east of the Cascade Mountains.

Although that concentrates spending around Puget Sound, Schmidt said all Washington shippers will suffer if the state’s share of import-export traffic erodes because ports are congested.

Spokane County projects on the board list include:

Widening of Interstate 90 to Harvard Road.

A new truck route along the Burlington Northern Santa Fe right-of-way through Colville.

Construction of a new underpass of the BNSF tracks at Barker Road.

Spokane County Engineer Ross Kelley, a board member, also advocated a rail underpass at Park Road and improvements to Bigelow Gulch Road. Bigelow should also be linked to Sullivan Road by way of Forker Road, he said.

Kelley said he is also trying to revive a plan discarded in the past that would run BNSF and Union Pacific trains on one track couplet from Rathdrum, Idaho into Spokane.

Creating a track couplet would allow the railroads to remove the old Union Pacific track and eliminate many hazardous crossings.

Although there are some operational issues to sort out, the idea might help resolve the dispute over placement of a BNSF refueling station near Rathdrum, he said.

Kelley said the plan is only in the discussion stages and has not been floated by the railroad.

“We’re trying to figure out where do we go with this great idea,” he said after the meeting.

BNSF officials could not be reached for comment.