State’s Big Transportation Dreams Would Break Constitutional Debt Limit

Working my way through the draft of Washington Transportation Plan 2030, I keep coming across what looks like the future arriving today. Unfortunately, it’s the future in which the state is broke, but still wants to spend billions on more roads.

“It is noteworthy that approximately 64% of current transportation funding is dependent on how much fuel cars and trucks consume,” goes the report, noting at the outset that “the existing 2007-2026 WTP identifies a need to invest more than $67 billion over 20 years (2005 dollars), most of which is unfunded.”

With the spike in fuel prices previously and now the recession, people have been driving less, and state revenue from the gas tax has dropped to “E” when it comes to new projects.

Today a Seattle Times headline gives you Exhibit A: “520 bridge shortfall: more tolls, taxes ahead.” Even with peak driving time tolls of $3.50 each way, 520 replacement monies fall short. “The forecasts errantly assumed growth in gasoline use, which instead has gone nearly flat,” says Mike Lindblom.

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It’s long been suspected that I-90 will need to be tolled in tandem with 520, which Seattle Senator Ed Murray is in favor of. But no one is jumping on the Coalition for a Sustainable SR 520‘s funding bandwagon: Their idea is to institute tolls now and a) raise money in advance while b) confirming the effects of $7 daily roundtrip tolls on traffic demand.

The same strategy could be put into effect on SR 99 (aka the Viaduct), since the state plans to toll the deep-bore tunnel as well. But so far the state seems shy about raising money in ways that might affect the rationale for spending billions on new lanes.

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The Coalition argues that the state’s $5.6-billion funding plans for both SR 520 and SR 99 would increase bond debt by 30 percent and require an exemption from Washington’s debt ceiling of nine percent of total revenue. So now might be a good time to face the hard question about how all this roadway gets paid for.

According to the Times, the “Legislature will probably avoid the issue in 2011 while it focuses on the broader budget crisis in state services.”