WA: Public deserves to be heard on Washington transit projects | Opinion

Our state is blessed with mountain ranges, fertile farmland, great forests, ocean beaches, hundreds of rivers and creeks, and an inland sea called Puget Sound.

Our geography and resources have nurtured an economy that is a leading producer of hops, apples, cherries, seafood, wheat, dairy, aerospace and technology.

This diverse economy and complex geography require diversified and complex transportation systems to move people and products every day while addressing future challenges and issues that will face our state.

The state highway and ferry systems are the backbones of our state’s transportation system and the muscles that make the greater transportation network function are miles of city streets and county roads, transit systems, ports, freight and passenger railroads, shipping lines, trucking companies and many other partners.

Hundreds of funding sources — gas taxes, bridge tolls, bus tickets, train fares, vehicle registration fees, county road taxes, transit fares, sales taxes, local ballot measures — fund our transportation infrastructure.

The Washington State Transportation Commission, a small, independent state agency, is a citizen-based body with members from everywhere in Washington.

For over 30 years, the commission has worked with the Washington State Department of Transportation, cities, counties, transit agencies, tribes and other private and public transportation providers and users bringing the public forum in person to all corners of the state as the state’s 20-year Washington Transportation Plan is updated and advanced. In addition, the commission serves as the state tolling authority and the transportation research arm for the Legislature.

Now, in Senate Bill 5801, that will add $10 billion in transportation taxes to improve the transportation system, the Legislature proposes to gut the public forum aspect for the development of transportation policy. It is unclear whether any state agency would have that role.

Although budget bills are not intended to make policy, in the back of the bill under the heading “Miscellaneous,” that’s exactly what is being proposed.

As former officers of the Transportation Commission, we laud the Department of Transportation for its operation of our complex and diverse state transportation systems.

However, only an independent body that neither owns nor operates any transportation infrastructure without that inherent bias can fairly envision and evaluate — with public engagement — how the transportation systems in general are performing and how the Washington Transportation Plan should evolve over the next twenty years.

People, businesses, local governments and tribes all need and deserve the transparent, balanced approach to an integrated system of statewide transportation planning in the Washington Transportation Plan that has been provided by the Transportation Commission for over 30 years.

The best stewardship of scarce public resources and the billions of taxpayer dollars we spend on transportation, requires a stronger role for integrated statewide transportation system planning driven by public engagement, not its elimination as proposed in SB 5801.

We urge the Legislature to leave the Transportation Commission’s statutory authority without modification and retain its valuable planning and policy role.

Anne Haley is a Tacoma native and chairman of the Board of Brown & Haley. She chaired the Washington State Library Commission, and headed the Walla Walla Public Library for 20 years and the Yakima Valley Library District for five years. Jerry Litt was born and raised in rural Eastern Washington and spent 44 years as a planner/community development professional, 28 years in the public sector on both sides of the state and 16 years of private sector consulting for developers, small towns, counties, ports and economic agencies.

Tom Cowan served three terms as San Juan County Commissioner and is a past president of the Washington State Association of Counties.

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