The CCA, ferries, and a highway user fee; key transportation discussions this session

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson wants to add $3 billion to the state transportation budget in this short 60-day session. How he wants to do it isn’t popular on either side of the aisle.

The governor wants to spend more than $2 billion of this increase on maintenance and preservation — something the legislature has long ignored. By some previous estimates, Washington underfunds maintenance and preservation by $1 billion a year. That’s just to protect what we have.

But the governor wants to raise that extra money by selling bonds, using revenue from the increased gas tax as collateral. That’s not a popular idea with House Transportation Committee Chair Jake Fey. He worried that it would leave the state with less financial flexibility.

Fey leaned toward prioritizing and scheduling projects to reallocate money from current projects to maintenance during a recent interview.

“I think there’s a lot to be said for putting more money into preservation and maintenance, but can we see if we can maybe slow down a project or two and put some more money into preserving and maintaining what we have?” Fey said.

And in this short session, he’s not sure whether the legislature should focus on big new things.

“We didn’t do new things of any consequence last session,” Rep Fey said. “It was just filling holes for project overruns, like 520, so the idea of doing new stuff is like, ‘Where’s the money’? Where’s the money coming from?”

There is also expected to be quite a discussion about the ferry system. Everything from delaying the electrification of the fleet to re-thinking the contract to build three new electric hybrids, even though the contract has been signed.

“I’ve had people in my office talk about doing the San Juan ferries with hydrogen as a fuel,” he said. “I’ve had people come in my office and offer to build and lease back to the state ferries. We need to take a look at all of these.”

And maybe the biggest discussion of all will be around the Climate Commitment Act (CCA). Not about its fundamentals, but where the money can be spent. Ferguson wants to use it for tax credits for working families. Other lawmakers want to use it to pay for emergency repairs after the historic flooding.

Representative Fey isn’t a big fan of taking money from the CCA for non-climate issues.

“Many of my constituents complained to me about, well, you sold us on this tax, and it was going to be restricted to this purpose, but now you’re spending it on something else,” he said.

Fey believes the CCA money should stay where it is.

There is one really interesting topic that will likely be discussed but maybe not put forward in this session: the Road Usage Charge. That’s the idea of charging you for every mile driven.

Representative Fey is looking at a Highway User Fee, which charges you a fee when you renew your tabs, based on your car’s MPG. The threshold is 25 miles per gallon. The higher your miles per gallon, the more you pay.

“This is where we’re losing the money on those vehicles, and people who have vehicles that have less gas mileage are paying a greater share per mile driven,” Rep. Fey said. “It gets at the same problem, but it doesn’t have the concerns associated with privacy by tracking all of that.”

It doesn’t matter how many miles you drive. It’s just based on your miles per gallon. Virginia is already running a program like this.

Fey is also pushing a bill that would increase training opportunities for commercial truck drivers.

Chris Sullivan is a traffic reporter for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here. Follow KIRO Newsradio traffic on X.

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