Meet the man who holds the keys to your commute
Feb 5, 2015, 9:18 AM | Updated: Feb 6, 2015, 8:05 am
Senator Curtis King, the chair of the state senate transportation committee, has the power to allow bills to be heard or to shut them down. (Photo courtesy Washington State Legislature)
(Photo courtesy Washington State Legislature)
There is a person in Olympia who almost single-handedly holds the keys to your daily commute. He’s not the governor. He’s not the head of the state department of transportation.
He’s a cabinet maker from Yakima named Curtis King.
Senator King, the chair of the state senate transportation committee, has the power to allow bills to be heard or to shut them down. He recently rejected a bill that would have basically killed the Seattle Tunnel Project.
Related: Lawmaker challenges I-405 HOV requirements, toll rates
While he doesn’t deal with your traffic every day, he does understand it.
“I can tell you that if I’m here (in Olympia) after 1:30 p.m. on Friday, I go over White (Pass),” he said. “I don’t want to deal with JBLM. I don’t want to take the chances of running into a backup on Highway 18.”
King has the needs of an entire state to consider.
He said a $45 million project in Liberty Lake, near Spokane, is just as important to the people there as the more than $1 billion needed to finish the west side of the 520 bridge is to Seattleites.
“I try to look at being the most effective legislator I can be, and I very much work to try and be as fair and equitable and listen to everybody’s concerns. Then I try to make a decision based upon what is the best thing we can do for the citizens of the state of Washington,” King said.
Right now, King believes the priorities are simple. Finish the projects on the books, including the tunnel, the 520 bridge, the North-South freeway in Spokane, and the 167 to I-5 connection. Then he said the state needs to start putting money into maintenance and preservation because a $3 million repair job today will turn into a $12 million replacement project tomorrow.
King is a supporter of raising the gas tax, though he knows that’s not a popular idea in Yakima.
“You think I’m going to be popular when I go over and ask the people in my district for an 11.5-cent gas tax increase?” he asked. “I have to be able to explain why I think it was the right thing to do, and I think I can do that.”
It has been 10 years since a comprehensive transportation funding package was passed, but King is hopeful that this will be the session that lawmakers can finally get together and pass something that will actually improve your drive.
“(Lawmakers) really recognize now that we have to do something, that we have to address the problems that we see,” he said.
