WSDOT wants more ideas on tolling I-90
Oct 21, 2013, 4:43 AM | Updated: 8:47 am
It’s your last chance to give the state your thoughts about tolling I-90 before the Washington State Department of Transportation spends a year researching the idea.
The WSDOT has already taken 3,400 public comments on the idea, but it wants more before it narrows its focus.
State tolling director Craig Stone said commuters have recommended alternative ideas to tolling.
“Maybe we should add some more capacity,” is one of the ideas he’s heard from the public. “We should be looking at other options to tolling, state taxes, maybe even a mileage fee or federal resources,” Stone said.
The Legislature wants a complete look at tolling I-90 by the 2015 session so it can decide if tolling the bridge is the right idea.
“We’re also going to be looking at economic impacts,” Stone said. “We’ll be looking at the equity question.”
Here’s why the Legislature is looking at tolling I-90: the state is still more than a billion dollars short of paying for the west end of the 520 bridge project. Tolling money would go to that.
The state is also looking at how to re-balance traffic going over Lake Washington. At least 15,000 cars a day are still skipping the 520 bridge to avoid the toll and that’s adding extra congestion to I-90. Tolling I-90 would ease some of that diversion.
Stone said it’s becoming clear that the gas tax no longer represents the best way to pay for massive projects. “It would probably take three or four cents of gas tax across the state for the next 30 years to try and finish-out this cross-lake improvement.”
And Stone isn’t sure the rest of the state would be willing to pay that for improvements that only help Seattle.
But he said there’s no guarantee that tolling I-90 will happen. “I think it’s a very open question,” Stone said. “It’s a major policy question of how do we pay for our transportation.”
There’s a public meeting on tolling Monday evening at Mercer Island High School. It starts at 4:30 p.m. and runs until 8:30 p.m.
There is a meeting at the Northwest African American Museum in Seattle on Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Check out the WSDOT I-90 tolling website for more information.
