Seattle tunnel opponents: No gas tax dollars for Bertha

While state lawmakers have unveiled a new $15 billion transportation package that includes a nearly 12 cents a gallon gas tax hike, some opponents of the Seattle tunnel project are trying to block any new money from going to Bertha.

Sen. Mike Baumgartner, R-Spokane, introduced a measure this week that would declare any new gas tax money or other revenue off limits to the replacement of Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct.

“This is such an important issue. We need to quarantine the Bertha debacle to Seattle,” Baumgartner tells AM 770 KTTH’s David Boze Show. “I don’t think any person in the rest of the state wants to see their gas tax increase thrown into this bottomless pit of problems.”

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It’s Baumgartner’s second shot at stopping Bertha, the stalled Seattle tunnel machine that’s been stuck since December 2013, in the past few weeks. A bill he introduced with Sen. Doug Erickson in January to kill the project went nowhere, with Transportation Committee chair Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, refusing to even give it a hearing.

The new proposal has the backing of 13 other Senators, although none are from the Seattle area.

But Baumgartner says it’s not about Seattle, it’s about the failure of the Washington State Department of Transportation to live up to the promises made to the entire state to deliver the project on time and on budget.

“It’s not fair for any other taxpayers to have to pay gas tax for basically what is a vanity project in downtown Seattle to replace a perfectly good viaduct that could have been fixed for a fraction of the cost. Now we have all these issues. I want to make sure if there is a gas tax, at the very least, it’s going to new roads in the rest of the state and that we hold Seattle to this deal,” he says.

Baumgartner worries taxpayers could be on the hook for any cost overruns on the $1.44 billion tunnel project. WSDOT officials have repeatedly insisted the agreement with Seattle Tunnel Partners requires the contractor to pay for any cost overruns.

Project leaders and state lawmakers, including Sen. King, have argued the approximately $140 million in contingency funds left in the budget is more than adequate to cover overruns and unexpected expenses and Baumgartner’s worries are unfounded.

“I’m not aware of any issue that entitles the contractor to more money,” WSDOT project manager Todd Trepanier told lawmakers at a Senate Transportation Committee hearing Wednesday in response to grilling from Baumgartner.

But Baumgartner tells Boze he and many other lawmakers don’t believe it, and he expects the contractor to continue seeking millions for cost overruns.

“If they want more money, they need to write a separate bill and make the case that they want more money for the project for that reason and try and sell it to the people,” Baumgartner says. “Right now they’re saying all this gas tax discussion don’t worry about Bertha. My bill is very, very simple. It just clearly specifies that no new gas tax in this proposal would go to Bertha.”

Although he’s garnered more support than his previous assault on the tunnel project, the measure is expected to go nowhere in the current legislative session. But Baumgartner and others say the conversation could be much different if Bertha is still languishing beneath Seattle when lawmakers return to Olympia next year.