Rep. Harmsworth: Gov’s I-405 tolling recommendations don’t go far enough

Washington state Rep. Mark Harmsworth says there are no political winners or losers when it comes to the “galactic disaster” that is tolling on I-405. The only losers, he says, are the drivers on the freeway who are still not getting to work on time.

And while he’s pleased that Gov. Jay Inslee proposed changes to the system, he told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that they do not go far enough.

“I’m glad that he’s taken a step to try and fix this,” Harmsworth said. “He’s obviously adopted some of the ideas out of Sen. (Andy) Hill’s bill, and the bill that I have in the House, which is good, but it doesn’t go far enough.”

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Inslee announced 14 changes he’d like to see on the I-405 corridor, most notably removing tolls during non-peak evening hours. Harmsworth (R-Mill Creek) noted that some of the changes have already been completed, such as adding skip stripes to better define the start of a second express toll lane and inside general purpose lane, and there is no sign of congestion relief. He believes the changes don’t get to the “root issue,” which is people being unable to use the 2+ HOV lane and squeezing four lanes into three.

“That’s why you’re seeing a lot of congestion now, particularly northbound in the evenings,” he said.

Harmsworth says WSDOT needs to expand capacity on the roadway but has safety concerns with Inslee’s proposal to add a shoulder as an extra lane. Those concerns start with figuring out where a driver should pull over if his or her car breaks down. But there are other worries, too.

“I’ve already received comments and complaints from some of the wide-load truck drivers who have trucks that are 12-feet wide,” he said. “Some of the roads are below 11 feet, to squeeze them all in, and taking out the shoulder, would mean even if they had to pull over, they’d be hanging out into the lanes, and that’s definitely a safety problem. We have to add the capacity but I think we ought to do it in a better way.”

Harmsworth believes WSDOT needs to take out the two HOT lanes, creating the four contiguous lanes that were paid for with a Nickel tax, and then go back to 2+ in the HOV lanes.

“If the goal is congestion relief and not revenue, that’s where we’ll start seeing some real sensible solutions in that corridor,” he said.

While Dori believes the tolling implementation problems might serve a much greater good throughout the entire Puget Sound area, since it might scare officials from trying it again on other roads, Harmsworth isn’t so sure.

“This is a step to change the way we’re paying for transportation and this revenue is not constitutionally protected, so tolling can be spent on whatever DOT feels they want to spend it on,” he said. “So you’re seeing the beginning of their grand plan about changing the way we pay for our transportation system.”

“The studies have been done and you know how it works in government: Once the study has been done it becomes gospel and it comes back as the way to do things,” he added. “So they’ve been looking at I-90 and down at the 167 connector that we just approved – the complete I-5 corridor. GPS in our cars isn’t a far stretch, where they can then do demand-based pricing. So I think that’s really where a lot of these bureaucrats are thinking they want to take our revenue for paying for our roads.”

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