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Choice Words
Welcome to our blog; your source for transportation policy and advocacy news from across Washington State.
Welcome to our blog; your source for transportation policy and advocacy news from across Washington State.
Zipcar Enters Peer-to-Peer Carshing Market
Zipcar announced today that it is entering the peer-to-peer carsharing market by making a $13.7 Million dollar investment in Wheelz, a campus based P2P carsharing company.
State Senate Shortchanges Transit
The Senate Transportation fee proposal slashes transit funding, ignores road maintenance, and spends million in "road planning." The Washington Legislature is in the midst of negotiating the transportation budgets. Here is a breakdown of the differences between those budgets.
Input needed on Bellevue Transit Master Plan
The City of Bellevue is undergoing a 20 year planning process on the future of transit in the city, and they need your input.
Rep. Fitzgibbon Stands up for Passenger Ferries
Breaking News: Rep. Fitzgibbon, with the support of Rep. Clibborn and Senator Rolfes, introduce a budget proviso to stop WSDOT's preliminary plans to eliminate passenger ferry facilities at Colman Dock.
WSDOT Plans to Eliminate Passenger Ferry at Colman Dock
WSDOT is undergoing a process to plan for the replacement of the Colman ferry terminal. We fullt support preservation projects and our state's ferry system, but the current replacement project will eliminate the existing passenger ferry dock, which will threaten the King County water taxi and other passenger ferry services in and out of Downtown Seattle.
Transit Still Under Attack
Transit continues to be on the chopping block in Washington D.C. as House Republicans lead the charge to essentially defund transit in America.
WSDOT REPORT: Climate Change and Transportation
This report states, "Changing weather patterns and their associated physical, financial and social impacts are affecting or will affect the way transportation professionals finance, plan, design, construct, operate and maintain multimodal transportation infrastructure."
Response to Washington Policy Center's False Claims
The Truth About Washington State's Public Transit Funding
Recently the Washington Policy Center released a report titled, “Public Transit is not underfunded in Washington”. Here at Transportation Choices, we respectfully disagree with this bogus and ill-supported opinion. Below are the claims made in WPC’s report, followed by the facts.
Claim: There are 31 public transit agencies in Washington and they collected $2.05 billion in total revenues in 2010. To put this in perspective, in 2010 the state collected about the same amount ($2.09 billion) from the three major revenue categories (taxes, fees, and misc.) that fund the state’s entire transportation budget.
Truth. The 2011-13 biennial transportation budget is $9.04 billion, which is much larger than the cited $2.09 billion. (http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Finance/budget/BudgetPieCharts.htm). Ennis is cherry picking just state gas tax and fees to make his number, while comparing it to the totality of all sources of revenue for transit including federal, local and all other sources.
Claim: In 2010, the 31 public transit agencies collected $1.23 billion in sales taxes, which is more than the entire state collects in gas tax revenue ($1.21 billion).
Truth. State gas tax revenue makes up less than a quarter of WSDOT’s total budget (http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Finance/budget/BudgetPieCharts.htm). On the other hand, local sales tax makes up 70-75% of transit agencies’ entire budgets.
Claim: Collecting more than $2 billion in a year is remarkable considering how small public transit is compared to the state’s overall transportation system. Public transit agencies’ total market share is only about 2.4% of all daily person trip demand, statewide.
Truth. This is fuzzy math. He takes a real, local statistic (how many trips per year transit carries) and then compares it to a federal estimate of how many trips the ‘average’ American household takes. The truth is that over 40% of people who commute to downtown Seattle every day and 25% to downtown Bellevue are using Metro alone. And these trips are happening during rush hour, when traffic is at its worse.
Claim: Transit officials also claim sales tax revenue is volatile and unreliable as a consistent funding source, but public transit’s sales tax revenue has grown 150% in the last ten years, from $484 million in 2001 to $1.23 billion in 2010.
Truth. The truth is, sales tax is volatile. For King County Metro, in 2009, because of the recession, sales tax revenue dropped by nearly 14%. (http://www.governor.wa.gov/priorities/transportation/connect/20110719/transportation_needs.pdf) Page 28.
This is a double digit dip decrease over one year. That looks like the definition of volatile to me. Also keep in mind a lot of transit agencies went to increase their sales taxes about 10 years ago to replace lost MVET revenues. So the reason why sales tax revenue has grown? To make up for the underfunding of transit by the state.
“Statewide, local sales tax collections dropped by 11.6% (95M) between 2008 and 2010. Demand is peaking while revenues are dropping.” (WSDOT strategic investment study)
Claim: Since 2008, statewide transit ridership has fallen 4.5%, while operating expenses have risen 5%.
Truth. Ridership dipped in 2009 because of recession. That’s what happens when we have near double digit employment, less people go to work. However, over the last year, month over month, 2011 ridership has consistently beaten 2009 and 2010 ridership numbers as the recovery continues(slowly) and gas prices continue to rise(not so slowly). (http://metro.kingcounty.gov/am/reports/monthly-measures/ridership.html)
But who knows what will happen now that bus agencies have just implemented double digit service cuts in places such as Community and Pierce Transit.
Conclusion: The Washington Policy Center's claim that transit funding is adequate and does not need any additional investment is a myth, not a fact.
House Republicans Attack Transit!
The House Republicans in Washington DC have made an unprecedented attack on transit. Act now to stand up for for transit in D.C.!
Olympia Update- Week 4
TCC had an exciting week in Olympia. One of TCC’s priority bills, HB 1700- safe and flexible street design, passed out of the House and is on its way to the Senate. We negotiated a vehicle car sharing bill that passed out of the House committee (and had a great Senate hearing). Next up, a vote by the full house. We testified for more balanced funding in hearings on the Governor’s transportation revenue package. We celebrated a great hearing on a bill to add health to our state transportation goals. This bill has another week to move out of the House transportation committee.
Week 3 in Olympia
Many things are planned for the third week of session. The transportation highlights include: Tuesday- there are hearings on the Governor’s revenue proposal in House and Senate Transportation. Also, bills to authorize tolls on the Columbia River Crossing and the Viaduct will be in Senate Transportation. Two TCC priority bills (HB 2445- mileage based insurance and HB 2384- personal vehicle sharing) are scheduled for Executive Sessions in House Business and Finance. Wednesday- a TCC priority bill, HB 2370 - Including health in the state transportation system policy goals, will be heard in House Transportation.
Next week in Olympia- Week #2
The first week of session is almost done, and it seems like a month has gone by. The main transportation highlight for the week has been the Governor’s transportation proposal. Find out more about here proposal here. Read Transportation for Washington’s response here. This week saw the introduction of three items from our legislative agenda: · Transportation goal of Health– HB 2370 Rep. Billig · Personal carsharing bill – HB 2384 Rep. Hudgins · Mileage Based Insurance- HB 2445 Rep. Ryu We hope to have hearings next week on personal carsharing and mileage based insurance, but the hearings are TBD for now.
Car sharing bill introduced in Washington legislature
The bill, HB 2384, would allow personal peer to peer car sharing in Washington State that is safe, convenient and affordable. Car sharing empowers people to travel more efficiently and cause a shift from personal to shared transport. It can trim emissions, traffic accidents, fuel costs, need for costly parking, while it generates income for car owners, and stimulates the local economy.
Rep. Billig introduces healthy transportation bill
New legislation would require transportation policy and investments to improve health and livability in Washington
Our Response to Governor’s revenue proposal
Gregoire’s transportation funding proposal is a good first step, but still needs to be more balanced
Legislative Session is Upon Us
The 2012 session starts on Monday. Lawmakers, lobbyists, advocates and citizens are planning for a very tough session. A huge budget shortfall still needs to be addressed, while lawmakers look for ways to stimulate our economy for a turn around. The big issues of the session will be the operating budget, job creation, gay marriage, and potentially, transportation revenue.
A JUMPING, JAM-PACKED JANUARY
Happy New Year! At Transportation Choices we are jumping right into 2012 with both feet. With the Legislative session right around the corner, this is the time of the year we need you as an engaged advocate.
Olympia’s special session ends with no action on transportation
The Connecting Washington taskforce recommends a 10 year investment package of $21 billion, which will come from a variety of revenue resources, including; the gas tax, weight fees, emission fees, and a variety of local options. The proportionality of how the revenue will be spent is yet to be negotiated, but the group agreed that operations and maintenance should be the number one priority for investment, fix it first.
Breaking: Sound Transit gets $10 Million for South 200th
Breaking news, Sound Transit announced today that it has secured $10 Million TIGER III Dollars for the South 200th Light Rail expansion project