Today marks the 75th day of the 2015 legislative session and this week marks a critical point in passing a transportation package. The House Transportation Committee hearing yesterday took up ESSB 5987 and ESSB 5988, better know as The Transportation Package. You can watch the full video, with our Policy Director, Andrew Austin giving his testimony right here. Each speaker was given one minute so testimony was fast and furious. Sound Transit recieved support from elected officials across the puget sound region, you can catch our live tweet of the hearing here under #masstransitnow.
With the hearing now over, what are the next steps?
The House Transportation Committee will now consider amendments to the package and send either the version that was heard yesterday or make changes and send it on to the floor for a vote by the full body of the House. There’s never been a more important time for your legislators to hear from you. If you haven’t yet, contact your House members and ask them to provide:
- Full funding for Sound Transit to expand rail to communities all across the Puget Sound region.
- Increased state transit investments to reduce traffic and pollution.
- More transportation options and clean air. Remove the provision that pits transit funding against clean fuels.
This is our chance to send an improved package back to the Senate for negotiations. This is the point where in previous years, the house passed a package but we lost momentum and a package stalled. The end result was no local authority for King County Metro. And guess what? Community Transit and Kitsap Transit both have local TBD authority tied to this package. Along with the authority for Sound Transit, there’s millions for bike and pedestrian improvements and investments to make Washington a better place to live for drivers, freight companies, cyclists, pedestrian, and of course transit lovers like you. Lets keep that momentum going. Thanks to some great coverage in The Stranger we’ve gained a lot of traction with almost 400 responses to our Call To Action sent to legislators. Lets keep them pouring in over the weekend and back up all the testimony the committee heard yesterday that people are demanding transit.
