Dear friends,
We’re in the final stretch! The 2026 Washington State Legislative Session will conclude this Thursday, March 12th. Just a few of the transportation bills we’ve supported are still alive, and the transportation budget is in the final stages of negotiation. Here’s where things stand.
We were excited to see a bill to give Sound Transit enhanced permitting tools to build light rail faster (SB 6309) pass the House last week. If signed by the governor, this bill will allow Sound Transit to apply for construction permits on properties they don’t yet own, and before local jurisdictions give the green light. This will help save time and money, and is the first step of many to reform permitting in order to expedite critical light rail projects.
Unfortunately, a bill to extend 75-year bonding authority to Sound Transit (SB 6148) did not get a vote in the House Transportation Committee last week and is now dead. We’re disappointed. 75-year bonding authority would have been another critical tool for Sound Transit to build light rail as quickly as possible in the face of sustained inflation that has significantly increased construction costs. Without it, Sound Transit board members are more likely to have to make cuts to voter-approved light rail projects as they address growing cost estimates. Last week, we pushed hard to keep 75-year bonding alive through the budget process, but we were ultimately unsuccessful.
A bill to create a clear distinction between e-motorcycles and e-bikes passed the House (SB 6110). This is a bill our friends at Washington Bikes are leading on. It’s important to keep legal and regulated electric bicycles from getting swept up in the needed regulation of e-motorcycles, which can go up to 45 miles per hour. The bill also convenes a licensing group to help figure out how to better regulate e-motorcycles.
The final transportation budget is still being negotiated between the House and Senate. We expect to see a final bill and a conference committee report no later than Wednesday, so it can be voted on Thursday. As we discussed last week, the two proposed transportation budgets have a bunch of things we support. However, we raised concerns about the long-term sustainability of transportation spending in Washington, the continued funding of freeway expansion, and the need to find new revenue sources.
Last week, we testified “Other” at a hearing before the House Transportation Committee on SB 6225, which would authorize bonding for transportation funding. In our testimony, we voiced our support for limited bonding authority to pay for preservation and maintenance of state roads, but only if paired with two key actions.
The first is to identify key programs in the multimodal account for codification in future sessions, to ensure we aren’t delaying or cutting transit, bike, or pedestrian projects whenever the capital program needs to be topped up. The second is to stop adding new highway capital projects or committing additional funds to freeway megaprojects until a recalibration of the capital program can occur with key stakeholders.
We support limited bonding to address the very real preservation needs in our state, but only if we take this opportunity to start addressing the systemic issues facing our transportation budget going forward.
We’ll be back next week to report on how the budget shakes out.
Ride on,
– Transportation Choices Coalition
