The Senate passed their transportation budget.

“Transportation is the bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economic picture,” Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said, kicking off debate.  “Over 18,000 jobs have been or will be created to sustain the (transportation) budget that we passed last year,” she said. She said this supplemental transportation budget doesn’t add much from last year. Except: “In the last budget cycle we did not fund two patrol classes. We felt that there would not be any attrition,” she said, but they found out that wasn’t the case. She said this budget funds a patrol class.

Sen. Curtis King: “We have developed what I think is a good budget here.” He said they’ve worked hard on several policy aspects — including how the Department of Transportation sells excess property.

Sen. Chris Marr said he also supports the budget. He said projects are coming in, on average, 17 percent below engineer estimates. That money can then fund other projects, he said.

Sen. Mike Carrell said he is sad to say he won’t be supporting the budget. He said the reason is that there’s an appropriation to turn a small rail stop in Lakewood — his district — into a hub for SoundTransit and other trains. He said at least 50 times a day, traffic will be harmed in the Lakewood area where the station will go.

The budget passed 41 to 3 and now heads to the House.

Tags: Budget, transportation

Today’s Q&A is with head of the Washington Department of Transportation, Paula Hammond. She talked with us about whether the tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct is a done deal, federal stimulus, early tolling and the biggest road construction summer in history.

Q. What are the biggest challenges for your department?
A. Well, challenges first of all are not always a bad thing in my mind because a very good challenge we have is an opportunity to deliver the biggest highway construction program that our state has ever seen. So its us delivering projects that provide benefits not only to communities but the statewide transportation system. But it’s a challenge in that its something that’s pretty high volume, for us its the delivery of cost effective projects. And for travelers I’m hearing more and more, Can there possibly be more cones and barrels out on the road?
It’s not only stimulus money, which we’re going great guns on, this highest construction season ever because of 2003 and 2005 gas packages. We’re getting a lot of people who are just wishing that the barrels will go away.
One way of thinking about it is our normal biennial construction capital budget pre-2003 hovered somewhere in the $2 billion range. This biennium, we’re at $4.5 billion for capital investments. So more than double. The good news is that a lot of those projects — the 391 that the Legislature hand selected with the revenue packages — are on the way to being delivered. Of the 391, we have completed 195. Another 82 are under construction, and another 22 will go to construction in the next six months. So of 391 projects, 297 are either in construction, going to construction or done. We’ve got some of the biggest still coming – 520 corridor, replacement of floating bridge and replacing the Viaduct with the tunnel. (more…)

Tags: Paula Hammond, Q&A, transportation

Right now, the Joint Transportation Committee (which you can watch live on TVW or at tvw.org) is talking about tolling. The state is commissioning a study on tolling — how it should work, how much it will cost to implement, etc. — that is scheduled to be done in July.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, chair of the Transportation Committee, just said the study needs to be broad. This isn’t just about I-90 tolling, she said, but about how the state should and will implement tolling across the state, like the Columbia Crossing in the south.

Surprised? Lawmakers have talked about the future need of tolling since signing the transportation budget, which called for early tolling on I-90. Supporters say that it will allow the project to be built sooner and with less debt.

As for the Portland-Vancouver connection, at the beginning of today’s conversation, Vancouver Rep. Jim Moeller specifically requested that Columbia Crossing be a part of the conversation for the sake of fairness and continuity. Haugen was also in favor: She said a unilateral policy will prevent tolling policy from becoming so confusing that it requires a new agency.

The joint committee just voted unanimously to start the study. It’s scheduled to be ready in July.

Tags: tolling, transportation

Go here to watch the Joint Transportation Committee meeting here. Right now, Don Billen of Sound Transit is speaking.

On the agenda: Independent analysis of I-90, toll operations costs, tolling workshop, methods for funding alternative transportation and a ferry study.

Check back — I’ll update you on what they discuss for those who aren’t watching live.

Tags: transportation

The House is debating the bill on how to spend federal stimulus money on transportation projects now.

Representative Judy Clibborn said the state received the money yesterday, and that the swift passage of the bill is a sign of how prepared the state is. She said the bill would improve critical roads across the state and provide jobs for many Washingtonians.

Representative Doug Ericksen said he’s voting against it because voters have already approved a gas tax to pay for some of the projects now being paid for with stimulus money. He said “using it to backfill promises” is evidence of an ineffective state and transportation department.

The debate continues…

Tags: federal stimulus, transportation

I’m listening to the Transportation Project Funding press conference, where lawmakers are discussing plans for using federal stimulus money for $300 million in transportation projects around the state.

Rep. Judy Clibborn said they chose not to fund any projects on local lists. (Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said this morning that he was disappointed that none of Seattle’s projects made the list.)

“Make sure you look at the local list so that you know the full picture,” she said.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said the bill would act fast: “By June, there will be people working,” she said. “There won’t be many places in this state that won’t have construction projects.” In fact, she said to the audience of reporters, she was sure they’d be soon writing about the traffic in their cities and towns.

Sen. Chris Marr: “As you probably noted, I don’t have a project in here in my district,” he said. But he feels strongly about the package because they chose the transportation projects with the highest impact. “If I was writing this list as a PR exercise to get votes on the floor, it might look a little different.”

“There are a few things that we will be able to point to and say, the stimulus did this,” Clibborn said. She cited the I-90 corridor. “It is a way to say that we are committed to preserving what we have.”

Clibborn, addressing the lack of funding for Seattle projects, said no promises had been made. “There is no apology on my part for an agreement that I didn’t make… We have no local projects on (our list),” she said. “I have not been able to understand why the mayor has stood before the cameras” and said the money was taken out without his knowing, she said.

Tags: Jobs, transportation

I wrote yesterday about an exchange between Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen and the panel explaining the deep-bore Viaduct-replacement tunnel. In short: She disputed the Legislature’s funding commitment and said tolling would have to make up the cost difference.

Today, Jen Huntley reminded me that on last week’s The Impact, she interviewed transportation leaders. And they talked about tolls. Here’s the clip:

Tags: Budget, transportation, tunnel, Viaduct