WSTC leaders discuss road funding

Without new revenue, tolling projects stand to be only successes

MOSES LAKE - The Washington State Transportation Commission has to consider funding for projects at a time when there's not a lot of funding available.

Members of the commission met with editorial board members of the Columbia Basin Herald Monday morning prior to a ride aboard the Columbia Basin Railroad's dinner train, the Spirit of Washington.

"We've got to start a conversation that asks, 'Are there projects out there all across the state that need to be done?'" said commission Chair Richard Ford. "We know we haven't got the money. We could reshuffle the money, but if we stay with the projects we've got, the money is pretty much gone."

Ford, commissioner Elmira Forner and state Department of Transportation Assistant Regional Administrator for Engineering Daniel A. Sarles, Jr., discussed with Columbia Basin Herald Editor Bill Stevenson and Circulation Manager Tom Hinde transportation needs in the Columbia Basin and how to find the money and set priorities.

The commission recommended safety needs to be at the top of the priority list, Ford said.

"There is some real financial costs with the injuries and deaths, the money piece of it, you can justify if that's what you want to do," he said. "The real problem is the lives that are shattered because of what happens when you have an unsafe situation. But you know, it's interesting, it's a big debate on our side: Many people want congestion to be the number-one issue for priorities."

Forner believes the commission must find a revenue stream where politicians don't have to compete against education, social services or taking money away from higher education.

"You can't compete with building a road when somebody comes up and says, 'This child needs medical care and needs orthopedic surgery and can't walk,'" Forner said. "It's impossible for elected officials to make those kinds of decisions."

The meeting addressed discussions about adding tolls to Interstate 90 and other roads.

"If we do not get new funding, the new only projects that have a chance of being approved are going to be toll projects," Ford said. "Because if they can be approved, presumably they can pay for themselves. They can go forward."

Tolls will only pay for themselves in very high population areas, Forner added.

"We are at this point now in transportation finance, with maybe slight little bit of margin around the edges, but so little it's hard to find it, we do not have any dollars to do something like a new bridge in Moses Lake," Ford continued. " Even if you could prove it was the best project the state has, you put it at the top of (the) list as a project that ought to be funded in this state, we don't have $50 million that could be put to it."

If the projects that could be taken out as toll projects are removed, Ford asked, how does the state come back and begin funding critical projects around the state?

"The one thing we hear is, 'We've still got a project in our community that isn't funded, and it should be,' and I assume we'll hear that (Tuesday)," Ford said. "The fact is unless everybody's just fat, dumb and happy with what they've got - because that's about what you're going to have, is what you've got - we're going to be tested to maintain the plans we've got, the dollars available."

The commission met today at Big Bend Community College to address area transportation needs.