Seattle Press on Line - Gas Tax

There From Here

Gas Tax - Highway Robbery?

By Tara Peattie

Mar 14, 2002 -- It looks like higher gas taxes are coming our way; both houses of the legislature have competing transportation packages that include gas tax increases that'll add up to a buck or two extra each time we fill the tank. I'll guess that if you ask 10 Seattle folks if they favor raising the gas tax to pay for transportation, at least a few will say "Sure, I'm not opposed to user taxes, it's fair to raise gas tax to pay for our transportation. After all, in Europe, gas taxes are much higher than they are here--we have it easy."

The problem with this is that, in Europe, there is no 18th Amendment to the Washington State Constitution, and the question is whether the gas tax will actually go to our needs. The amendment, on the books since the 1940s, says that our gas tax can only be used for highways, car (not passenger) ferries, and stuff that can be counted as related to highways, like roads, and related construction mitigation, like park-and-rides. Apparently, mass transit can't be counted as related to highways, and the gas tax may not be used for it. Seattle doesn't have much room to put new highways, and currently the city has a ban on new park-and-rides.

Three huge projects stand out as exceptions. The Viaduct could fall down in the next major quake and needs desperately to be replaced. This is truly a Seattle transportation need. But WSDOT hasn't committed major funding to it yet, and this is one reason why the gas tax is being raised.

Some might also say that the proposed I-405 expansion is a benefit to Seattle. The benefit to Seattle of this hugely expensive Eastside project is arguable. Critics claim expansion will only fuel sprawl and won't do anything to mitigate congestion for long, if the history of similar highway projects is any indication. The same could be said for widening I-520 between Seattle and Bellevue.

According to WSDOT estimates, Seattle will pay out $65 million in gas tax in 2002. Seattle will receive an estimated $12 million for city streets, $4.5 million in allocations for county roads in Seattle, and $8 million in grants for highway improvements in Seattle. Seattle's 4 percent share out of the $65 million for paying for the ferry system is $2.6 million, since 1 percent of the 23-cent gas tax goes to car ferries.

This would mean that directly, we receive only $27.1 million in road and ferry services for our tax of $65 million, give or take a few million. The only WSDOT projects in Seattle for 2002-2003 are resurfacing and repairs, nothing that will create new mobility.

The county-wide picture is slightly different. King County has reaped $171 million more than what was paid out in transportation tax over the last 10 years. Pierce County, on the other hand, has bled $546 million out to other counties.

This 18th Amendment rule that gas tax money must go to highways puts urban and suburban folks in an endless negative feedback loop, where often we drive because there's not much other choice, pay our taxes on gas, and that tax money goes to create more highway projects and sprawl. We get few transit services, the streets are crowded with more cars, urban living becomes less attractive and people long to move out to the country, creating yet more sprawl.

Peter Hurley of Transportation Choices Coalition comments, "Historically, Seattle hasn't recouped anywhere near the money that we pay out in gas tax. That could change over the next 10 or 20 years if we get more funding for the Viaduct than what either the House or the Senate are proposing... WSDOT is spending a small amount on bus passes and vanpools to mitigate for road projects--not here in Seattle, but this is a bit of progress for transit anyway."

According to Transportation Choices Coalition, polls show that King County residents, asked whether they want their transportation tax money to go to all roads or to a mix such as buses, some type of rail, bike paths and roads, 66 percent say they favor a mix. The 18th Amendment, the will of the people in 1943, won't allow such options. Saying that gas tax money should only go to roads is an obsolete notion. Increasingly, highway dollars don't add mobility for Seattle residents and may only gridlock us more by bringing thousands more cars into Seattle every day. The point is not how much state money we're capturing, it's whether what we are capturing will make any difference. Taxpayers should have some choice about where the taxes go. Unfortunately, it would take a 2/3 vote of the legislature to amend the 18th Amendment. Skirt the powerful highway lobby and repeal the law? Ha ha, what a gas!

Transportation Choices Coalition's Web site: http://www.transportationchoices.org/,
Phone: 206-329-2336

Tara Peattie can be reached at peattie@drizzle.com.

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