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The
Herald
Published: April 22, 2005
'County
Highway Was Key to Vote'
Money to expand Highway 9 won a crucial swing vote in the state Senate for a gas tax increase.
Lukas Velush and Jerry Cornfield,
Herald Writers
For days, Sen. Dave Schmidt vowed to oppose raising the state gas tax and the road projects it would fund because there was not enough money in the deal to fix Highway 9.
On Wednesday, he joined the majority of senators to pass the transportation package after a last-minute decision poured millions of dollars more into easing congestion on the overused alternative to I-5.
"If I had not committed to a 'yes' vote, the money would not be there," he said following the Senate's action.
The money was $123 million pledged over the next 10 years for Highway 9 improvements, up from the $50 million written into the initial transportation proposal.
Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, who as leader of the Senate Transportation Committee wrote the package, made the change. She did so after speaking with Schmidt, and it paid off. Schmidt's vote helped the Senate pass the tax hike on a 26-22 vote.
"I'm well aware, too, of what the needs are on Highway 9," she said.
On Wednesday, the Senate approved a 9.5-cent increase in the gas tax spread over the next four years. It begins with a 3-cent hike on July 1. Money raised will pay for $8 billion in highway, transit, ferry, bridge and alternative transportation projects.
The big-ticket items include funds for replacing Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct and the Highway 520 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and improvements to I-405. But Haugen clipped dollars from those projects and steered them to Highway 9.
Her revamped proposal coupled with Schmidt's decision and the promise that one penny of the increase will come back to local governments earned a "thumbs up" from Snohomish County officials who have been pushing hard to raise money to widen the two-lane road to five lanes from the King County line to at least Lake Stevens.
"We're very pleased with that," said Gary Nelson, chairman of the Snohomish County Council. "It gets us to the point of being able to design and construct a good portion of Highway 9."
A five-cent gas tax hike in 2003 provides the state Department of Transportation with $119 million for Highway 9, most of which is earmarked to widen the road from Highway 522 to Clearview. Estimates are that another $463 million is required to widen the route north to Highway 92 in Lake Stevens.
If the Senate's plan becomes law, the $123 million will likely be used to improve intersections along that route, to build a new bridge over the Snohomish River and to buy property, Schmidt and other transportation officials said. It won't be used for widening the road.
The remaining money for widening would have to come through a transportation tax package that the Regional Transportation Investment District would draft and take to the voters for approval. That could happen in 2007, Nelson said.
Highway 9 is one of the most congested routes in the state and the situation will only worsen as the population continues growing in that part of Snohomish County.
"Highway 9 has become a major alternative to I-5," Nelson said, saying that converting it from two to five lanes will ease the continuous traffic jams that east county drivers are so familiar with.
The House of Representatives is considering its own version, which does not include more dollars for Highway 9. Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, the House Transportation Committee chairman, said Thursday that could change when the final project list is drawn up.
House members could vote on a plan as early as today.
Murray, like Haugen, faces a lot of dissenters who oppose the proposed gas tax hike or are unhappy about what projects are proposed for funding.
"It is very difficult to take care of everybody," Haugen said Wednesday after the Senate action.
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