Mike McGinn slams the city’s contribution to the tunnel—$930 million—as the Largest Tax Increase in Seattle History. But McGinn’s preferred choice, the surface/transit option, would also require similar tax increases. Even if surface/transit wins, the city will still have to rebuild the seawall, relocate utilities from the viaduct, and redevelop the waterfront.

Mayor Greg Nickels recently released his budget—his last as mayor—which described how the city will pay for their share of the tunnel:

• A $20 car-tab tax, to be enacted by the City Council in 2011, would raise $38 million by 2015.

• About $25 million in parking revenues[.]

• In all, the city transportation department would spend $375 million toward a sea wall, promenade and streets by 2015, mostly in the later years.

Nickels assumes the city could use $118 million in state grants to reduce residents’ costs. Another $155 million in existing and future city bond money would be used — a debt later generations must pay.

Asked if debt would hinder the ability of future leaders to build mobility projects, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said, “It would be fiscally irresponsible to pay for it out of cash,” because the highway and waterfront structures will last for decades.

• City Light ratepayers would spend $128 million on tunnel-related utility relocations by 2015. But next year’s piece is only $5.4 million, which Finance Director Dwight Dively called “minuscule” compared with next year’s revenues from power rates. He acknowledged the tunnel project could affect power bills later.

• The project includes $16 million in water projects and $30 million in wastewater spending.

But lawmakers in Olympia have made it clear that the state’s contribution will be used on other projects if Seattle rejects the tunnel, so McGinn wouldn’t have that money for a surface/transit option. And it’s not clear if using gas-tax funds on a surface/transit option would pass constitutional muster, since gas tax funds must be spent on roads.

Paying for the utility relocation costs will probably raise City Light rates, and costs associated with rebuilding the waterfront will also be a part of the city’s transportation budget for years to come. Should McGinn stop the tunnel, we’ll still have to do pay for this stuff. Perhaps the right question to ask McGinn would be: How would you pay for your own plan?

24 replies on “How Will McGinn Pay?”

  1. Will, you realize that by even thinking of questioning The Stranger’s current cult worship figure (Mike McGinn) you will no doubt be jobless in a couple of hours?

  2. thank god we now have the car tab tax going for a huge highway project! Used to be, we had one going for transit. But we killed that.

    And now look we can use parking tax for a big highway project now, too.

  4. Will, have you tried asking McGinn?

    I know part of the answer. The gas tax money that some legislators are threatening to take away (if we don’t build there precious tunnel) was passed in a state referendum. It got more votes in Seattle than anywhere else, and would have failed if seattle had voted against it.

    So maybe the threat should be to give us our damn money or seattle voters will support repealing the gas tax increase.

  6. Will thank you for making this spot on point. McGinn refuses to address this issue when pressed about it at forums and debates. His go-to answer is “we’ll get the money.” Which is absolutely false. I’m not sure what fantasy land he lives in, but the rest of us live in Washington State where funds from Olympia are scarce and can very easily be allocated to other projects throughout the state.

    We all need to stand behind Mallahan and reject this joker of a candidate.

  7. Ummm…

    The State can’t walk away from the Viaduct. They own it. It’s in danger of falling down. So, all of this talk about them taking their money and walking away is blowing smoke.

    Of course, it doesn’t mean that they’ll immediately go for the I5/Surface/Transit option, but that’s a false dichotomy when criticizing the tunnel. The tunnel should stand or fall on its own merits.

  8. McGinn wants to jack up the convention center and widen I-5, that is part of his low cost solution. He can do that with some volunteers for $26.56, and write policy paper during smoke breaks. It is amazing what you can do with some free Kool Aid.

  10. I thought this was a rather hilarious quote from McGinn regarding the proposed toll on the tunnel:

    “[McGinn] says as many as 40 percent of drivers currently use the viaduct to go from one end of downtown to the other. And if they have to pay they’ll just clog the surface streets.”

  12. w7ngman @10:

    How many people do you think will pay tolls of $4.20-6.00 each way? Don’t you think some of them will take one of the many surface alternatives?

  14. @12 well, we don’t want them to clog the surface streets, so perhaps we shouldn’t build the tunnel so people won’t clog the surface streets.

  16. @13…the Surface option would spend money improving the flow of traffic through the overall grid of Seattle. There are a thousand little things that could add up to much better traffic management in Seattle. By taking all of the money and dumping it into a tunnel, none of those fixes are made.

  17. #16, if he doesn’t think the surface streets can handle 40% of the viaduct traffic, I don’t see what kind of (relatively minor) improvements would accommodate 100% of the viaduct traffic.

    The focus on transit: ok, that’s cool, but transit also costs $2 each direction. Not *that* far off from the $2-6 proposed toll, so I wonder how much of the viaduct traffic would still go to the surface streets rather than pay $2 *and* have to take transit. Maybe a bit of a wash there.

    Forgive me for not knowing specifics here, but what other improvements could they possible make to the surface streets? 2nd, 4th and 1st Avenues, anecdotally, are already at capacity during rush hour. Widening and/or improving traffic light timing on Western Ave/Alaskan Way to accommodate more traffic seems contradictory to the goal of removing the barrier of traffic between downtown and the waterfront.

    The surface transit option has just never added up to me. Artist’s renderings either show a widened Aurora-like highway between downtown and the waterfront (sort of hampers the goal of connecting downtown and the waterfront?) or ludicrously small amount of cars on the reworked Western/Alaskan. Maybe that’s a Sunday.

  19. I would really like to vote for McGinn, if only he would stop this crap about the tunnel. You know why? Because all he is going to do is make sure the Viaduct is rebuilt. I guess a lot of folks have forgotten THAT was the preferred option from the SDOT. The state is NOT going to go for the surface option, and if McGinn forces the issue, they’ll say fine – we’ll just build you a bigger, uglier, noisier elevated freeway.

  20. @10 – this is a good point in terms of revenue. People in Fremont, for example, have multiple route choices to get to various locations, and are highly unlikely to pay a toll.

    That said, the planet can’t afford the Billionaires Tunnel (twice the global warming emissions during construction and during operation) and the city can’t either.

  21. (technically the bigger uglier freeway choice is actually quieter, and has half the global warming emissions during both construction and operation as the tunnel, but that’s this thing called science and i know u tunnel guys hate that)

  22. McGinn always gives a dodge, like, ‘the state gas tax will pay for it.’ This is not remotely true. As Will points out, things like repairing the seawall and moving our utilities off the viaduct before it comes down fall to Seattle regardless.

    The surface option costs 3.6 billion (but hey, no chance of overruns, right?). McGinn’s light rail, which he’s been forced to add due to recognition that the surface option is a gridlock nightmare, would be at lest $2.4 billion more. OK, he’s now at $6 billion and counting.

    At least our presently elected leaders are actually looking at real tax sources and real budgets. Too bad McGinn won’t level with the voters.

  23. Didn’t Chairman Mao say we could just plant seeds a little closer for a bigger crop? Must be the basis of the McGinn & Tonic surface plan.

  24. Another fact getting in the way with McGinn’s folly. Unfortunately, the other guy sucks just as bad if not worse. Too bad The Stranger didn’t ask that question to him when they decided to be his media consultant in the primary. Its the Stranger’s fault we are left with dumb and dumber.

    Another reason why I am writing in Greg Nickels.

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