Tim Eyman’s latest bomb of an initiative, I-1125, doesn’t specifically ask voters to drop airplanes on Sound Transit trains or ram an explosive-laden speedboat into the 520 floating bridge. But it might as well.
Initiative 1125 sounds wonky at first, maybe even innocuous. So bear with me here.
To begin, it prohibits variable tolling prices based on traffic congestion or time of day. It then requires that a highway project be tolled only until its capital costs are paid, and that toll revenues can be spent only on the construction and capital improvement costs of the same project that’s being tolled. It also says that tolls must be set directly by the legislature. And it bars using gas-tax-funded highway lanes for non-highway purposes (like converting them into light-rail lanes). Lastly, the initiative includes several redundant provisions that reinforce the intent of those listed above, such as barring the use of toll revenues for non-highway purposes.
But the intent of this boring-sounding initiative is far-reaching—particularly on projects that affect Seattle.
By barring not just the use, but the “transfer” of gas-tax-funded lanes for non-highway purposes, I-1125 seeks to block Sound Transit’s access to the I-90 bridge, thus killing its plans to connect Seattle and the Eastside via light rail. By barring the use of variable tolling, the initiative kills the SR-167 “hot lanes” pilot, along with the similar lanes planned for I-405, to both fund its widening and help regulate its traffic. Variable tolling or “congestion pricing” is also a prominent feature of every existing or planned toll road in the state, a staple of modern transportation planning that I-1125 flat-out bars.
As for the initiative’s insistence that toll revenue be used only to fund the specific roadway being tolled, and only to pay off its capital costs, these provisions seem directly aimed at the funding mechanism for replacing the 520 floating bridge. “All the numbers show that if you’re going to use tolls effectively on 520, you need to toll I-90, too,” explains former WSDOT director Doug MacDonald. Failure to toll both bridges would draw traffic to the free one, leaving 520 short on revenue and I-90 at a perpetual crawl. I-1125 would make I-90 tolling impossible, thus jeopardizing the entire 520 project, which already suffers from a $2 billion funding gap.
And, finally, there is I-1125’s mandate that legislators set all toll rates directly, rather than delegating that authority to an independent commission, a seemingly innocuous provision with huge financial consequences. “There is a high price to pay for having politicians involved in toll setting,” warns state treasurer Jim McIntire. “Our financial team could find no place in the country where a legislature is involved in toll setting, because doing this would make it impossible to sell bonds to finance a project.” And in 520’s case: no bonds, no bridge. Simple as that.
No, it’s not a bomb per se, but when it comes to destroying roads, bridges, and rail, Eyman’s latest for-profit initiative could prove just as destructive.
“It’s not clear he’s thought this through,” MacDonald offers charitably. But it’s also not clear that Eyman and his benefactors even give a shit. Kemper Freeman Jr., the Bellevue real estate mogul with a market philosophy somewhere to the right of Rich Uncle Pennybags, has already sunk $525,000 into the campaign—over 77 percent of total contributions—largely in support of the light-rail-killing provision that appears solely written to serve his obsession with defending his Eastside fiefdom from the communist menace he sees in Sound Transit. And Eyman, well, he’s always been focused less on constructive solutions and more on blowing things up: in I-1125’s case, our state’s plan to shift transportation funding from the shrinking gas tax to regional tolling.
“If not tolling, then what?” asks a frustrated Steve Mullin, president of the pro-business Washington Roundtable. “There are just not a lot of other options.”
Earlier this month, the Roundtable voted unanimously to oppose I-1125, a vote Mullin called “not controversial.” Efforts are underway to reconstitute Keep Washington Rolling, the broad coalition of business, labor, and environmental and pro-transit groups that successfully opposed I-912’s would-be gas-tax repeal. Mullin and other coalition members expect the resulting “No on 1125” campaign to be well funded.
“No one is saying, ‘Gosh, we love tolling,'” says Mullin. “But it’s just not possible to pay for all the infrastructure we need without it.”
But then, paying for the infrastructure and services we need has never been Eyman’s concern. (Eyman did not respond to a request for comment on this story.) 
What a horrible, horrible “person”, running yet another horrible, horrible initiative, with horrible, horrible consequences, in an ongoing horrible, horrible perversion of our state initiative process.
At least this time, if shortsighted, low information or at least somewhat evil voters pass this, we can all scream, “HA! HA! Suck it, Eastside!”
Oh, fuck Tim Eyman. Simple as that. Can’t say it enough. I hope he gets run over by a bus.
I believe I-90 was built with 90% federal funds with the stipulation that the center lanes would be eventual convereted to transit use.
michael dunmire, in addition to being Eyman’s erstwhile sugar daddy, is also presently the one of the plaintiffs in another Freeman-financed lawsuit filed in Kittitas County to kill East Link.
I guess I’m actually okay with this Eyman initiative. Fuck Bellevue. They’re just going to run light rail to a dead zone freeway offramp anyway.
Spend the money to run it up to Northgate sooner/faster or make a nice Belltown, Interbay, Magnolia, Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford, U-district loop.
Why isn’t Light Rail a “highway purpose”? Yes, I know that it isn’t a “highway,” but its purpose is to take cars off of the highway and thereby allow cars to move faster or allw additional cars that previously would not have been able to use the highway–because of congestion–but instead would have gone around to make use of the shorter bridge span. That is the equivalent of “widening the highway” for all practical purposes. I think with some creative lawyering–and I know that the state government is full of them–we could get around that provision.
So spending heaps of cash on just cars with little to no transit funding is bad when Eyman does it, but when WSDOT does the same thing with City Council on board, it’s “moving forward” on a “green” tunnel?
Hypocrites.
Agreed, @2
Tim Eyman’s head is so far up his ass it’s a wonder he can even drive these days. Once again, I’m offering to help him move to Texas where he and Rick Perry can be best buds. I’ll put in the first $100 into a Tim Eyman moving-to-Texas fund. If he objects to Texas, then AZ might be the next best place – he and Russell Pearce can cook up more shortsighted, hateful legislation and play dodge-the-ethics-rules with their funding sources. Besides, Tim’s prettier than Jan Brewer, so he can take over the sound bites that KPHO/KPNX and all the other crappy “news” stations in Phoenix insist on showing time after time after time.
I really try to be a nice person but with how hard (only a portion) of the east side is fighting light rail I’d rather just have it in northgate and up to lynnwood faster. We northsiders desperately want the light rail.
I do realize there are normal every day people in Bellevue who really do want the light rail, I just wish they would try to yell louder than the developer douche bags.
@5 and @9, killing Sound Transit projects in Bellevue does nothing to speed up projects elsewhere. Sound Transit has subarea equity and each subarea gets to spend all the money raised in that area on projects in that area. So without a new 520 and without East Link (and far away from any commuter rail options), that means bus service for the Eastside and not a penny more for anything in Seattle.
Also, a majority of voters in Bellevue and the Eastside support East Link so screwing them because of an obnoxious minority or prejudice about the ‘burbs is pointless and counterproductive.
As for the point about 520, it seems to me that without tolling I-90, the state needs to drastically scale back its plans for a new 520, which is a good thing. That thing’s ridiculous.
That’s right, without tolling all the lanes of I-90, there is no money for the Seattle section of 520 (and even tolling I-90 is probably insufficient to close the gap.)
If both I-90 and 520 are tolled, then it’s easy to adjust the toll rates of both so that the traffic never exceeds the capacity of the bridges. That way, we could get 520 to flow without HOV lanes. WSDOT has thus far refused to look at that possibility, despite many requests and a City Council resolution (31109) in favor of I-90 tolling. Instead, WSDOT prefers solutions that require more pavement, more debt, and more destruction of wetlands, views and parks.
I-1125 passage would dramatically lower the already grim funding prospects for WSDOT’s massive and highly dysfunctional 520 expansion plan (see http://sustainable520.org). So least one bad outcome would be prevented if it passed.
Let’s close down the Mukilteo Ferry, sell all the boats and buildings, and use the money to pay for 520. Tim doesn’t need anything but roads around him anyway.
Wow. I’ve been away from Seattle for nearly 10 years now. Something else brought me to The Stranger’s site today, but when I say Eyman’s name in a headline I had to read this.
I can’t believe that asshole is still waging his ignorant campaign against public transport.
I’m surprised that no one has pointed out a fallacy to your argument – it is illegal for the state to toll a federal highway. So, I-90 will not be tolled, people really will take the free bridge vs. the expensive toll bridge, and traffic will gridlock.
Tim may be a horse’s ass, but this also may be the only way to crush the 520 boondoggle aka highway for rich people.
@15: Federal highways CAN be tolled. e.g I-394 and I-35W (Minneapolis), I-15 (Utah and San Diego), I-680 (San Francisco Bay area), I-85 (Atlanta), I-10 (Houston and Los Angeles), I-95 (Miami), I-595 (Fort Lauderdale).
If it was just Seattle, the rest of Washington would understand that you have created your own traffic messes since 1962. However, Eyman’s initiative covers the WHOLE state and here in America’s Vancouver we want to replace the last draw-bridge on the I-5 corridor and build an new bridge to cross the Columbia River that would include congestion pricing tolls. That would end the new bridge but as mentioned, Eyman doesn’t care. It’s just another paycheck for the man.
@15, someone has never been to the east coast. see the new york (i-90), new jersey (i-95) and massachusetts (i-90) turnpikes, all tolled by the mile through the entirety of the respective states