Players seek common ground on transportation plan

By Eric Pryne
Seattle Times staff reporter

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

Some of the region's top business, labor and environmental leaders will meet Thursday to explore how to break the stalemate over a possible three-county transportation package.

But key participants say they almost certainly cannot forge in a single day the consensus that has eluded the region's political leaders for nearly two years.

"I would be surprised if there was a conclusion," said Ken Johnson, a Bank of America vice president who chairs the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce transportation committee. "I see (the summit) as more of a start, or a continuation."

King, Snohomish and Pierce county-council members who make up the board of the Regional Transportation Investment District have been struggling since spring 2002 to agree on a package of projects and taxes to submit to voters.

The interest groups participating Thursday — ranging from Boeing, Microsoft and Vulcan to the Washington State Labor Council and the anti-sprawl group 1000 Friends of Washington — began meeting last summer.

They drafted and paid for a poll last fall to help guide the regional board, then scheduled the summit to see if they could reach agreement on some of the big questions that have divided the panel.

At the time, Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce President Steve Leahy said the meeting's goal was "to develop a set of specific recommendations ... that will respond to some of what the poll has shown us."

But several likely participants say whatever emerges from Thursday's meeting is likely to be more general. Even so, the deliberations will be important. The interest groups' support of — or opposition to — any package could help determine whether it passes or fails, or is even placed on the ballot.

Some business leaders, working through the Seattle chamber's transportation committee, have been drafting a statement of principles to be reviewed by the committee tomorrow.

But Bank of America's Johnson, who is coordinating the effort, said the statement probably won't take stands on some of the most-divisive questions, including whether to include money in the package to extend Sound Transit's planned Seattle light-rail line.

It probably will call for "maintaining momentum" for a regional package in 2004, he said, without addressing whether to hold the election this fall. That question has divided business leaders.

The statement also probably will call for a balance of transit and road projects, Johnson said, without addressing whether the preliminary package the regional board has drafted achieves it. Critics have said the package is too roads-heavy.

The statement also probably won't take a stand on whether to ask the Legislature to amend the regional district's authorizing legislation to give it more revenue sources and flexibility in selecting projects.

But Johnson and the Discovery Institute's Bruce Agnew said most business leaders involved in drafting the principles are reluctant to back a package that relies on the sales tax, the chief revenue source the Legislature has given the regional district.

The preliminary, $14 billion plan that a majority of the regional board endorsed in September calls for a 0.4 percentage-point sales-tax increase, as well as new taxes on vehicles and gas. But the poll the summit participants commissioned suggests a big sales-tax boost would cost the package votes.

"Thus far we have not seen a package that we think has a high probability of passing," Johnson said.

Peter Hurley of the pro-transit, environmentalist-backed Transportation Choices Coalition said adoption of a statement of principles Thursday would be "a step in the right direction." But he said he or someone else may suggest that summit participants appoint one or more smaller groups to develop more specific recommendations — "lock us in a room and hammer something out."

Such a group would face a tight deadline if a November vote remains the district's goal. Snohomish County Councilman Gary Nelson, R-Edmonds, the regional board's chairman, has said that, to leave time for an effective campaign, any package would have to clear both the board and the district's 25-member planning committee by March.

"January is kind of decision month," said Agnew.

He said business leaders are discussing several possible new approaches for the regional package, including:

• A joint ballot with Sound Transit, which would give voters the opportunity to vote for both roads and transit without changing state law.

• An advisory ballot this fall, which would ask voters to approve a longer-term strategy for investments in regional transportation.

• Presenting regional transportation improvements to voters in phases.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company