House panel OKs allowing light rail in district package

By Eric Pryne
Seattle Times staff reporter

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The state House Transportation Committee yesterday approved legislation that allows the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) to include light rail in any package of projects and taxes it submits to King, Snohomish and Pierce county voters.

The 2002 law that created the district prohibited it from funding rail and other forms of "high capacity transit," instead requiring that most money be spent on projects associated with major state highways.

The bill also would give the district authority to propose taxes not permitted under existing law.

The district's board asked for the changes after learning the results of a November poll commissioned by environmental, business and labor leaders. The Democratic and Republican pollsters who conducted the survey said it suggested a regional package might fare better with voters if it included light rail, and if it relied less heavily on a sales-tax increase than the board had been planning.

"The current RTID does not work and will not pass," committee Chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle, chief sponsor of the bill, argued yesterday.

His bill would:

• Limit any regional sales-tax increase to 0.2 percentage points — down from 0.4 percentage points in the tax package the board had tentatively endorsed — and would require all of it be spent on transit, HOV improvements or programs to reduce drive-alone commuting.

• Allow the district board to propose a regional gas tax of up to 6 cents per gallon — more than double the 2.8 cents the law now allows — and index that tax to increase with inflation.

• Give the board permission to propose a regional sales tax on gas of up to 7.5 percent and to propose a charge motorists would pay based on how many miles they drive.

• Broaden the board's authority to propose tolls.

• Remove a prohibition on spending district money on transportation operations or maintenance.

Rep. Fred Jarrett, R-Mercer Island, said the Legislature should wait to amend the district's authorizing legislation until the board decides what kind of package to propose. But the committee approved the measure, 17-12.

It faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Murray's counterpart, Sen. Jim Horn, R-Mercer Island, has said he doesn't want rail in a regional package.

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

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