Poll casts shadow on transportation package

By Eric Pryne
Seattle Times staff reporter

Gary Nelson

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The private survey, commissioned by an influential business group called the "Funders," shows widespread voter resistance to the tax increases that the transportation plan proposes to pay for road and transit projects, according to several who have seen the results.

"People in general are not excited about voting for any new taxes, given the economic situation," said Snohomish County Councilman Gary Nelson, R-Edmonds, who chairs the board of the three-county Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID).

The poll is important because the Funders include such corporate heavyweights as Boeing, Microsoft and Vulcan. The RTID board has been counting on them to bankroll a fall campaign.

The Funders commissioned the survey to test whether the package can pass and, in turn, whether they should put their money behind it.

Funders leaders either declined comment or could not be reached yesterday.

But Nelson said he met with two of them Friday and, based on the poll, "they're convinced the public won't buy into it (the plan). ... They're jittery."

"No one wants to go through another Referendum 51," Nelson said, referring to a statewide transportation package voters rejected by a wide margin in 2002.

He said the RTID board will continue to work on the draft package it approved last month. But he acknowledged that if the Funders won't finance a fall campaign because of the poll, it could alter the board's course.

"If we don't put something on the ballot this year," he said, "maybe we put it on the ballot in spring '05."

Other officials said the poll greatly increases the odds against a fall vote.
 
"This poll is going to put a huge chill on people's enthusiasm for moving forward this November," said state Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald. "If the voters aren't there yet, we've got to listen."

King County Executive Ron Sims said the poll makes a fall vote "highly unlikely. ... You're not going to have a ballot issue if the business community pulls out, and I think the business community isn't going to back it."

The RTID board last month approved a $12.8 billion draft plan by a 6-1 vote. More than $7 billion would be spent in King County, 95 percent of that on six "mega-projects":

• Widening Interstate 405.

• Replacing the Highway 520 floating bridge.

• Replacing part of the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

• Extending the Highway 509 freeway in SeaTac to Interstate 5.

• Extending Sound Transit's planned light-rail line south to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and north to the University District.

• Widening Highway 167 in South King County.

To pay for the projects, the board proposed a 0.3 percentage-point sales-tax increase, a 0.3 percent motor-vehicle excise tax, a flat $75 annual vehicle-license fee and a 2.8-cents-per-gallon regional gas tax. RTID officials estimate those taxes would cost a median-income King County household about $291 a year.

Nelson said the sales-tax increase was "by far the biggest of the losers" in the poll. The gas-tax increase also fared poorly, he said.

A proposed statewide initiative on the fall ballot to raise the sales tax a penny on the dollar for increased education funding also hurt the transportation package among survey participants, Nelson said.

Metropolitan King County Councilman Rob McKenna, R-Bellevue, an RTID board member, said the package should go on the November ballot even if the Funders won't finance the campaign. "To call it off now would be the same as doing nothing about these transportation problems," he said.

But Metropolitan King County Councilman Dwight Pelz, D-Seattle, the only board member to vote against the draft plan, said the poll shows "the support's not there. ... RTID should put this down for this year."

MacDonald said it's important to maintain momentum, even if a vote is postponed.

Sims said the RTID authorizing legislation needs to be amended to provide other revenue sources.

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