Wash. voters defeat Eyman's traffic-focused I-985

The boundless frustrations of traffic-addled drivers in the Puget Sound region failed to fuel initiative activist Tim Eyman, who saw his latest ballot measure defeated.

Eyman's Initiative 985 was billed as a way to iron out traffic jams across the state, from massive highway backups to those insufferable waits at poorly timed rural stoplights.

It was a grab-bag of tweaks to established transportation policy: Opening car pool lanes in "off-peak" hours, putting restrictions on tolling for road and bridge projects, mandating synchronized traffic signals and pushing for better accident cleanups.

I-985 even came with financing, from a diverted slice of state automobile sales taxes and "profit" from the cameras that catch red-light runners. Any leftover money would have been destined for roads, not transit - an old standby of conservative transportation policy.

Voters apparently didn't buy it. With about 45 percent of the vote tallied in unofficial returns early Wednesday, I-985 was losing by about 59 percent to 41 percent.

Opponents mounted a late-breaking "no" campaign that took a multi-pronged approach. In the urban greater Seattle area, they argued that opening car pool lanes would actually just lead to worse traffic that also impedes buses.

Critics also pointed to a letter from federal officials who speculated that I-985 could jeopardize millions in federal transportation dollars because its policies contradicted some existing government agreements.

In rural and suburban areas, the opposition said voters would hear a "giant sucking sound" as their sales taxes and red-light camera revenues got diverted to a new traffic-jam account, presumably spent more heavily in urban areas.

Eyman dismissed those arguments as the usual "scare tactics" thrown up against his anti-tax, antiestablishment campaigns.

Eyman also said, despite the outcome, I-985 was successful in forcing politicians to examine "how to get state and local governments to do better, not by raising taxes, but by spending existing revenue more effectively."

It's a safe bet that Eyman, the Legislature's chief antagonist, will be back next year with another measure. A professional ballot-measure activist, he always has several ideas on the back burner.