It's time to put the gas tax to work for Washington drivers

What's the message that we, as Washington state voters, have sent with Initiative 912's defeat? When citizens were given a chance to strip away a gasoline-tax increase aimed at improving statewide transportation, we said no. When asked if the state should move forward with 274 critical safety and congestion-relief projects, we cast our ballots decisively in favor of progress.

Voters' rejection of I-912 is certainly not the end of our state's transportation debate. But as co-chairs of the labor, business and environmental coalition that opposed I-912, we believe the message citizens sent to Olympia is quite clear: Make our roads safer, fix the choke points that plague our daily commutes and make these improvements without costly delay.

In the wake of I-912's defeat, our state's transportation issues are now more sharply defined. In a positive public debate, I-912's foes argued persuasively that paring the gas tax was no cure for hazardous local roads or gridlock. An initiative that in June boasted over a 70-percent approval rating pulled about 46 percent of the statewide vote on Election Day.

By contrast, more than 54 percent of voters marked their ballots against I-912. Opposition crossed political, geographic and economic boundaries across the state. Voters in 13 counties on both sides of the mountains rejected the initiative outright.

The prospect that the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct could collapse during the next earthquake certainly galvanized voters across the central Puget Sound region. But they also voted to ensure that more than 170 bridges and overpasses in seismically active parts of King, Snohomish, Kitsap and Pierce counties get repairs to help withstand the next quake.

Voters acknowledged frustration with gridlock along the Highway 9 corridor in Snohomish County, the Eastside's Interstate 405 corridor, the Highway 167 corridor in South King County and the I-5 corridor in Pierce County. Given the chance to endorse a transportation package that includes 119 miles of new general-purpose highway lanes, citizens in those areas did so overwhelmingly.

Across the state in Walla Walla County, meanwhile, citizens all too aware of the dangers on Highway 12 — more than 1,100 accidents over the past decade resulting in 33 deaths — voted against an initiative that would have halted safety measures and new lane construction.

Compare I-912 with Referendum 51, a 2002 ballot measure that asked voters to approve a 9-cents-per-gallon gas-tax increase to pay for statewide transportation projects. Every county except San Juan rejected R-51. It got just 38 percent of the vote. Not even the central Puget Sound counties embraced the referendum.

And yet, just three years later, 54 percent of the state's voters rejected I-912, which would have canceled a 9.5-cents-a-gallon increase. Many explanations have been offered for this voter turnaround: the Gulf hurricanes, a timely fall in the high price of gasoline, the Snoqualmie Pass rockslide that snarled I-90 traffic the weekend before the election.

Voters' perception that the state Department of Transportation (DOT) has performed more efficiently since R-51's rejection may also have been a factor. DOT was clearly an issue in the I-912 campaign. Initiative sponsors lodged a litany of accusations against the agency, all the while overlooking a body of reforms undertaken in the past three years.

Citizens may well be giving DOT the benefit of the doubt based on results it has achieved with money from the 2003 nickel-gas-tax package. An independent transportation performance audit board developed benchmarks to evaluate new project spending. Over the past 22 months, the board has issued seven performance reviews and project audits, online for any citizen to read.

Projects that got the go-ahead with I-912's defeat will be subjected to an even higher degree of review: Lawmakers approved $4 million to audit DOT projects over the next two years.

DOT remains on a short leash, held by the voters. Nobody in the department or state government should interpret I-912's rejection as a blank check. What we hope is that DOT now commands enough citizen confidence that initiatives like I-912 will not be filed every time lawmakers seek to pay for public projects.

Our state still faces tremendous transportation challenges. The defeat of I-912 will allow work to begin on 274 critical safety and congestion projects. We will be watching to ensure that the work is done as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Rick Bender is president of the Washington State Labor Council. John Stanton is former chairman and CEO of Western Wireless and VoiceStream Wireless. Denis Hayes is a leading environmentalist and Earth Day founder. They were co-chairs of the No on 912 campaign.