Traffic safety, project delivery, and collaborative partnerships take center stage in transportation arena this session

Celebrated by legislators as a widely bipartisan effort, the 2023-25 transportation budget and 2022 supplemental prioritize traffic safety issues, improvements to the state ferry system, reducing carbon emissions, and a continued focus on multimodal transportation. After passing a nearly $17 billion package last session, legislators worked this year to maintain the timely delivery of projects and legislative priorities identified in both the 2022 Move Ahead Washington package and the Connecting Washington package of 2015. In addition to these commitments, the Legislature provided funding to build more equity into the state’s transportation workforce and invested in a number of programs and studies designed to increase accessibility to the state transportation system for all users.

Several city priorities and key areas of interest were included in this year’s budget. Among items of note for cities are:

• $287 million for the Transportation Improvement Board, upholding preservation and maintenance commitments made in the Move Ahead package and funding for the Small City Pavement and Sidewalk program and Complete Streets grants.
• 70.8 million for Safe Routes to Schools Grants.
• 72.2 million for Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Programs and Grants.
• $25 million for federal fund exchange pilot program of Transportation Block Grant population funding and state funds.
• $250,000 for a study of a statewide retail delivery fee on orders of taxable retail items delivered by motor vehicles within the state (funded by cities’ portion of state gas tax revenues).
• $11.8 million for trucking parking, including a directive to both WSDOT and the Freight Mobility Strategic Investment Board to coordinate with local jurisdictions to recommend and identify new truck parking sites and an implementation plan.

While a road usage charge (RUC) policy bill (HB 1832) failed to move, legislators opted to provide directives and funding to the Transportation Commission to continue research on the impacts of future mobility shifts on RUC revenues, equity, updating and assessing emerging mileage reporting methods, reducing costs of collections, conducting small-scale pilot tests, and identifying a long-term phase-in plan. However, the Governor has since vetoed the provision in the budget for a per-mile program study, stating that it “pre-supposes a per-mile fee program will be adopted despite the need to consider broader options for alternative funding sources for transportation.” Similarly, the Governor vetoed a bill directing the Department of Licensing to collect vehicle odometer readings from drivers for the same reasons. As many readers are aware, as Washington transitions to permitting new car sales of only fully electric vehicles by 2030, and vehicle manufacturers begin phasing out production of gas-powered vehicles, gas tax revenues will continue to decline and serve as an unreliable revenue source for the state’s transportation system. As the Governor notes, Washington must continue exploring a RUC and other revenue-generating options and identify equitable means of distributing those revenues to cities.

Traffic safety was a key focus of the Legislature and was the subject of a suite of bills. Notably, legislators passed “Zach’s Law” (HB 1004), allowing cities to install informational signs on or near bridges, outlining the dangers of jumping where people otherwise might assume a location is safe to swim. While SB 5514 (which would have prohibited drivers from making a right turn on red within proximity of certain facilities) and HB 1428 (which would have allowed pedestrians to cross a roadway at any point unless an immediate danger of collision is present) did not pass, budget writers appropriated $1 million in grant funding for local jurisdictions to implement network-wide traffic conflict screening programs using video analytics.

Finally, taking an innovative approach to ensure timely delivery of state projects, the budget directs the Joint Transportation Committee to contract with the Municipal Research Services Center to convene a workgroup to determine where the state can partner with local governments to deliver preservation and maintenance projects on state highways. This workgroup, which will consist of city, county, port, and state agency representatives, will develop recommendations on how WSDOT and local jurisdictions can work together to ensure that roadway construction projects are performed when funds are made available, especially when WSDOT does not have the capacity, but a local jurisdiction is willing and able. AWC will actively participate in this workgroup.