Anyone want to name a bridge after Tim Eyman? The song may be funny but the situation at the State Capitol is not.

The demand for transit and safer streets for bicycles and pedestrians continues to grow and yet many legislators in Olympia simply don’t seem to get it. Washington needs to fix and properly fund our current transportation system before spending money on new highways. Senator Curtis King, Co-Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, is promoting a new transportation funding proposal that will set us back decades. This new budget proposal fails to fund over $900 million worth of projects that are necessary to operate our transit system, provide street improvements for bikes and pedestrians, and address polluted water runoff associated with roads.

Our bridges are literally crumbling around us. Workers can’t get to jobs because their bus service has been cut. The new road “mega-projects” being considered in the transportation funding proposal would dramatically increase climate changing pollution and increase sprawl. The Senate transportation funding proposal is simply unacceptable.

Tell your legislator to invest in transit, pedestrian and bicycles.

Email your legislators and tell them not to support any transportation package that fails to achieve what the House Transportation Committee advanced during the regular session in April.  At a minimum, the 12 year revenue package must:

• Authorize “local option” funding for transit systems;
• Fund transit directly at $420 million;
• Fund pedestrian and bicycle projects at $370 million;
• Fund polluted runoff mitigation and control at $156 million.

We need your support to create a better future where smart investments help us and our neighbors get where we are going safely. 

Cars are our number one source of climate pollution in this state. A sustainable future demands that we have functional transit and safe streets where our children can bike and walk.  The Senate transportation package invests exactly 0 dollars in a healthy future. We need to do better.

Public polling shows over and over that Washington voters support fixing our broken roads and bridges and funding transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure more than new highways. Let your legislators know today that you do not support a transportation revenue package that won’t invest in safe and healthy communities, and doesn’t emphasize a fix-it-first approach to roads spending. Let’s ensure the transportation budget reflects our environmental values.

Thank you for all that you do,
Tim Gould, Chair, Transportation & Land Use Committee

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