As costs increase, so does Washington’s state transportation budget

Washington State lawmakers approved a $14.6 billion supplemental transportation budget that adds $1 billion to the 2023-25 biennium budget approved in July.

The House approved the bill on Saturday in a 93-to-2 vote, while senators voted 48-to-1 in favor Tuesday.

The budget prioritizes roadway preservation and funding for Washington state ferries. Lawmakers have until March 7 to approve the entire supplemental budget and send it along to Gov. Jay Inslee to sign.

“This budget shows our commitment to maintaining promises to major transportation projects in the Connecting Washington and Move Ahead transportation packages that cover the entire state of Washington,” Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, chair of the House Transportation Committee, said in a statement.

Rep. Andrew Barkis, R-Olympia, ranking Republican on the House Transportation Committee, called it a bipartisan bill focused on the crucial role transportation plays in the state’s development.

“The state has grown by leaps and bounds in the last several years and the demands we have seen put on the transportation network has stretched us thin,” Barkis said in testimony prior to the vote.

Usually in a supplemental year, minor tweaks are made, but “we were faced with daunting challenges, because of the reasons I mentioned before,” he said. “I am proud that we are working within our means — to make sure we can deliver on our promises.”

The $14.6 billion supplemental transportation budget includes increased funding for highway improvements, ferries, traffic safety and fish passages.

The Washington Department of Transportation had revealed in December that the court-ordered costs of fixing additional fish passages have risen by $4 billion to $7 billion.

The U.S. government sued the state in 2001 on behalf of the 21 tribes to force it to replace culverts, that provide a narrow tunnel for a stream’s water to pass under a roadway, with structures that allow fish to pass through. The court ruled that because the pipes block salmon from reaching their spawning grounds, they deprive the tribes of fishing rights guaranteed by treaty. A court had ordered the state in 2013 to fix or replace hundreds of high-priority culverts by 2030. The state Supreme Court agreed to hear the state’s appeal of that ruling in 2018, but ruled against the state.

The state has already corrected 114 culverts and improved access to 502 miles of blocked salmon and steelhead habitat in western Washington, according to WSDOT.

The additional costs reported by WSDOT pose a threat to an already strained transportation budget, potentially resulting in further delays to essential highway and road maintenance.

The House was able to add to the transportation budget to alleviate the pressure of increased costs using reappropriated federal funding and $324 million in increased cap-and-invest auction revenues and accelerated spending from available balances for the 16-year transportation plan called Move Ahead Washington, Fey said during a press briefing. Even so, lawmakers had to reduce the number of projects until more money becomes available.

The bill adds $150 million to the preservation of roads and bridges, $31 million for traffic safety measures, including $13 million for the Washington State Patrol and increases the fish barrier removal budget by $150 million. It also would spend an additional $261 million on the ferry system using revenue from the state’s cap and invest auction for carbon emission allowances.

“We make important investments and ensure that we don’t go backwards in any area, but the needs of our state continue to outpace the resources available,” said Senate Transportation Committee Chair Marko Liias, D-Edmonds. “I worry that if the I-2117 initiative passes and the Climate Commitment Act is repealed, we will face devastating cuts right when we can least afford it.”

The initiative that seeks to repeal the state’s cap and invest act qualified for the November ballot.

“Unfortunately, we’ve been experiencing unexpected cost increases on many transportation projects — including new vessels for our state’s ferry system, new highway projects and maintenance of our roadways, and federally mandated corrections to barriers that impede fish passage,” Fey said. “We also still need to find an appropriate vendor to build our new ferries, and we’re contending with worker shortages for necessary road construction and maintenance.”

Barkis asked Inslee a few weeks ago to declare a state of emergency over the state’s ferry system and add two non-hybrid electric ferries in the hope of speeding up the procurement process.

He said the ferry system, the heartbeat of coastal communities and a critical transportation artery for commuters, is facing numerous challenges. It struggles to maintain service across 10 vital routes, with delays and cancellations serving as a constant source of frustration for passengers, he said.

Lawmakers also increased spending on staffing by $32 million with labor initiatives intended to train, retain, and promote staff, and for support for local passenger-only services while ferries are not running at full service, according to the bill. The increased spending levels are offset by lower anticipated debt service payments, in addition to funding from cap and invest, according to the bill.

The budget assumes the sale of $1.28 billion in bonds across the two-year budget period to support transportation projects.

The state often sells doubled-barreled GO bonds supported by fuel tax and vehicle fees for transportation projects. They are rated Aaa by Moody’s Investors Service and AA-plus by both Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings.

To avoid deficit spending and maintain the dollars allocated to transportation projects, some of the projects will need to be rebid, Fey said.

The state will honor its commitment to fund the I-5 bridge replacement being constructed jointly with Oregon, according to the budget.

The project that will be most impacted by escalated project costs is the 520/Portage Bay Project, which had an estimated cost of $1 billion, but bids came in at $1.7 billion, Fey said. It will replace an aging viaduct over Portage Bay on a highway linking one of the Lake Washington bridges with Interstate 5 through a heavily populated part of Seattle.

As a result of the higher costs, the state will prioritize the north bridge, which is vital to creating a seismically resilient crossing, and push construction of the south bridge and a lid connecting the Roanoke neighborhood over the highway to future years, he said.

“Many of the projects in both packages – Connecting Washington and Move Ahead Washington – have enough resources, received good bids and will be moving forward,” Fey said.

The House will also consider two bills to improve traffic safety by expanding the use of speed cameras in highway construction zones and cities. The bills are House Bill 2356 and House Bill 2384. Washington’s Traffic Safety Commission released a report in early February saying that 800 were killed in traffic-related injuries, the highest rate since 1990.