TACOMA — Tacoma Narrows Bridge drivers won't face a toll increase for at least two years.
Legislators last spring provided $2.5 million from statewide gas taxes to pay for bridge debt service that had been the sole responsibility of toll payers.
The contribution kept fares from being increased July 1 and this coming July 1, when the state fiscal year begins. On Friday, lawmakers passed a 2017-19 transportation budget that includes a $5 million loan to prevent a rate hike in July 2018.
The money will be used like a line of credit. Bridge bond payments are made four times a year — two large and two small. At those points, the toll account could dip into the red, particularly in May 2019, said Carl See, senior financial analyst with the toll-setting state Transportation Commission. The $5 million will help the cash flow. It will be transferred from the motor vehicle fund in April 2019 and repaid in November 2019.
"The $5 million is like a cash advance to pay our bills," said Rep. Jesse Young, R-Gig Harbor, who worked across the aisle with Rep. Christine Kilduff, D-University Place, to get the loan included in the budget. "After we pay them, a couple of months later toll receipts come in, and we give the money back."
A rate increase will be needed July 1, 2019, See said. By then, Young hopes toll increases will be a thing of the past. He got an amendment in the budget for a work group to study how to get rid of them.
"We've got this window until 2020, so let's go and find some long-term solutions," he said.
Another bridge amendment directs the Department of Transportation to conduct a study of potential savings from converting at least two of the toll booths to only accept credit cards, an idea promoted by Rep. Michelle Caldier, R-Port Orchard.
Narrows toll rates are now $5 for those with electronic passes, $6 at the tollbooths and $7 for pay-by-mail. The bridge will be paid off in 2030.
TREMONT STREET WIDENING
Young and Sen. Jan Angel, R-Port Orchard, led an effort to secure $2 million to widen Port Orchard's Tremont Street. The project doesn't hinge on the funding, but it will save the city some money.
After a dozen years of planning, Port Orchard has combined funding from three sources — $1.7 allocated from Puget Sound Regional Council, $8 million from the state Transportation Improvement Board and $8.3 million in city bonding — for the $18 million project. Now there are four.
"This is an additional funding source that goes into that bucket (with the rest) with the desire to be able to reduce our bonding," Public Works director Mark Dorsey said. "What it's going to do is free up the city's 20-year debt service."
The project, designed to improve traffic flow into the city from Highway 16, entails widening the road to four lanes from two from Highway 16 to Port Orchard Boulevard, along with two roundabouts, a raised landscape median, sidewalks, bike lanes, streetlights and burying of utilities.
Bids will be opened May 30. Construction will begin this summer and take about 22 months, Dorsey said.
STATE HIGHWAYS
The largest local allotment in the budget is $10.7 million for improvements to Highway 305, the route from the Bainbridge island ferry to Poulsbo. It will be followed with $18.9 million in 2020-21 and $7.2 million in 2021-23.
A task force of state, county, city, tribal and transit representatives has met a few times about the way forward and held community meetings. Soon it will hire a consultant to recommend top projects.
"They will identify chokepoints that need to be fixed and what the priorities are for improving the highway," Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson said.
One of the first things to come out of next biennium's funding will be a study of what to do with the 67-year-old, functionally obsolete Agate Pass Bridge, Erickson said.
Re-striping of the Highway 3-304 interchange south of Bremerton will be performed this summer. The budget allocates $3.2 million in 2017-19 to extend a second lane for southbound Highway 3 through the intersection. It will come at the expense of Highway 304 drivers, who will lose their lane and become the ones who have to merge. Traffic cameras will be installed.
A half-million dollars will go to realigning Highway 104 in Kingston for ferry traffic and $2 million to a Highway 16 congestion study. The $67 million Belfair Bypass is two years away from receiving its first funding. It won't be completed until the 2027-29 biennium.
TRANSIT
Kitsap Transit has two transfer stations in early stages of development that will be receiving funds. The Wheaton Way facility in East Bremerton has appropriated $4 million in 2017-19 and $5 million in 2019-21. It will feature an eight-bay transit center with a 160-stall park-and-ride lot on 4.14 acres. It's in the design phase, expected to open in 2019 or 2020.
A Silverdale transit center will be built on Ridgetop Boulevard, across from Harrison Hospital. An environmental analysis and traffic study are being conducted. It will receive $5.3 million in 2017-19 and $1.7 million in 2019-21.
Mason Transit is getting about $3.1 million each of the next three biennia for park-and-rides.
"Our focus is going to be the Belfair park-and-ride," interim general manager Danette Brannin said. "We're in the process of negotiating the land price at Log Yard Road and Highway 3. Our focus is to get that (100-stall) park-and-ride done in the next biennium."
WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES
Of $104 million for terminal improvements, $90 million is directed to a new Mukilteo facility. The renovation of Seattle's Colman Dock will receive $114 million of a total of $135 million terminal preservation dollars. Bainbridge-based ferry Tacoma will get $13.3 million of a total $65 million for vessel preservation for a propulsion control system upgrade.
Most ferry system workers will receive 5 percent raises over two years. About 40 senior employees will receive increases ranging from 8 percent to 24 percent that an arbitrator arrived at during negotiations. The larger raises will help retain senior officers, many of whom could retire, to train the next generation and increase incentives for junior officers to stay, according to the state.
“These raises help us attract and hold onto the individuals most directly responsible for the safety of thousands of passengers and millions of dollars of machinery," spokesman Ian Sterling said.
