Link Kitsap, King counties via Vashon Island
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The people of Gig Harbor have been telling their elected officials and the state Department of Transportation (DOT) for 10 years that their scheme to build a new Tacoma Narrows Bridge with unwanted tolls wouldn't solve our traffic problems. We are now gridlocked eight hours a day and, as bad as it is now, it will only get worse.
Once construction of the second bridge is completed, the state will start collecting a $3 toll to pay for this boondoggle. The tollbooth holding area is so small that waiting traffic will quickly back up onto the main line, blocking onramps to Highway 16, then backing traffic into the adjacent neighborhoods. Voilà — 24-hour gridlock.
In Gig Harbor, as around the rest of Puget Sound, the answer to our congestion problem is not simply to add capacity to already overcrowded highways and turn those free connectors into toll projects. The answer is to create alternate toll routes and, yes, in some cases, alternate modes of travel.
In our case in Gig Harbor, the real solution to the congestion at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was not to add another bridge at that same congested location (on an earthquake fault, at that). This only invites more congestion along the entire Highway 16 corridor and even at the merge points on Interstate 5, which state transportation officials acknowledge already has the highest accident rate in all of Washington.
The state's own 1992 study said a new Narrows Bridge would work only if the state, at the same time, doubled the capacity of ferry service across Puget Sound.
We all know that's not going to happen, so it should come as no surprise that when the new bridge opens, with only one new HOV lane in each direction, there is no congestion relief.
The same study recommended another solution — a new bridge from Kitsap County across Vashon Island and, using new submerged floating tunnel technology, connecting into King County at Highway 518 north of Sea-Tac Airport in Burien.
This new corridor would eliminate several ferry routes across central Puget Sound and provide 24/7 access between King County and the west side of Puget Sound. It would be funded using a $7 toll, which is significantly less than the $15 to $20 ferry fare for a car and driver. The 35-mile trip from Southcenter to Kitsap County would be cut to 10 miles and 10 minutes instead of the current one hour by car or by ferry.
Elimination of some of these ferry routes would save you and me over $2 billion in state taxes necessary to support the operation of those routes over the next 10 years — not including an additional $2 billion in new capital investments.
Implementing this rational "alternative route" proposal would cost the state no money, because it would be built by private contractors who would bond the project themselves and get paid back with the $7 tolls. It would free up over $4 billion in state highway funds that could be spent on new road projects instead of being sunk into a failing ferry system.
The Department of Transportation tracked license plates across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and concluded that this fixed crossing at Vashon would have taken 30 percent of the traffic off the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, bringing the level of service below the congestion threshold. You see, we really never needed a new bridge; we only needed an alternate route.
But the DOT, in its wisdom, decided we would get this new Tacoma Narrows span that doesn't solve congestion. To add insult to injury, the users who live on the "other side," in the Gig Harbor-Port Orchard area, will have to pay for nearly 100 percent of this $850 million project — that's before the inevitable cost overruns — even though over 80 percent of those users voted against this project.
A few years ago, the Cross Sound Transportation Coalition was formed, and we have continued to promote the construction of a fixed link across Puget Sound as the real solution to the traffic congestion on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Highway 16, and out to Interstate 5.
We concluded that the Department of Transportation's "fix" was no fix at all and the only way to solve the problem now is to divert traffic away from this bottleneck through alternative links.
Over the past year, I've met with business, civic and government groups throughout King, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston and Grays Harbor counties — including Vashon Island. Of the hundreds of people I've talked to, the overwhelming response has been, "So, what's the holdup? This is a great idea. Let's get going!" Even on Vashon Island.
Toll projects will work in Washington if the DOT would allow private construction of new infrastructure and stop trying to get people to pay tolls for improvements to roads they already paid for with previous tolls and taxes.
Give us an alternative route and we'll pay tolls for faster, less-congested roads; and when we use the new toll facility, it will reduce traffic on the other congested roads in Washington. What the DOT is doing now isn't working. Let's try something new and get Washington moving again.
Randy Boss, of Gig Harbor, is a commercial real estate broker and member of the Cross Sound Transportation Coalition. He can be reached at randyboss@centurytel.net or (253) 858-5100.