Failing to act now means we lose jobs. Four new auto ferries are needed to replace deficient ones that don’t meet current Coast Guard requirements. Without a revamped ferry system, commuters could be left stranded and the Olympic Peninsula’s tourist industry will be threatened. Without fixes to the region’s major corridors, we face losing out on building Boeing’s new sub-sonic cruiser.

Failure to act means stealing more valuable time away from our families and from employers for years to come. According to the new Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) survey, traffic congestion costs every Puget Sound resident as much as $930 per man, woman and child in wasted time and fuel. These are precious resources lost.

The taxes needed to fix our mess are a bargain compared to what we lose today. The Governor’s proposal, as an example, would cost the average family $156 per year, while doing nothing costs $2790 per year for a three-person household (TTI).

The Central Puget Sound region fell dramatically behind in providing adequate transportation solutions during the 1980s and 1990s and has never caught up. In the years from 1981 to 1989, the population of the four-county region grew 15 percent, the number of employed persons increased 34 percent, but the amount of automobile traffic measured by total vehicle miles (VMT) traveled increased a whopping 71 percent.

These two decades of explosive population, employment, and VMT growth were accompanied by a near absence of roadway capacity improvements, and a steady decline of state and federal transportation funding.

Federal funding available for Washington’s State Dept. of Transportation (WSDOT) highway construction in the 1999-01 biennium was just $362 million compared to $651 million in 1991-93. Passage of Initiative 695 in fall 1999 cut state transportation tax spending from $35 per 1,000 miles to $20 per 1000 miles.

The result of two decades of neglect is intolerable daily congestion and an infrastructure in dire need of attention. We’ve put our economy and our quality of life at serious risk.

And without significant improvements now in our transportation system the problem will get much worse. By 2030 the region will support nearly 4.7 million people – about 1.5 million more people and 800,000 more jobs than today. These additional people and jobs are expected to increase travel by 60 percent on top of today’s congested levels.

We know what the solutions will look like. After two and one-half years of study, the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation (BRCT) handed the Legislature a set of 18 recommendations for change last December. In nearly six months of wrangling among Republicans and Democrats in Olympia, all the major elements of the Commission’s report not only remain intact but have become the foundation of both parties’ transportation work thus far:

• Voters must see real reforms and efficiencies in the system in order to believe their transportation money is well spent. (13 of the 18 BRCT recommendations called for reforms, efficiencies and greater accountability).

• Substantial new revenues, most say around $10 billion over 10 years, are necessary to achieve real transportation improvements (3 recommendations spoke to new investments).

• The state’s most congested areas such as Central Puget Sound need to be able to tax themselves to accelerate fixing transportation problems (One recommendation called for creating regional transportation authorities).

Legislators must not leave Olympia without a long-term transportation package. Despite different opinions on how to achieve the necessary reforms, new investments, and regional authorities, lawmakers must get the job done by placing the health of our state above party politics. Legislators must:

• Pass a substantial revenue package during this session – we can’t afford to wait any longer.

• Pass the needed reforms so our dollars are wisely spent. Two centerpiece reforms – permit streamlining and design build – are already signed into law. Legislators must do what it takes to get the others passed.

• Give us in the Puget Sound region the ability to fix our own transportation problems. We can’t do it alone, but it’s not fair to make rural communities pay for Puget Sound’s problems.

Increasing taxes alone is not the answer. But coupled with much-needed changes to the way we run transportation in this state, new transportation revenues are the best investment we can make to keep our region competitive.

(Editor’s Note: Wes Uhlman chairs the Board of Directors of the Association of Washington Business (AWB). He is a former state legislator and Mayor of Seattle. He owns a small property management company in Seattle.).