It’s easy for Senator Tim Sheldon (D - Potlatch) to pat his pal, Bob Oke (R-Port Orchard) on the back and downplay the importance tolls on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge have in the 26th District political races (KPBJ, 9/02). That’s because Sen. Sheldon’s constituents will pay less that 15 percent of the $100 million average annual tolls, while people in Oke’s 26th District will pay over 70 percent, and because Sheldon has no major-party opponent in the November election.

Both Sheldon and Oke are hiding the ball because it’s not lawsuits that drove up the cost as Senator Sheldon claims, it’s that WSDOT created an illegal project, handed it to a sole-source, non-competitively-bid contractor, and then proceeded to force a bad deal on the public. And both those guys turned their backs and allowed this project to move forward to the detriment of their constituents.

While Senator Sheldon is correct that we need to address Puget Sound bottlenecks, the Tacoma Narrows isn’t high on that list. According to the Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation, State Route 16 ranks 32nd down the list of congestion due to lost time and 77th in speed reductions during peak hours. Additionally, both the accident and fatality rate on State route 302’s “Wauna Curves,” a road leading to Senator Sheldon’s 35th District, are 2-1/2 times higher than on the bridge.

Senator Sheldon sits on the high-level Transportation Infrastructure Financing Committee and knows full well that WSDOT is telling them that tolling individual Seattle megaprojects won’t work because drivers will simply take another route. Instead, WSDOT is looking at tolling a 131-mile system of existing public roads. This leaves the Tacoma Narrows as the only megaproject being directly tolled, the only megaproject being tolled at 95 percent of its cost, and the first and probably the only HOV lane ever to be tolled.

Senator Sheldon, here in the 26th District people are concerned about having to pay $52,000 in tolls over the 24-year tolling period just to get to work and make a few extra trips each week (eight trips total per week).

Commercial operators who will pay over $160,000 in tolls for each 18-wheeler for two work-day trips over the toll period are also concerned, and everyone is wondering if we will be able to support our school and fire department special levies. Yes, this is a big election issue because we can’t afford what Senators Sheldon and Oke have put on us.

Donald S. Williams
Gig Harbor.