(Between crises at work) I spent my lunch hour at a Transportation Choices Coalition Friday Forum today, and here's the skinny from TCC on what became law in Olympia this session.
Reducing per capita VMT
By 2020, if we take no action, Washingtonians will drive 75 billion miles every year.
The 2007 Legislative session had a single line about the state reducing it's greenhouse gas emissions, and the plan that come out of that focused on clean fuels and clean cars. When that plan was mapped out, however, the state realized we were barely halfway there.
Two bills were introduced into the House and Senate on VMT reduction, but passage was uncertain, so Ecology Committee Chair Dave Upthegrove inserted the language into a much larger green jobs bill which had a great deal of support. The end result are per capita VMT benchmarks--not caps, not goals--of 18% by 2020, 30% by 2035 and 50% by 2050. The bill the governor signed yesterday will kick off a research cycle starting in July, with a report due to the legislature this December on how to meet these VMT reduction goals in different areas. That research will become the basis for the legislative session in 2009.
The end result WILL NOT be handing drivers a number of miles they can drive, and having that number decrease over time. Far from it. It will go to various regional governmental planning organizations and say "here's what we think your region contributes to GHGs, here's the VMT reduction target we think you should hit based on your geography and density, and here are the best practices that we think could be implemented in your region that will encourage residents to chose alternate transport mode when appropriate.
The other challenge? This is per capita only, not overall. If we achieve a 50% reduction by 2050, that will work out to only a 15% reduction overall simply due to population growth.
My take on this? I think this will eventually (like in a decade) become a way to distribute state dollars. Regions that can reduce VMT but choose not to won't get as many transportation dollars from the state as regions that do make a big effort to encourage their residents to try alternate transportation modes, whether its for moving people, or moving freight.
Tolling
The tolling legislation was originally introduced in 2007, but there were too many differing opinions to move the bill forward.
The current law does not authorize any tolls, but establishes broad statewide policies on how tolling should be implemented in the future. This bill was attacked by both the right and the left, and legislators tried to insert forty amendments gutting or weakening the bill. Everything from restricting toll revenues to road only expenditures, to preventing any money being spent on operations (including transit operations) rather than transportation capital expenditures, and several others. But somehow, it all held together and the bill survived intact.
This could all be taken apart in the next legislative session, but with this bill now law, any encroachments will likely occur as project-by-project, corridor-by-corridor exemptions rather than a re-write.
In the meantime, the law requires a roadshow of open, public forums to discuss tolls across the state and the Puget Sound region.
520 Bridge
I write about 520 a lot, so I won't go into this in depth. The main piece of this bill focused on how many lanes the bridge will have: 4x2, four general purpose lanes, and two HOV/transit lanes.This bill did authorize the state to talk to the federal government about tolling I-90 (which requires federal approval). It also authorizes pre-construction tolling, but does not actually implement them--a bill to impose tolls would likely be introduced in the 2009 legislative session.
Transportation Education for Kids
This bill's predecessor went down in flames in 2007 because it reached too far. This time, it only required that bicycle and pedestrian education be required in grade school classrooms and in the basic curriculum for new drivers. This time, around, the bill was so non-controversial that only two Senators voted against it.
The Republican caucus officially opposed the bill because it authorized $76,000 for pilot programs in three schools that will instruct physical education teachers to instruct kids on how to get around safely via bike, foot and bus. The Republican caucus dubbed the bill the "Learning to ride the bus" bill.
