In a time of deep political division, it generally seems like bipartisanship is an impossibility or an old style notion.
We’re right here to inform you that not all hope is misplaced. That cooperation does exist, continues to be the objective and yields good outcomes. We face a billion-dollar drawback in our state’s transportation budget this 12 months. Once we began the legislative session in January, we had been decided to discover a bipartisan answer — as we often do with transportation budgets — to shut this shortfall and preserve Washington transferring forward.
The very first thing we did was write a finances targeted on what may very well be achieved with current assets. It rapidly turned clear it wasn’t sufficient to make sure communities throughout the state would get the transportation companies they want and deserve.
With out further funding, dozens of initiatives just like the North Spokane Hall and State Route 18 enhancements could be paused for at the least six years. It could postpone development of 1, possibly even two, of the brand new ferries at the moment out for bid. It could additionally lengthen the intense trooper shortfalls on the Washington State Patrol till the 2030s.
The affect could be evident and felt in each nook of our state. Key initiatives would take years to start out and end, island communities would proceed to really feel the pressure of fewer ferries in our waters and our roads could be much less secure for everybody who makes use of them.
An all-cuts finances is not only bleak — it’s unacceptable.
However simply as it could be irresponsible to chop our method out of the finances disaster, it could be equally irresponsible to tax our method out of it. With neither path providing a transparent method ahead, we dedicated to discovering a balanced answer to assist us preserve our guarantees to start out and end initiatives, protect and keep our ailing infrastructure and make our roads safer.
Bipartisanship doesn’t imply we agree on each difficulty. Each of us can level to particular person issues within the finances we as people don’t like, whether or not it’s investing in transportation improvements for bicyclists or asking drivers and transit customers to pay extra. However one factor we agree on is that enterprise as traditional isn’t working for our woefully underfunded transportation system. We want a sustainable finances that ensures we ship initiatives effectively and on the lowest doable value to taxpayers.
That’s why our finances package deal contains much-needed allowing and development reforms to make sure issues get achieved rapidly and make the very best use of tax {dollars}. And the brand new funds we elevate aren’t spent on luxuries. We deal with preserving and sustaining what we’ve obtained and making focused new investments in security initiatives statewide.
And we will proudly report that final Saturday, the state Senate agreed with our method and handed our bipartisan transportation proposal overwhelmingly.
We stay in numerous components of the state and maintain very completely different opinions on nearly any matter you possibly can identify. However on the finish of the day, we wish what’s finest for the entire state — not simply our personal communities or the individuals who share our political views.
This can be a plan that lives as much as that objective.
