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Eyman anti-traffic measure likely to make ballot

Richard Roesler
Staff writer
July 2, 2008

Tim Eyman (Associated Press) More state political news: www.eyeonolympia.com.

OLYMPIA – Veteran initiative promoter Tim Eyman – who this year took out a $130,000 loan against his home to pay signature-gatherers – has apparently gotten his 11th initiative onto the ballot.

Flanked by Spokane associates Mike and Jack Fagan, Eyman on Tuesday turned in the latest batch of what he says are 299,019 signatures. Election officials must now check them to be sure that there are at least 224,880 valid signatures. But the large cushion means it’s all but certain that voters will see the anti-traffic-congestion measure in November.

Eyman’s Initiative 985 is the first of three measures likely to meet Thursday’s deadline to submit signatures. Proponents of an assisted-suicide measure plan to turn in their final signatures Wednesday afternoon. And a union-backed measure to require more training and background checks for some health care workers is still gathering signatures.

Dozens of other proposals wilted this year as proponents realized they couldn’t collect the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed.

Eyman’s I-985 would:

• open freeway carpool lanes to everyone during off-peak hours;

• require cities and counties to synchronize traffic lights on busy roads;

• boost roadside help so accidents are cleared faster;

• and require that any tolls are used only on the same project.

To pay for the changes, Eyman wants to steer about $150 million a year more into transportation. Most of that money – about $128 million – would come from 15 percent of the state sales tax on car sales. Another $10 million or so would come from stripping the "profit," as Eyman puts it, from cities that get fines from red-light cameras. And $10 million to $15 million more would come from removing a requirement that half a percent of transportation-project budgets be spent on art. Instead, Eyman would put that money into a new congestion-relief project fund.

Some of the changes were recommended by state auditor Brian Sonntag in a recent performance audit.

"We thought this was the best way to give Olympia a swift kick in the shins" to act faster on congestion, Eyman said. Plus, he said, less time idling in traffic jams means lower gas costs and fewer greenhouse gases.

There is little active campaigning against I-985 so far. But critics have said that the proposal will do little except strip tens of millions of dollars from the state’s general fund, which is where the sales tax on cars goes now. The general fund is the state’s main checking account, paying for schools, health care, prisons and other key expenses.

In an op-ed in the Seattle Times this spring, Western Washington University professor emeritus Floyd McKay blasted the measure as based on "bogus premises, bad ideas and inflammatory rhetoric." The measure would strip flexibility from transportation officials struggling to respond to changing problems. And it would do nothing to encourage taking the bus or other mass transit.

Yes, McKay wrote, red-light cameras are unpopular. But if they’re a bad idea, he said, "the remedy is at city halls where they are authorized, rather than in a statewide vote."

For a decade, Eyman has filed one initiative after another. Most have been anti-tax measures. Of the 16 he’s pushed, eight have been approved by voters.

Richard Roesler can be reached at (360) 664-2598 or by e-mail at richr@spokesman.com.

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