Sound Transit didn’t want to ask taxpayers for more money under these circumstances.

Officials in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties wanted to be able to point to robust ridership on a light-rail line that was carrying tens of thousands of passengers a day to Sea-Tac Airport, downtown Seattle and the University of Washington.

They wanted voters to look around and be so pleased with the progress that had been made to reduce congestion that they would be willing to raise their taxes again to extend this pollution-free mode of transportation farther south to Tacoma and farther north to Everett.

That’s the scenario they hoped for. They didn’t get it.

The central Puget Sound area does have a regional bus system that carries riders to and from employment centers. And it has commuter trains that take cars off Interstate 5 and Highway 167 by giving commuters an alternative way to reach Tacoma, Seattle and Everett. Most of that didn’t exist 11 years ago when voters approved the first phase of a regional bus-and-rail system.

But the light-rail line won’t serve the airport for two more years, and it won’t reach the UW campus until 2016. And it will cost nearly twice as much as promised because Sound Transit grossly underestimated how much the light-rail starter line would cost and had an unrealistic timeline for construction.

Nonetheless, supporters of an $18 billion roads and transit package on the Nov. 6 election ballot say the proposal is crucial to the region’s job growth, economic vitality and quality of life for the next generation. To do nothing would invite disaster.

“We are 25 years late bringing light rail to Seattle,” said Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, chairman of Sound Transit. “Let’s not be 25 years late bringing it to Tacoma.”

Even with the improvements to regional transit, freeway traffic volume continue to grow. From 1996 to 2006, daily traffic on I-5 at Federal Way increased from 157,000 to 172,000, according to state data. On I-5 at Fife, daily volumes increased from 156,000 to 182,000.

Proposition 1 would raise the sales tax by 6 cents on a $10 purchase. It also would increase vehicle registration fees by $80 per $10,000 in value. And it would continue the sales and vehicle taxes that were approved by voters in 1996.

Combined with existing Sound Transit taxes, they would raise nearly $1 billion a year.

Opponents say the measure is too expensive and its benefits are too far off. Most of the projects would not be completed until sometime between 2018 and 2027. Still others would need additional funds to be completed.

“How would you like to buy a house and make payments, but you don’t get to move in for 20 to 30 years?” said Kemper Freeman, an East King County developer who also opposed the 1996 Sound Transit measure.

Freeman and former state Sen. Jim Horn, now chairman of the Eastside Transportation Association in King County, say the master plan is skewed too heavily in favor of light rail, and doesn’t spend enough on highway improvements and bus service that would give commuters more freedom of movement.

The Sierra Club says the plan spends too much on highways, promotes pollution and contributes to global warming. King County Executive Ron Sims is part of that chorus. Other environmental groups like the plan because of its commitment to light rail.

TRANSIT VS. HIGHWAYS

The new taxes would pay for $10.8 billion worth of transit projects, $7 billion in highway projects and provide $1.5 billion to operate light-rail and bus service over the next 20 years. Those are the costs if all the projects were built all at once, based on costs in 2006. But they will be phased in, so those projects would cost $47 billion by the time they are built because of inflation.

It’s the rivalry between mass transit and roads advocates that has paralyzed the region for far too long, and threatens its future, said Pierce County Councilman Shawn Bunney, chairman of the Regional Transportation Investment District, a tri-county agency focused on road improvements.

That’s one reason the Legislature forced Sound Transit and the transportation district into a marriage. It made them cooperate on a single ballot measure so their road and transit projects would rise or fall together.

Now, some advocates from each of those camps are criticizing the project list – for opposite reasons.

“If two extremes on the political spectrum don’t like it, it must be good for the middle,” Ladenburg said at a debate sponsored by The News Tribune earlier this month.

Ladenburg said Proposition 1 shouldn’t be viewed alone. It’s meant to complement the work of the Legislature, which in 2003 and in 2005 voted to raise the gas tax by a total of 14.5 cents a gallon. Those actions are providing nearly $8 billion for highway projects in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties.

Overall, he said, there is a good balance in transportation modes.

The Legislature, in fact, views the regional tax vote as fulfilling its part of the bargain to raise the gas tax. State lawmakers agreed to raise the gas tax by 9.5 cents a gallon in 2005 to pay part of the cost of mega projects in Puget Sound.

The state is paying nearly the entire $2.8 billion cost to replace Seattle’s Alaskan Way viaduct, but only part of the $4.4 billion to replace the Highway 520 bridge, the $2 billion to extend Highway 167 from the Port of Tacoma to Puyallup and to widen parts of Interstate 405 between Renton and Lynnwood.

The three-county vote also would produce enough money to finish Highway 509 from Burien to Des Moines, to widen Interstate 5 in places and build the so-called cross-base highway between Frederickson and Lakewood, or some alternate in the same east-west corridor.

REGIONAL FAIRNESS

Regional leaders also tried to strike a balance in which projects will be built throughout the region.

They call it “sub-area equity.” There are five sub-areas in Sound Transit’s taxing district. Pierce and Snohomish counties account for two of them. King County is divided into three more areas – north, south and east.

Contrary to how it is often described, this policy doesn’t guarantee that all taxes from each area will come back in the form of project money. Rather, it means taxes will be spent to benefit a particular area.

“It’s not where the projects are physically located but who benefits, based on the reality that what benefits someone is based both on where he or she lives and where he or she wants to go,” said Geoff Patrick, a Sound Transit spokesman.

Traffic patterns often have little to do with political boundaries. For instance, 30 percent of Pierce County’s workers drive to jobs in King County, according to the Puget Sound Regional Council.

That’s part of the rationale used by Sound Transit’s board of directors to assign Pierce County the cost of building the light-rail line from Federal Way’s northern border to the King-Pierce county line.

The board decided that Pierce County would benefit from the rail system, so the project’s $800 million to $1 billion cost will be borne by Pierce County taxpayers. That’s 40 percent of the taxes that will be collected in Pierce County.

The law that created the Regional Transportation Investment District has similar equity provisions.

But the project list for roads, highways and streets in Pierce and King counties was selected largely to accommodate the ports of Tacoma and Seattle and the movement of freight in and out of the port properties.

Much of the work in downtown Seattle would enable truck traffic to get in and out of the port without delays at railroad crossings or commuter-clogged roadways. The extension of Highway 167 from Fife to Puyallup, which would only be a two-lane road for most of the way, would not be built so much to give commuters some relief. It would make it easier for freight-bearing trucks to get out of the Port of Tacoma and to the warehouses in Kent and onto Highway 18 and I-90 to get across the mountains.

And while East Pierce County commuters would benefit from a cross-base highway, the plan really helps businesses on the port-owned Frederickson properties get to I-5 without having to fight all the east-west traffic on Highway 512.

That’s why the chambers of commerce throughout the region are so supportive of the measure.

Bunney said if the region’s roads aren’t improved, Puget Sound could see 80,000 jobs go instead to major ports in Long Beach, Calif., or Canada. His remark was based on a consultant’s report commissioned earlier this year by the state DOT.

DURATION OF TAXES AN ISSUE

At The News Tribune forum on Proposition 1 earlier this month, one man in the audience expressed concern about the size of the sales tax increase.

The sales tax is currently 8.8 percent in Tacoma. If the measure passes, the tax would be 9.4 percent in Tacoma and 10 percent at restaurants in King County, which has the highest sales tax because it’s helping pay for the Seattle Mariners ballpark.

Horn, the former state senator, said he’s worried about the size and duration of the taxes.

Collectively, taxpayers in the three counties would pay nearly $1 billion in 2009, including the renewal of the 1996 taxes. That would grow to $1.5 billion a year by 2018, $2 billion by 2024 and more than $3 billion in 2033 and thereafter. Part of those taxes would be borne by the 1 million additional people who are expected to be living in the region by 2030. Inflation accounts for another part of the increase.

Sound Transit officials say they plan to reduce a portion of the agency’s taxes in 2028. And the Regional Transportation Investment District expects to pay off its loans by 2037 and go out of existence. But Sound Transit will still need more than $500 million a year from taxes to operate its built-out transit system in 2028 and will be paying off bonds through 2057.

“They say maybe sometime in the future they might want to reduce it (tax), but have you ever seen that happen?” Horn asked.

Another thing that suggests there wouldn’t be much of a tax reduction is the likelihood of a third phase for Sound Transit.

The ballot measure includes money to pay for studies to extend the light-rail system’s eastern line deeper into Redmond and farther north to Everett, a link from Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood to the University of Washington, some form of high capacity transit across the Highway 520 bridge to Redmond and another light-rail link from downtown Seattle to West Seattle and Burien.

Patrick, the Sound Transit spokesman, said voters would have to approve taxes to do anything beyond a study of those projects.

AN OPPORTUNITY, OR A MISTAKE?

The number of people riding buses and trains has risen dramatically since Sound Transit started increasing regional bus service and commuter trains to give commuters alternatives to increasing clogged freeways.

Regional bus ridership throughout the three-county area more than quadrupled, from a daily weekday average of 11,000 in September 1999 to 48,000 in June 2007, according to Sound Transit.

Sounder trains carried about 1,100 passsengers a day in September 2000 and 6,800 in May 2007. And ridership on the Lakewood-Tacoma-Seattle express route climbed from fewer than 300 passengers on a typical weekday to more than 1,500 a day between 1999 and this year.

County Executive Ladenburg and Councilman Bunney said Proposition 1 presents an opportunity to do something positive for the future.

“It’s not a perfect package,” Bunney said. “But it’s a step in the right direction. It will determine how Pierce County functions for the rest of our lives.”

Ladenburg said his father’s advice comes to mind. “Don’t just stand there. Do something.”

Horn said he’s worried that approval of the ballot measure now will preclude better solutions to traffic congestion by committing so much tax money to these projects.

“It’s never the right time to do the wrong thing,” Horn said.

Joseph Turner: 253-597-8436

joe.turner@thenewstribune.com

So how much would Proposition 1 cost you?

We constructed a few examples using different household incomes, numbers of vehicles and vehicle values.

Here are our assumptions:

Sound Transit has been collecting a 0.4 percent sales tax and a 0.3 percent motor vehicle excise tax for 11 years. Proposition 1 would continue those taxes at least through 2027, and most likely longer.

Proposition 1 also would increase those taxes by adding a 0.6 percent sales tax and a 0.8 percent MVET. Those new taxes most likely would continue at least through 2037 and a portion of the new taxes would continue to be collected indefinitely.

The combined taxes are a 1 percent sales tax and a 1.1 percent MVET.

Our examples, which were proofed by the state Department of Revenue, show how much you’re already paying in taxes, how much more you’ll pay if Proposition 1 passes and what the combined total will be.

EXAMPLE 1

Household income: $30,000

Number of vehicles: 1 (valued at $5,000)

What you pay to Sound Transit now: $69 a year

New taxes to Sound Transit and RTID: $121 a year

Total taxes: $190 a year

EXAMPLE 2

Household income: $60,000

Number of vehicles: 2 (valued at $15,000 and $5,000)

What you pay to Sound Transit now: $151 a year

New taxes to Sound Transit and RTID: $296 a year

Total taxes: $447 a year

EXAMPLE 3

Household income: $100,000

Number of vehicles: 3 (valued at $30,000, $15,000 and $5,000)

What you pay to Sound Transit now: $275 a year

New taxes to Sound Transit and RTID: $588 a year

Total taxes: $863 a year