I-985: Look under the hood – it won’t run

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: October 7th, 2008 12:44 AM (PDT)

At the time, Eyman appeared to have learned his lesson – that his supporters wanted him to offer tax cuts, not schemes for micromanaging transportation spending.

But he’s unlearned the lesson. His initiative-of-the-year, I-985, takes micromanagement far beyond the point of absurdity.

The initiative is being sold as a way to implement congestion-relief measures recommended by the state auditor’s office. In reality, it has less to do with the auditor than with attacking traffic and highway programs that Eyman and various grievance-driven citizens don’t like.

Among them are people who want to be able to run red lights and speed through school zones with impunity. The state auditor had no quarrels with red-light cameras. But I-985 declares a jihad on them. It would financially penalize any city that opts for camera enforcement at busy arterials, school zones and railroad crossings, where they are now authorized.

The experience in Washington and elsewhere is that cameras save lives by deterring reckless driving. Tacoma, for example, has seen fatal accidents drop significantly at intersections where photo-enforcement cameras have been installed.

Eyman admits he simply doesn’t like enforcement cameras. Why should his grudge be translated into a state policy likely to lead to more deaths at intersections? And what does this have to do with congestion relief, the supposed purpose of I-985? Intersections tend to get jammed when blue lights are flashing and ambulance crews are carrying people off in stretchers.

I-985 also requires that all HOV lanes be opened to solo drivers between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Supposedly, these are “off-peak” hours. In reality, they are heavy traffic hours on long stretches of highway in the Puget Sound region. HOV lanes make traffic move faster for everyone by getting more people into car-pools and transit – but I-985 would cripple the lanes for six hours a day in the places they are most needed.

Oddly, the initiative would also require that the three-occupants-or-more HOV lane on the Highway 520 floating bridge be reduced to a two-occupant-or-more HOV lane. Traffic analysts say this would snarl vehicles merging on the bridge and likely push bumper-to-bumper jams out onto Interstate 405. The result: More congestion.

This shows the utter folly of trying to trying to pre-empt complex traffic engineering decisions with a simplistic initiative.

I-985 would raid existing revenue streams (or nearly run them out of business, in the case of traffic cameras). The money involved – something over $120 million a year – would hardly dent the state’s real congestion problems. What drivers would chiefly see from I-985 are traffic jams from the measure’s unintended consequences and greater threats from speeders and red-light runners.

Advice for Eyman: Get out of the traffic-management business. There really are people who better understand what congestion relief is all about.

Originally published: October 7th, 2008 12:44 AM (PDT)