Supporters of public transit are none too happy with Gov. Chris Gregoire after she decided earlier this month to veto a provision to make it easier for transit agencies to collect more taxes.

The sponsor of the transit-funding proposal, Rep. Geoff Simpson, D-Covington, is one of those upset with the governor.

“Gregoire is such a major disappointment,” Simpson said in an e-mail last week, right after the governor vetoed a portion of Senate Bill 5433. “While she is chauffeured around in her black limo and on her private airplane, people who can’t afford a car will be struggling to find a ride on a bus.”

The provision that Gregoire vetoed would have allowed transit boards to ask voters to raise their vehicle registration fees by as much as $20 a year to pay for bus service. For instance, Pierce Transit’s board of directors could have put such a measure on the ballot for all voters who live within the transit district. That’s an area larger than Tacoma, but smaller than all of Pierce County.

The governor said local governments already have that authority. Besides, she added, she didn’t want the Legislature to get ahead of itself. The budget provides money to study alternative sources of transportation funding, she noted.

Gregoire appears to be at least partially accommodating Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Committee. Haugen and Sen. Chris Marr, D-Spokane, both voted against the bill and later urged the governor to veto those parts. They cited the very reasons that Gregoire did in her veto.

Transit advocates say those reasons are pretty lame.

Although it’s true local governments can create transportation benefit districts and raise up to $100 per vehicle (with a public vote), those are for mostly for cities and counties, and the process is cumbersome.

“It is nearly useless for transit,” Simpson said.

Andrew Austin, policy associate for Transportation Choices Coalition, said transit agencies are seeing their sales tax collections decline just as the demand for bus service is rising.

It’s also ironic that Gregoire would push ahead with policies aimed at reducing how much people drive – vehicle miles traveled, or VMT – while cutting options for transit, he said.

“Reducing VMT per capita is going to be hard to do without more transit, and transit service is falling off a cliff because of decreasing funding,” he said. “Their sales tax is plummeting when ridership continues to be strong.”

The thrust of SB 5433 was to give cities and counties more flexibility in how they use existing sales and property taxes, letting them use the money to avoid laying off existing workers instead of having to hire new ones.

The governor left intact another transit provision, one that will let the King County Council raise as much as 7.5 cents per $1,000 in property values to provide as much as $30 million a year for Metro Transit. That won’t need a public vote.

joe.turner@thenewstribune.com

Joseph Turner: 253-597-8436

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