Bill signing brings car-pool lanes closer

PIERCE COUNTY: Governor touts jobs, benefits for Tacoma, Grays Harbor

JOSEPH TURNER; The News Tribune | • Published May 14, 2009

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TACOMA – Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed a transportation budget that elevates the freeway car-pool lanes through Tacoma to the same status as five other so-called “mega projects” across the state, a status that gives the $1.5 billion Tacoma project a better chance of actually getting built.

The bill signing took place in downtown Tacoma, and Mayor Bill Baarsma noted the significance of the locale.

“What a contrast of where we began and where we finished,” he said.

He was referring to the difference between the original transportation budget the governor proposed last December and the one she signed into law Wednesday afternoon. Her first budget “delayed to death” many key highway projects in Pierce County. The final one not only speeds up $130 million of car-pool lane construction on Interstate 5, but also lays out a 16-year funding plan to nearly finish the project.

For many other state projects, funding will run out by 2015.

Baarsma credited Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy with mobilizing the community behind the county’s legislative delegation to get most of what its lawmakers were promised when they voted in favor of gas tax increases in 2003 and 2005. A coalition of 105 business, labor and other groups and community leaders rallied to get funding for local projects restored in the budget passed by the Legislature.

The 2009-11 transportation budget, which includes money for the Department of Transportation, the State Patrol and the Department of Licensing, is $7.5 billion – the largest in state history.

Gregoire said combined with the federal stimulus money the state got in January, there will be $5 billion in construction projects through June 2011. That will create 49,000 jobs, she said.

She noted that some of those jobs will come to Concrete Technology, the Tacoma company that will be building about $100 million worth of pontoons for the replacement for the Highway 520 bridge across Lake Washington.

Gregoire went to Grays Harbor later Wednesday to sign a bill to move ahead with that $4.65 billion project because an even bigger share of work on the pontoons will be done in Aberdeen and Hoquiam, communities desperately in need of jobs too.

“This budget couldn’t have come at a better time,” Gregoire said. “Not only will it greatly improve our transportation system, the projects I’m signing off on will ensure regular employment for tens of thousands of Washingtonians.”

On Tuesday, she signed into law a bill that authorizes a two-mile deep-bore tunnel under downtown Seattle to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, another of the mega-projects whose overall cost is pegged at $4.24 billion.

Besides the viaduct, the 520 bridge and Tacoma car-pool lanes, only three other projects are scheduled to receive enough money to bring them to near completion. They are the widening of Interstate 90 over Snoqualmie Pass, improvements to parts of Interstate 405 between Southcenter and Lynnwood, and the north-south freeway in Spokane.

The budget assumes the state will start borrowing money for 30 years instead of 25 years. Over the 16-year plan, the budget made an additional $450 million available for projects.

timeline for PIERCE COUNTY I-5 PROJECT

2009-11: $237 million will complete most of the westbound Nalley Valley Viaduct and construct car-pool lanes from Port of Tacoma Road to the King County line, according to DOT program director John Wynands. It also will pay for design work for the eastbound Nalley Valley Viaduct and for design and right of way purchases for the next phase of the Tacoma car-pool lanes, replacing the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 between Portland Avenue and the Port of Tacoma.

2011-13: $274 million for construction of the eastbound Nalley Valley Viaduct and work on Portland Avenue-Port of Tacoma northbound lanes. That includes the bridge over the Puyallup River. Construction would start in 2012.

2013-15: $310 million for construction of southbound lanes between Portland Avenue and the Port of Tacoma.

2015-17: $160 million to finish the segment from M Street to Portland Avenue in both directions, including replacing the Pacific Avenue overpass across I-5. That’s slated to start in summer 2015.

2017-19: $12 million to finish wrap-up work.

2020 and beyond: The final phase is $200 million to connect car-pool lanes on state Route 16 directly to car-pool lanes on Interstate 5 at the Nalley Valley interchange. Although that project is expected to seek contractors in 2020, funding for that portion is doubtful.

FINAL TAB: The total cost of the project, including work on the collector distributor and other work that already has been done between South 38th Street and downtown Tacoma, is $1.5 billion.

Joseph Turner, The News Tribune