Washington’s Infrastructure in Crisis Brochure is on-line and coming your way.

Thanks to many, many cities, AWC staff has completed the Washington’s Infrastructure in Crisis brochure. The brochure reflects the AWC’s Board’s emerging top priorities for 2009. Specifically, the brochure:

Describes our critical infrastructure;
Provides examples of city infrastructure needs;
Defines the need for the state to partner with cities in making critical infrastructure investments; and
Recommends a state Action Plan for 2009.

The brochure will be mailed to all our cities within the next few days. In addition, it is available online at: www.awcnet.org/documents/WAInfrastructureInCrisis.pdf.

Initiative I-985 update

In last month’s Bulletin, we profiled I-985, Tim Eyman’s latest initiative and how it will impact the state and cities. Since the August publication, there is now an official NO on I-985 campaign. As a brief re-cap, I-985 redirects the following into a congestion relief account: a portion of state sales tax; excess toll revenues; and revenue from local traffic safety camera infractions. In effect, the Initiative would:

Put transportation congestion relief as a top state funding priority-an estimated $238M in 2009-2011 in state general fund revenues that are typically spent on education, parks, etc., would go to congestion relief.
The red light photo enforcement program currently funded by traffic offenders would either be discontinued or require using city general funds.
Carpool lanes must be opened to all traffic during non-peak hours. Peak hours are defined in the initiative, although they were not established through traffic studies, nor was it recognized it will cost an estimated $200 million or more to upgrade the lanes for general purpose traffic.
All state and local governments must synchronize their lights on heavily traveled arterials. "Heavily traveled" is not defined.

For more information, please see the front page of our website www.awcnet.org and click "What you need to know about I-985".

Transportation Implementation Working Group

The goal of the Transportation Implementation Working Group (IWG) is to identify actions that can result in significant reductions in transportation-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Washington State. GHG emissions from transportation account for nearly half of Washington's total emissions. The Transportation IWG is charged with recommending tools and best practices to achieve the vehicle miles travelled (VMT) reduction goals in E2SHB 2815. In addition, the Transportation IWG will define and advance specific non-VMT transportation policy proposals for implementation, and/or identify specific next steps, given the need for a scalable multi-pronged approach to address the climate impacts of the transportation sector.

The Transportation IWG has been meeting throughout the summer and will meet on October 9th and 10th to finalize its recommendations to the CAT. The working group consists of many stakeholders, including Jemae Hoffman from the City of Seattle and AWC staff. The following is required under E2SHB 2815:

Decrease the annual per capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by eighteen percent by 2020;
Decrease the annual per capita VMT by thirty percent by 2035; and
Decrease the annual per capita VMT by fifty percent by 2050.

The Transportation IWG has prioritized the following as recommendation areas for the CAT:

"T-1" Transit, ridesharing and commuter choice options – the expectation is to provide an investment framework of what can be achieved in two years, six years, and beyond ten years. The investment framework has included estimates of GHG reductions and VMT reductions. Preliminary findings are: unless the T-4/T-8 actions occur through incentives or via the market place (including both zoning and private sector investment), T-1 will provide very limited reductions in either VMT or GHG reductions.

"T-3" Transportation pricing – the objective is to show how tolling and other pricing activities (i.e. HOT lanes) can reduce VMT. AWC staff analysis is that transportation pricing is facing competing policy objectives. Tolling and HOT lanes are tools to manage transportation flow and potential cost recovery for the preservation and maintenance of a system; these mechanisms are not designed to reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled.

"T-4/T-8" Promotion of compact and transit oriented development (TODs)/ bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure improvements – Preliminary proposals have identified the need to provide sufficient housing and adequate transit service to ensure effective TODs. Additional proposals include refining transportation concurrency measures within a defined TOD, and the adoption of the performance measures in the recently completed State Bicycle Facilities and Pedestrian Walkways Plan.

NEW: A Finance committee has now been created to implement the proposals. They have not met at the time of this printing.

A report is due to the Legislature on December 1, 2008. For more information, please contact Ashley Probart at ashleyp@awcnet.org, or at 1-800-562-8981.

Beyond Waste Implementation Working Group

The CAT Beyond Waste IWG has been meeting throughout the summer and now has additional meetings planned for early October. The goal of the Beyond Waste IWG is to significantly expand source reduction, reuse, recycling and composting and build on what is best and most successful in the current waste management system by developing an environmentally and economically sustainable implementation plan targeting products and organic materials with the largest GHG reduction potential.

The Beyond Waste IWG has three chairs and 25 members, including Tim Croll from Seattle Public Utilities and Tracy Farrell from the City of Shelton to participate on the Working Group. There are four "task areas" that are expected to move forward to the CAT:

Task area 1: Optimize the collection and processing infrastructure needed to more effectively capture recyclable materials with the highest carbon footprint generated from industrial, commercial, agricultural and residential sources. The working proposal is to follow the Pierce County model that provides curbside collection for all county residents. The proposal is to be phased in.

Task area 2: Remove organics from the disposal stream so that they can be beneficially used for healthy soils, bioenergy production and new products and encourage demand for these products.

Task area 3: Create product stewardship framework legislation applicable to consumer and non-consumer products focusing on the full product life-cycle including cradle-to-cradle design, material and energy content, manufacturing and end of life recycling/reuse.

Task area 4: Review implementation of existing environmentally preferred purchasing policies and recommend new environmentally preferred purchasing policies to be used by state and local government entities that will result in reduced GHG generation. (This is scheduled for more review and a 2009 proposal.)

An unresolved issue is the potential impact to the Public Works Assistance Account. Under current law, the state imposes a 3.6% solid waste tax on garbage that generates approximately $60 million per biennium for the Public Works Assistance Account, more commonly known as the Public Works Trust Fund. The Beyond Waste’s objectives of increasing recycling and product stewardship will reduce the solid waste stream. By definition, this will reduce revenues and loan funds available to the Public Works Assistance Account. AWC has been participating in the Beyond Waste IWG and has been pursuing a policy of "revenue neutrality" relative to the PWAA.

For more information, visit the Department of Ecology’s website at: www.ecy.wa.gov/climatechange/2008CAT_iwg_bw.htm or contact Ashley Probart at ashleyp@awcnet.org, or at (360) 753-4137.

City Pavement Management Data Reporting Requirement is Past Due

In order to fulfill a state legislative reporting requirement, AWC and the Department of Transportation - Highways and Local Programs Division, jointly collects arterial street pavement condition data. For 2008, we are required to report on the condition of 85% of the total arterial network throughout the state. AWC staff uses this information when meeting with our legislators to explain how we manage our system and to point out our need for state participation in maintaining our arterial system. For more information, please contact Bob Brooks at brookbo@wsdot.wa.gov.

Sixty-Nine Cities are Overdue in Implementing the Managed Access Highway Transportation Budget Proviso Reporting Requirement!!

The 2007 Transportation Budget included a proviso requiring cities to report on whether or not they had established an Access Management Plan along state highways within city limits. The reporting requirement is to be completed by the end of this year. To date, approximately 55% of affected cities have complied with this requirement and 34% have not responded to our outreach.

AWC staff will be contacting the remaining cities in the next few weeks in order to fulfill this requirement. For more information on access management requirements, please refer to: www.wsdot.wa.gov/planning/LandUse/accessonstatehighways and to www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/88BFFDA6-9EF1-4B2D-8425-0633D9C59C47/0/CityResponsetoManagedAccessProviso.pdf for the status of how your city has responded to this requirement.

Capital Budget Proviso

Section 1022 of the 2008 Capital Budget (ESHB 2765) has resulted in a budget proviso requiring the Office of Financial Management (OFM) to develop an Infrastructure Investment Plan by December 2008. Key features of the proviso are to review infrastructure programs within the Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development, the Department of Health, and the Department of Ecology and assess how well they align with state priorities.

The proviso requires an assessment of revenue needed to support infrastructure funding within the respective programs. OFM staff has included a representative from the AWC and county association as part of its initial stakeholder outreach. OFM has completed focus group meetings and is now in the evaluative process of the state managed infrastructure programs. For more information, please contact Ashley Probart at ashleyp@awcnet.org, or at 1-800-562-8981.

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