Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Tolling topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
State Treasurer: consistent managed‑lane policies (weekend tolling, HOV rules) are needed to fund I‑405/SR‑167 Phase‑1 projects
Summary
The State Treasurer's Office and WSDOT presented four revenue scenarios for the full 405/167 corridor. Modified rate policies (consistent HOV rules, weekend tolling and a $15–$18 cap) can fund active Phase‑1 projects; the largest scenario still leaves roughly $450 million short of fully funding an expanded Phase‑2 program.
The State Treasurer's Office and WSDOT presented a four‑scenario analysis for financing express‑lane investments across the full I‑405/SR‑167 corridor. The analysis measured different toll‑policy packages against two funding sets: active/committed Phase‑1 projects (~$966M) and a larger list of future projects (Phase‑2, up to ~$1.8B).
Scenarios: the baseline keeps existing, non‑uniform policies; option B introduces consistent HOV rules and weekend tolling with a $15 maximum cap; option D raises the cap to $18 and similarly unifies policy; a final sensitivity used the highest revenue assumptions to test funding all toll‑backed projects. Treasurer staff reported that the existing, inconsistent policy (Scenario 1) leaves little margin and is roughly $10M short of fully funding Phase‑1 without aggressive financial engineering.
Scenarios with unified HOV rules and weekend tolling (the $15 and $18 caps) comfortably cover Phase‑1 project needs under conservative financing assumptions. The highest‑revenue approach supports more pay‑as‑you‑go funding but still falls short of fully funding an expanded Phase‑2 program by roughly $450M; that gap is driven by constrained long‑term toll revenue capacity, required repair and replacement reserves, deferred sales tax obligations and conservative debt‑service covenants.
WSDOT and treasurer staff emphasized operational and customer‑expectation reasons for picking unified policies when the Renton–Bellevue segment opens: consistent HOV occupancy rules, unified peak hours and weekend policies reduce driver confusion and enforcement complexity. Commissioners asked staff to run additional operational modeling (near‑term 5–10 year outlook) to estimate impacts on general‑purpose lanes and to continue public engagement before any final rate adoption.
Next steps: staff will refine operational analysis, continue outreach to corridor jurisdictions and community groups, and bring recommended rate and policy options to the commission in late 2026 for public input and winter adoption.
