By LaVendrick Smith
NPA Olympia News Bureau
OLYMPIA—Gov. Jay Inslee and the Department of Transportation intend to continue plans for improvements to the Interstate 405 express toll lanes despite a public outcry and the ouster of WSDOT Secretary Lynn Peterson by the Washington State Senate earlier this month.
Inslee on Tuesday announced more than 12 changes that have either been made or are on the way for the corridor. These include making the lanes more accessible going northbound on the corridor at SR 520, and adding additional signs and increasing access to the lanes going northbound at NE 160th Street. Inslee also wants to add a northbound lane at SR 520 and NE 70th Place, and a general-purpose shoulder northbound on the corridor from SR 527 to Interstate 5.
Inslee also said he supports a proposal to eliminate toll fees on nights and weekends, and hopes to see that happen by spring.
The toll lanes were implemented on I-405 in September, and have been criticized by commuters who say the lanes have increased congestion on the corridor and that they are too expensive to use.
“We’re still committed to making these changes and continuing to monitor and adjust as necessary,” said Patty Rubstello, assistant secretary for the DOT toll division.
Rubstello said the agency had been working on changes to address commuters’ concerns at the time the Senate refused to confirm Peterson’s position. The department had already been adding striping to the lanes to clearly indicate access points to enter and exit the lanes and will continue that project over the next couple of months.
The problems surrounding the lanes were one reason cited when Senate Republicans voted along party lines not to affirm Peterson as the department’s secretary after she had held the position for three years.
Sen. Andy Hill, R-Redmond, called the toll lanes an “epic fail” and said the department lacked accountability for the problems with the lanes.
“The way you fix accountability, the way you impose ourselves as a Legislature, is to impose that accountability on our own,” Hill said. “I have no confidence that the agency is in a position to fix the problems they have without a change at the top.”
Hill is the sponsor of Senate Bill 6152 that would make the lanes a two-year pilot program and remove fees from being enforced on nights, weekends and federal holidays, though the proposal didn’t get a floor vote before the Senate’s cutoff deadline Wednesday.
The bill also directed the department to do whatever is possible to extend the entry and exit points for the lanes.
Peterson’s firing was met with anger from Inslee, who called the Senate Republicans’ actions dishonest, saying they acted for political reasons. It was an “election-year stunt,” he said during his press briefing last week.
Republicans insist they were holding the department leader accountable for issues, including the tolls.
“People are just spending way too much time on the roads that we built,” said Rep. Dan Kristiansen, R-Snohomish. “Let’s restore some of the ability of our public to be able to…get back home to their families in a reasonable amount of time, instead of spending, in my district, two to three hours a day commuting to their work.”
(This story is part of a series of news reports from the Washington State Legislature provided through a reporting internship sponsored by the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation. Reach reporter LaVendrick Smith at lavendricksmith@gmail.com; follow him on Twitter: @LaVendrickS)
