Tomorrow, Thursday, 2/21/2019, the State Senate Transportation Committee is having a hearing at 3:30pm on a bill that will, among other things, eliminate all performance requirements. That is, they will no longer have the requirement to meet the 45mph average speed 90% of the time. BUT THEY WILL BE ABLE TO CHARGE A TOLL ANYWAY!
The whole purpose of creating the toll lanes was to “manage congestion”. This has been repeated many times by the chair of the House Transportation Committee (see video: http://bit.ly/TollLaw )
Now that the toll lanes have proven they don’t reduce congestion, the legislators are changing the rules rather than following the law THAT THEY WROTE which stated if the lanes don’t meet the speed requirements, they would be removed.
This deception and disregard for the public’s interest is why we have grown to distrust government. We must send a powerful message to the legislature that this is completely unacceptable and we will not tolerate it.
They also mislead the public by stating it will pay for improving the highways.
– What they don’t tell us is that they have to take 2 dollars from us to have 1 dollar to spend on transportation.
– What they don’t tell you is that the $20 million they collect is little more than a rounding error in the overall finances of WSDOT with their $5+ Billion budget.
– What they don’t tell you is that 90% of the revenue collected by the tolls is paid by the people of Snohomish County. (read more at http://bit.ly/velvetRope )
If you can appear in Olympia tomorrow and testify, please do. But even if you can’t, please take the time to call/write to submit testimony your legislators and demand they reject this bill. Here are the instructions on how to submit testimony: http://leg.wa.gov/legislature/Pages/Testify.aspx
Here is the list of names to email your testimony to: http://leg.wa.gov/Senate/Committees/TRAN/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx Their email addresses are simply firstname.lastname@leg.wa.gov
Send it to all of the legislators and staff listed on the committee page.
It is Bill SB-5825
Also, be sure to sign our petition at
We need to stop this immediately and demand solutions that work and are equitable to all people.
Cheers,
The team at Stop405Tolls.org
Stop405Tolls 
David, I couldn’t agree with you more! Having said that, I continue to ponder why so many of the folks who signed your petition continue to re-elect the same politicians who have screwed us over on this issue and so many others? Kerri
LikeLike
I’m sorry I can’t be there,I’m out of the country
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
LikeLike
There is no link to the petition in the body of the post.
LikeLike
Also, may I suggest that you provide a cut and paste of the emails to make it easier for folks to send. Other groups do this and it dramatically increases the response rate.
LikeLike
Here are the emails to cut and paste.
steve.hobbs@leg.wa.gov; rebecca.saldana@leg.wa.gov; curtis.lking@leg.wa.gov; tim.sheldon@leg.wa.gov; annette.cleveland@leg.wa.gov; mona.das@leg.wa.gov; phil.fortunato@leg.wa.gov; Liz.lovelett@leg.wa.gov; joe.nguyen@leg.wa.gov; steve.oban@leg.wa.gov; mike.padden@leg.wa.gov; emily.randall@leg.wa.gov; dean.takko@leg.wa.gov; claire.wilson@leg.wa.gov; hans.zeiger@leg.wa.gov
LikeLiked by 1 person