Inslee's Budget removes funds for Spokane's North-South Freeway (Olympia: luxury, calculation)

[wolfdog]

Originally Posted by rantiquity

I saw that an electric ferry is going to be built to service a island in the San Juan that has 86 people on it. Those residents are not happy as they like their current ferry as per interviews on a local TV station.

Another stupid Buttgiug idea

[pnwguy2]

Originally Posted by wolfdog

Another stupid Buttgiug idea

Consistent with US officials out of touch. Though the US helps with many of these projects, the locals do a better job of what is needed. It is a bad system but it is what we have.

[Transmition]

He brings this up every now and then but never seems to remember me pointing out how dumb the argument is. From what I remember, in 2014 western Washington got about $100,000 in DOT funds more than they pay in. This was somewhat dwarfed by the billions extra that western Washington sent back in other tax dollars. So eastern Washington is looking at a profit of billions, but waaaah, they are treated so unfairly.

[Transmition]

If you are curious about the actual figures, I looked them up again. It seems that the most recent figures that split DOT budgets by county are from 2014, so I used them. The data was from this:
https://wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/f...ueHistory.xlsx

Bear in mind that King County's overspending for 2014 is double that of all of the previous years, so I guess they bought something big that year. At the other end of the table, Thurston County always brings in almost double what they spend, but I have no idea why that would be. So King County does overspend on transportation every year (but only 4th place in overspending%), but they also contribute excess funds through other taxes to the state that exceeds the entire DOT budget for the state. Spokane County is consistently a money pit for both.

I've reformatted everything into a more digestible form and posted it below. I added a column with the 2016 excess taxes paid, so you can see how how much comparatively they bring in for the state minus their costs. I don't have the 2014 figures for that, but I don't expect there to be a huge difference. No county is getting 40c on the dollar, the only one near that is Thurston County with 53, which is in Western Washington. But you can see that western Washington only gets 2% extra compared to the rest of the state, based on total revenues.

Listed in order of those who get the the least for their DOT dollar down to those who get the most. I've marked the western counties with * so you get to decide what central counties count as.

County _ DOT Total Revenue _ Total Expend _ Difference _____% _ Excess taxes
*Thurston ____ 135,373,416 _ 72,124,726 _ 63,248,690 _ 53.30% _ -139,000,000
Walla Walla ___ 26,623,999 _ 20,804,470 __ 5,819,530 _ 78.10% _ -53,700,000
*San Juan _____ 11,878,130 _ 10,060,029 __ 1,818,101 _ 84.70% _ 27,200,000
*Grays Harbor _ 28,871,811 _ 24,515,478 __ 4,356,332 _ 84.90% _ -80,200,000
Kittitas ______ 16,084,248 _ 13,797,204 __ 2,287,044 _ 85.80% _ 1,100,000
*Island _______ 29,750,628 _ 25,586,841 __ 4,163,788 _ 86.00% _ -27,700,000
Asotin _________ 6,207,603 __ 5,424,129 ____ 783,474 _ 87.40% _ -24,400,000
Stevens _______ 18,180,678 _ 16,548,700 __ 1,631,977 _ 91.00% _ -53,300,000
Ferry __________ 8,040,174 __ 7,332,595 ____ 707,580 _ 91.20% _ -7,100,000
Adams _________ 13,660,723 _ 12,490,379 __ 1,170,344 _ 91.40% _ -32,700,000
Yakima ________ 73,945,303 _ 67,922,627 __ 6,022,676 _ 91.90% _ -395,400,000
*Mason ________ 17,717,705 _ 16,744,325 ____ 973,380 _ 94.50% _ -68,500,000
Benton ________ 54,653,602 _ 51,856,787 __ 2,796,815 _ 94.90% _ -82,800,000
*Snohomish ___ 174,334,921 _ 166,799,062 _ 7,535,858 _ 95.70% _ -43,800,000
Grant _________ 35,611,754 _ 34,396,039 __ 1,215,715 _ 96.60% _ -97,500,000
Whitman _______ 18,846,332 _ 18,228,763 ____ 617,568 _ 96.70% _ -21,200,000
*Cowlitz ______ 33,410,532 _ 32,401,011 __ 1,009,522 _ 97.00% _ -95,700,000
Garfield _______ 3,228,606 __ 3,144,912 _____ 83,694 _ 97.40% _ -1,300,000
*Clallam ______ 25,545,211 _ 24,969,812 ____ 575,399 _ 97.70% _ -57,300,000
*Whatcom ______ 72,592,937 _ 71,262,838 __ 1,330,099 _ 98.20% _ -20,600,000
Pend Oreille ___ 5,492,566 __ 5,419,596 _____ 72,971 _ 98.70% _ -12,800,000
Okanogan ______ 16,696,624 _ 16,480,861 ____ 215,763 _ 98.70% _ -72,700,000
*Jefferson ____ 10,174,082 _ 10,096,862 _____ 77,220 _ 99.20% _ 100,000
Franklin ______ 17,473,614 _ 17,727,159 ___ -253,545 _ 101.50% _ -118,000,000
Columbia _______ 4,956,482 __ 5,051,969 ____ -95,486 _ 101.90% _ -1,900,000
*Kitsap _______ 63,122,134 _ 64,701,392 _ -1,579,257 _ 102.50% _ -142,600,000
*Skagit _______ 46,209,149 _ 47,365,838 _ -1,156,689 _ 102.50% _ 28,100,000
Klickitat _____ 13,488,927 _ 13,894,422 ___ -405,495 _ 103.00% _ -8,100,000
*Pierce ______ 277,170,713 _ 287,171,119 _ -10,000,406 _ 103.60% _ -507,900,000
*Pacific ______ 10,421,839 _ 10,811,973 ___ -390,134 _ 103.70% _ -21,200,000
Lincoln ________ 9,850,709 _ 10,332,883 ___ -482,174 _ 104.90% _ -13,900,000
*Wahkiakum _____ 6,377,371 __ 6,757,446 ___ -380,075 _ 106.00% _ -3,800,000
Chelan ________ 23,054,169 _ 24,510,495 _ -1,456,326 _ 106.30% _ 10,200,000
*Clark _______ 127,348,323 _ 135,891,669 _ -8,543,347 _ 106.70% _ -373,300,000
*Skamania ______ 4,446,411 __ 4,757,624 ___ -311,213 _ 107.00% _ -6,300,000
*King ________ 995,262,103 _ 1,077,414,160 _ -82,152,057 _ 108.30% _ 2,949,800,000
*Spokane _____ 152,393,341 _ 167,826,177 __ -15,432,836 _ 110.10% _ -350,400,000
*Lewis ________ 28,992,788 __ 34,384,772 ___ -5,391,984 _ 118.60% _ -61,500,000
Douglas _______ 20,318,056 __ 24,362,448 ___ -4,044,392 _ 119.90% _ -20,500,000

Total_______ 2,637,807,716 _ 2,661,369,592 _ -23,561,877 _ 100.90% _ -600,000

*Western ____ 2,251,393,545 ___ 2,291,643,154 _ -40,249,609 _ 101.79% __ 1,005,400,000
Not western ___ 386,414,169 _____ 369,726,438 __ 16,687,733 __ 95.68% _ -1,006,000,000

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by PS90

https://www.krem.com/article/money/e...5-b5916049746c

I don't think that this is surprising in any way. After all, King Jay can't see Spokane from the Space Needle, so he doesn't care about our votes.

I especially like this:

"Current priorities in the transportation budget include:

Improvements to traffic safety, like bike lanes
$1.12 billion over ten years for a hybrid-electric ferry system, plus more than $20 million on training and hiring ferry workers
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives"

So, basically, a much-needed major arterial through Spokane is less important than bike lanes, brand-new ferries and "diversity initiatives".

How does this guy keep getting elected?

Oh, that's right - Seattle.

I was thinking the next progressive move is to convert all the lanes of our states highways into bicycle lanes. All the food and freight can stop at the border and get transferred into cargo bikes like in India. After they remove the Snake River dams we aren't going to have enough electricity for all this new age electric everything anyway. Maybe the people pedaling the bikes can be made to wear breathe-o-meters and get taxed for the C02 they omit.

[509]

Originally Posted by Transmition

If you are curious about the actual figures, I looked them up again. It seems that the most recent figures that split DOT budgets by county are from 2014, so I used them. The data was from this:
https://wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/f...ueHistory.xlsx

Bear in mind that King County's overspending for 2014 is double that of all of the previous years, so I guess they bought something big that year. At the other end of the table, Thurston County always brings in almost double what they spend, but I have no idea why that would be. So King County does overspend on transportation every year (but only 4th place in overspending%), but they also contribute excess funds through other taxes to the state that exceeds the entire DOT budget for the state. Spokane County is consistently a money pit for both.

I've reformatted everything into a more digestible form and posted it below. I added a column with the 2016 excess taxes paid, so you can see how how much comparatively they bring in for the state minus their costs. I don't have the 2014 figures for that, but I don't expect there to be a huge difference. No county is getting 40c on the dollar, the only one near that is Thurston County with 53, which is in Western Washington. But you can see that western Washington only gets 2% extra compared to the rest of the state, based on total revenues....................
]

Thanks for posting the link, which went to a dead end.

BUT you need to include the Federal transportation dollars under the control of the Governor. I am sure you noticed those funding signs on the highway where the Fed's almost always pick up 90% of the costs. The state funds are just used as a match.

But your 2% extra for western Washington matches pretty close to my data analysis which shows that western Washington overpays for social services to the poor, elderly, and schools in eastern Washington and eastern Washington overpays for the freeways, bridges and ferries in western Washington.

In the end.....as I noted it is a push.

Can you fix the link....I would like to explore that data set.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Transmition

If you are curious about the actual figures, I looked them up again. It seems that the most recent figures that split DOT budgets by county are from 2014, so I used them. The data was from this:
https://wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/f...ueHistory.xlsx

Bear in mind that King County's overspending for 2014 is double that of all of the previous years, so I guess they bought something big that year. At the other end of the table, Thurston County always brings in almost double what they spend, but I have no idea why that would be. So King County does overspend on transportation every year (but only 4th place in overspending%), but they also contribute excess funds through other taxes to the state that exceeds the entire DOT budget for the state. Spokane County is consistently a money pit for both.

I've reformatted everything into a more digestible form and posted it below. I added a column with the 2016 excess taxes paid, so you can see how how much comparatively they bring in for the state minus their costs. I don't have the 2014 figures for that, but I don't expect there to be a huge difference. No county is getting 40c on the dollar, the only one near that is Thurston County with 53, which is in Western Washington. But you can see that western Washington only gets 2% extra compared to the rest of the state, based on total revenues.

Listed in order of those who get the the least for their DOT dollar down to those who get the most. I've marked the western counties with * so you get to decide what central counties count as.

County _ DOT Total Revenue _ Total Expend _ Difference _____% _ Excess taxes
*Thurston ____ 135,373,416 _ 72,124,726 _ 63,248,690 _ 53.30% _ -139,000,000
Walla Walla ___ 26,623,999 _ 20,804,470 __ 5,819,530 _ 78.10% _ -53,700,000
*San Juan _____ 11,878,130 _ 10,060,029 __ 1,818,101 _ 84.70% _ 27,200,000
*Grays Harbor _ 28,871,811 _ 24,515,478 __ 4,356,332 _ 84.90% _ -80,200,000
Kittitas ______ 16,084,248 _ 13,797,204 __ 2,287,044 _ 85.80% _ 1,100,000
*Island _______ 29,750,628 _ 25,586,841 __ 4,163,788 _ 86.00% _ -27,700,000
Asotin _________ 6,207,603 __ 5,424,129 ____ 783,474 _ 87.40% _ -24,400,000
Stevens _______ 18,180,678 _ 16,548,700 __ 1,631,977 _ 91.00% _ -53,300,000
Ferry __________ 8,040,174 __ 7,332,595 ____ 707,580 _ 91.20% _ -7,100,000
Adams _________ 13,660,723 _ 12,490,379 __ 1,170,344 _ 91.40% _ -32,700,000
Yakima ________ 73,945,303 _ 67,922,627 __ 6,022,676 _ 91.90% _ -395,400,000
*Mason ________ 17,717,705 _ 16,744,325 ____ 973,380 _ 94.50% _ -68,500,000
Benton ________ 54,653,602 _ 51,856,787 __ 2,796,815 _ 94.90% _ -82,800,000
*Snohomish ___ 174,334,921 _ 166,799,062 _ 7,535,858 _ 95.70% _ -43,800,000
Grant _________ 35,611,754 _ 34,396,039 __ 1,215,715 _ 96.60% _ -97,500,000
Whitman _______ 18,846,332 _ 18,228,763 ____ 617,568 _ 96.70% _ -21,200,000
*Cowlitz ______ 33,410,532 _ 32,401,011 __ 1,009,522 _ 97.00% _ -95,700,000
Garfield _______ 3,228,606 __ 3,144,912 _____ 83,694 _ 97.40% _ -1,300,000
*Clallam ______ 25,545,211 _ 24,969,812 ____ 575,399 _ 97.70% _ -57,300,000
*Whatcom ______ 72,592,937 _ 71,262,838 __ 1,330,099 _ 98.20% _ -20,600,000
Pend Oreille ___ 5,492,566 __ 5,419,596 _____ 72,971 _ 98.70% _ -12,800,000
Okanogan ______ 16,696,624 _ 16,480,861 ____ 215,763 _ 98.70% _ -72,700,000
*Jefferson ____ 10,174,082 _ 10,096,862 _____ 77,220 _ 99.20% _ 100,000
Franklin ______ 17,473,614 _ 17,727,159 ___ -253,545 _ 101.50% _ -118,000,000
Columbia _______ 4,956,482 __ 5,051,969 ____ -95,486 _ 101.90% _ -1,900,000
*Kitsap _______ 63,122,134 _ 64,701,392 _ -1,579,257 _ 102.50% _ -142,600,000
*Skagit _______ 46,209,149 _ 47,365,838 _ -1,156,689 _ 102.50% _ 28,100,000
Klickitat _____ 13,488,927 _ 13,894,422 ___ -405,495 _ 103.00% _ -8,100,000
*Pierce ______ 277,170,713 _ 287,171,119 _ -10,000,406 _ 103.60% _ -507,900,000
*Pacific ______ 10,421,839 _ 10,811,973 ___ -390,134 _ 103.70% _ -21,200,000
Lincoln ________ 9,850,709 _ 10,332,883 ___ -482,174 _ 104.90% _ -13,900,000
*Wahkiakum _____ 6,377,371 __ 6,757,446 ___ -380,075 _ 106.00% _ -3,800,000
Chelan ________ 23,054,169 _ 24,510,495 _ -1,456,326 _ 106.30% _ 10,200,000
*Clark _______ 127,348,323 _ 135,891,669 _ -8,543,347 _ 106.70% _ -373,300,000
*Skamania ______ 4,446,411 __ 4,757,624 ___ -311,213 _ 107.00% _ -6,300,000
*King ________ 995,262,103 _ 1,077,414,160 _ -82,152,057 _ 108.30% _ 2,949,800,000
*Spokane _____ 152,393,341 _ 167,826,177 __ -15,432,836 _ 110.10% _ -350,400,000
*Lewis ________ 28,992,788 __ 34,384,772 ___ -5,391,984 _ 118.60% _ -61,500,000
Douglas _______ 20,318,056 __ 24,362,448 ___ -4,044,392 _ 119.90% _ -20,500,000

Total_______ 2,637,807,716 _ 2,661,369,592 _ -23,561,877 _ 100.90% _ -600,000

*Western ____ 2,251,393,545 ___ 2,291,643,154 _ -40,249,609 _ 101.79% __ 1,005,400,000
Not western ___ 386,414,169 _____ 369,726,438 __ 16,687,733 __ 95.68% _ -1,006,000,000

So even though this is obviously way out of date, it seems that Spokane was doing better than any county in Puget Sound back then.

Why was King getting so much in 2014? Was that the big dig on the waterfront? Or was that something to do with Sound Transit? or the I-90 bridge across Lake Union? I don't recall exactly. But it would be more relevant to look at the decade-by-decade numbers since big transportation projects get spent over multi-year periods. The I-90 expansion from Seattle to Bellevue took over 20 years as I recall with the tunnels through Leschi and Mercer Island and the bridges.

Also the numbers don't look right to me. For example, where does your -350,400,000 excess tax dollars for Spokane come from compared to the 2,949,800,000 for King? Those numbers seem wildly off. That is 2.9 TRILLION for King which is more than the total tax revenue for the entire state.

[PS90]

Originally Posted by Transmition

He brings this up every now and then but never seems to remember me pointing out how dumb the argument is. From what I remember, in 2014 western Washington got about $100,000 in DOT funds more than they pay in. This was somewhat dwarfed by the billions extra that western Washington sent back in other tax dollars. So eastern Washington is looking at a profit of billions, but waaaah, they are treated so unfairly.

What does that have to do with anything?

Spokane is this state's second biggest city and this is a project that has been slowly getting funding trickling in since 2002. Now, King Inslee wants to reduce that funding even more - why?

Seattle can have a billion-dollar tunnel-driller sit broken for 3 years, but yet Spokane doesn't even get enough finding for a simple state highway...

And Spokane has held-up it's end of the deal at every step...

[Transmition]

No one noticed that I accidentally included Spokane county in with western washington (there might be other mistakes too, I'm not perfect), so here are the corrected figures for west vs not-west:

Western ___ 2,099,000,204 _ 2,123,816,977 _ -24,816,773 _ 101.18% ___ 1,355,800,000
Not western _ 538,807,510 ___ 537,552,615 ___ 1,254,897 _ 99.77%__ _ -1,356,400,000

So western Washington gets almost 1.2 % extra and the non-west loses 0.3%. The figures for the excess taxes make more sense now too. These are $1.36 billion, not trillion. That's how much the west gives to the east, so I wouldn't call it a "push". To read the data correctly, you'll see that Spokane spent 10% more money that they had income, so they are one of the worst.

Looks like the link I got my WSDOT data from is dead now, I've loaded it here so people can see the raw numbers. Everything is split, and there is ten years of data there.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w8x4615l2e...01_0.xlsx?dl=0
I only have WSDOT figures, so if you can find federal funding figures somewhere that splits the state then please point me at them. And more recent data would be nice too.

So I think I've killed this "Eastern Washington road spending is so unfair" myth again.

[PS90]

Originally Posted by Transmition

No one noticed that I accidentally included Spokane county in with western washington (there might be other mistakes too, I'm not perfect), so here are the corrected figures for west vs not-west:

Western ___ 2,099,000,204 _ 2,123,816,977 _ -24,816,773 _ 101.18% ___ 1,355,800,000
Not western _ 538,807,510 ___ 537,552,615 ___ 1,254,897 _ 99.77%__ _ -1,356,400,000

So western Washington gets almost 1.2 % extra and the non-west loses 0.3%. The figures for the excess taxes make more sense now too. These are $1.36 billion, not trillion. That's how much the west gives to the east, so I wouldn't call it a "push". To read the data correctly, you'll see that Spokane spent 10% more money that they had income, so they are one of the worst.

Looks like the link I got my WSDOT data from is dead now, I've loaded it here so people can see the raw numbers. Everything is split, and there is ten years of data there.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w8x4615l2e...01_0.xlsx?dl=0
I only have WSDOT figures, so if you can find federal funding figures somewhere that splits the state then please point me at them. And more recent data would be nice too.

So I think I've killed this "Eastern Washington road spending is so unfair" myth again.

Okay.

Again - what does that have to do with this thread? Are you saying that King Inslee is pissed because he has to provide some small amount of tax revenue money to the entire state and not just his beloved Western WA, so that's why he's trying to pull the funding?

Literally every state has less populated areas that, by definition, do not generate the same tax revenue as the populated areas. Of course Eastern WA is going to generate less tax revenue due to less people, much higher percentage of non-tax-generating public lands, etc.

Those parts of this state, such as Eastern WA, are still the governor's responsibility, whether Inslee gives a damn or not.