Car-Tab Article Typifies Traffic Lab Failure

The Jan 3^rd Seattle Times Traffic Lab article concerning Tim Eyman’s I-976 Initiative to cut car-tab taxes to a $30 flat-fee continues its failure to effectively “dig into the regions thorniest transportations issues”. While it’s unfortunate more than 60 cities and towns would lose revenue with the flat fee, the article fails to “dig into the issues” concerning the car-tab taxes.

The article attempts to justify the car-tab taxes claiming

”Sound Transit 3, which more than tripled car-tab taxes in the Puget Sound region, passed with about 54 percent of the vote in 2016, as voters chose to fund a massive expansion of public transit.

It neglects to mention that, prior to the vote, a Sound Transit 7/08/2016 post entitled: “ST3 plan would cost typical adult $169 annually or $14 per month,” included the following:

Here’s how much a typical adult would pay if ST3 is approved:

MVET

An adult owning the median value motor vehicle would pay an additional $43 per year in MVET if ST3 were passed. The updated calculation reflects an annual median value $5,333 of vehicles in the Sound Transit District. MVET taxes are determined by a state of Washington depreciation schedule for a specific vehicle’s model and production year. The previous calculation relied on a less representative average vehicle value of $10,135 for the more expansive tri-county area, for a significantly higher annual cost of $78 per adult. 

Like many who took umbrage, I recently paid $424 in Regulator Transit Authority taxes for car-tabs on a 2-year old car; nearly 10 times predicted increase.  Yet, Sound Transit, rather than conceding they'd misled voters, responded to voter complaints in an April 20, 2017 post headlined “Sound Transit 3 car tab rollback threatens light rail to Everett”

During the campaign, Sound Transit was completely transparent about the taxes. We all knew that our car tabs would increase a lot in 2017 to help fund Sound Transit. So when the first invoices arrived, the vast majority of people just paid their tabs. But a vocal minority, with big tabs from expensive cars, took their displeasure to Olympia, hoping that the Legislature would listen to their stories and disregard the will of the people.

Yet the Traffic Lab article justifying the car-tab taxes neglects to mention not only was it a Sound Transit post that had lied about what car tabs would cost before the vote, they neglected to mention that after the vote Sound Transit claimed, “complete transparency about the taxes”.

Joel Connelly June 8^th 2017 Seattle PI article concluded, “ST3 would get only 37% support were voters given a do-over,” a clear indication Sound Transit car-tab mendacity played a major role in its passage.  It’s also “unlikely” the 70% of Seattle voters, who enabled ST3 approval, would have done so if the Traffic Lab had informed them any riders added by the extensions would end access to current riders during peak commute. 

Instead the recent Traffic Lab article continues abiding Sound Transit mendacity and CEO Rugoff’s 2019 absurd budget plans for 2017 to 2041.  The entire area will pay a very heavy price if they continue to do so.