Washington activist Tim Eyman said lawmakers' disregard for his state's laws prompted an initiative to limit how highways can be tolled and how toll collections can be spent.
The initiative, if successful, could be a hurdle in the financing plan for the Columbia River Crossing, a $3.6 billion project to rebuild Interstate 5 from North Portland to downtown Vancouver and extend light rail into Washington.
In a 40-minute interview with Metro News on Thursday, Eyman said Initiative 1125 isn't just about tolling in any one area.
"We've been watching Olympia, for the last couple of years, find ways to get around the laws and constitution and protections already out there when it comes to raising taxes and raising tolls, and using them in ways that aren't consistent with the law and constitution," Eyman said.
Last year, an Eyman initiative mandated that any tax increase would need a two-thirds majority to pass in the Washington Legislature. I-1053, which passed with 64 percent of the vote, also said any increase in government fees in Washington would require approval of a majority of Washington state legislators.
To Eyman, a toll is a fee that requires approval in the statehouse.
"I'm about to drive across 520 (the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge) and I'm paying $5. I don't think it's too much to ask for a couple of things," he said. "I want you guys (the legislature) to have to take a recorded vote in Olympia on that $5…. And it's not too much to ask for that guy paying $5 for a toll, that the toll goes to the project you're told is being paid for with that money – not stolen for general fund spending or something else."
He also said the initiative is a referendum on variable tolling, set to start this summer on the Evergreen Point bridge in Seattle.
"Assuming we get enough signatures – which is no sure thing – from June through November, we're going to see how variable pricing works," he said. "Then voters are going to have the opportunity to say is this working for you? Does this seem fair? Or do we want to go back to the way tolls have always been?"
He said he saw a scenario in which poorer Washingtonians would be forced to drive on the Interstate 90 bridge across Lake Washington, four miles south, to avoid paying an expensive toll during peak hours on the 520.
"That's going to create this massive bottleneck and congestion problem on I-90," Eyman said. When that happens, he said he envisions legislators saying I-90 needs have tolls, as well.
A provision in Initiative 1125 would ban that kind of financing arrangement, which some have proposed for the Glenn Jackson Bridge on Interstate 205.
The initiative, Eyman said, is a reminder to legislators that a fee requires a vote.
This isn't an effort to "do a statewide initiative because we're concerned about what's happening in the Puget Sound," he said. "This is statewide policy because there's the same willingness to get around the rules when it comes to Spokane, when it comes to Vancouver, when it comes to Bellingham or Wenatchee or my hometown of Yakima."