Brandon Vick

"The establishment in Olympia must stop spending transportation dollars on their pet projects while our roads and bridges crumble." -Brandon Vick

Olympia defines traffic mobility as moving people, rather than improving traffic flow. This means they have shifted their priorities from fixing traffic congestion to providing alternative transportation modes that move people instead of moving private passenger vehicles.

Our legislature is too focused on providing alternative forms of transportation like buses and light rail systems that are operated by government agencies. I believe they should be focusing on improving traffic flow and cutting down commute times.

According to the Washington Policy Center, in the current biennium Washington residents paid about $4.18 billion in state taxes and fees to fund transportation and private passenger vehicles account for about 85%of all forms of transportation. Yet in our state a disproportional amount of money is spent on alternative forms of transportation and not on relieving congestion.

As your next representative, I will do everything I can to implement performance standards that tie spending to traffic congestion relief. I will work to end the budgeting shell game of the state charging itself sales tax on transportation projects, use market bases labor pricing instead of prevailing wages, and I will work to pass laws that will require the DOT to follow through with the cost saving recommendations from the State Auditor's Office. The Auditor's Office identified $300 million in redundant and inefficient services and they made some suggestions to cut the waste and the DOT hasn't followed through because they don't have to. The flaw with the current law is that there aren't and RCW's attached and with out any teeth to back the audits up that's really all the cost saving suggestions really are...just suggestions.


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