Ellington

Gov. Chris Gregoire’s decision Monday to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct is a welcome relief. After years of hemming and hawing, our state government has finally grown a pair and made a decision.

Transit policy indecision is perhaps Washington’s greatest governmental flaw, and this solution is long overdue.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct has been a thorn in the city’s side for years.

We’ve watched flakes of concrete fall from it and felt it shake when anything heavier than a Honda Insight drove on it. We’ve feared an inevitable earthquake, and the tragedy that would result were it to occur during rush hour.

Although a tunnel won’t come cheap, it is a solution that keeps the waterfront from being shut down.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct will stay up while the tunnel is under construction, which offsets extra gridlock that would have ensued with a raised or surface-level replacement.

The only issue now is how it’s going to be funded. The state has allocated $2.8 billion to come from gas taxes and auto tabs. But the project is projected to cost more than $4 billion, and were there to be complications or setbacks, this price would only skyrocket. What’s necessary is a tolling system that taxes the use of specific areas and roadways.

We already have one tolling system in place. WSDOT’s “Good to Go!” electronic tolling program is being used on the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Each driver is automatically charged a fee for using the roadway — and only when they use it. A microchip embedded in a windshield sticker is read by an overhead scanner as you drive under it.

The cost of the bridge is being gradually restored by the people using the bridge. This concept may be too novel for Seattle, which likes to bury pressing issues under piles of red tape and ballots.

Focused tolling is the best way to recoup the cost of running hundreds of thousands of automobiles up and down our state’s roadways.

Almost every highway system in Western Europe uses tolls to fund road maintenance, and their roads stay sleek and clean. They also have money to build new ones. If we want to drive, we ought to be willing to pay for the privilege. I don’t mind a tax that is focused, but I do mind when our government indiscriminately raises general taxes. The more specifically targeted a tax is, the more acceptable it will be to taxpayers.

Every car in Seattle that uses a major thoroughfare like I-5 or I-99 should be taxed. Not by much, though.

If every driver were willing to be taxed 10 cents per day when using Seattle’s stretch of I-5, the 280,000 cars would bring in $28,000 per day in revenue. If the tax was 25 cents, the revenue would be $70,000. And when the tunnel is built, a similar policy should be enacted.

Now that Alaskan Way is going underground, Seattle will enjoy a restored waterfront. The city plans to take advantage of the new space for parks. What if we had an Olympic Sculpture Park-style forum running down the whole waterfront, interspersed with shops and open-air cafés? Seattle is growing classier each year. The tunnel, if smartly funded, will be a boon to our economy and will open up a whole new shopping and development area downtown.

We should thank our lucky stars that we have a decision at last.

Reach columnist Jackson Rohrbaugh at opinion@dailyuw.com.