Transportation Choices Coalition. Transportation Choices Coalition was incorporated in 1993 as an umbrella organization for groups, businesses, public agencies and concerned individuals. Transportation Choices is Washington's only organization focused on improving transportation statewide.

As a membership organization we have grown from a small band of member groups to a mobilized coalition of diverse organizations and active individual members in 19 counties statewide. Members are located in communities from Everett to Vancouver, Bellevue to the Tri-Cities, Seattle to Spokane. Our individual members include bicyclists, transit riders, rail supporters, anti-sprawl and transportation activists, environmental activists and supporters, transportation planners, city and county council members, and many others.

Through our organizing efforts and partnerships, we have significantly expanded the quantity and diversity of participants now playing an active role in transportation decisions. We have also become a recognized leader in transportation reform efforts in Washington. Our representation is sought at state and regional transportation policy and advisory committees. Numerous elected officials and planners in different areas of the state have come to value and rely upon Transportation Choices Coalition's perspective and our technical expertise.

Transportation in Washington. Transportation in Washington is a highly politicized issue and an ongoing heated debate. But, the Transportation Choices Coalition and our allies are changing the debate and providing a critical voice. Shifting significant funding to choices will take a sustained effort, and Transportation Choices Coalition is leading the way.

Washington's transportation policies largely support the idea that has been with us since the 1950s -- that laying more pavement is the answer. Millions that could be invested in building a network of transportation choices for people in Washington have been put into expanding roads. And as leaders, citizens and the media talk more and more about a "transportation crisis" in Washington, the pressure to lay pavement grows.

Adding fuel to the fire, road expansion proponent Tim Eyman and supporters have learned that voters can be persuaded to support road-building or transit-cutting agendas if it involves a tax cut. In 1998, a statewide referendum passed the polls (R-49) in which citizens voted for a $30 reduction in the tax tacked onto their yearly car registration (the MVET). This complicated, money-shifting measure resulted in more money for highway lane expansions, and large cuts in funding for transit and other transportation choices.

The next year, anti-tax crusaders brought forward citizen initiative 695, which also passed with the voters. It brought the car tab tax even lower to a flat $30 a year. This dramatic cut eliminated $750 million from the budget for bus service across the state, causing big reductions in bus service everywhere. In 2000 the same anti-tax crusaders collected enough signatures and gathered enough funding from highway construction and pavement interests to put I-745 on the ballot. The initiative would have forced Washington to spend no less than 90% of its transportation dollars on pavement, leaving a meager 10% for choices! This was the first initiative that directly attacked transportation choices, and would have been devastating for the state. Washington voters, including many in eastern Washington, turned it down by a wide margin of 59% voting against it.

We participated in campaigning against all of these proposals. Building on the pro-transportation choices momentum built up in these successive efforts, we have had significant successes.