The Washington State Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) funds high priority transportation projects in communities throughout the state to enhance the movement of people, goods, and services. The TIB is a state agency, created by the Legislature, that distributes and manages street construction and maintenance grants to cities and urban counties throughout the State of Washington.
The TIB grant funding comes from the revenue generated by 3 cents of the statewide gas tax to cities and counties for transportation projects. Previous legislatures have also authorized general obligation bond sales for the purposes of funding TIB grant programs.
The TIB Board is composed of 21 members representing cities, counties, the Washington State Department of Transportation, and other transportation-related industries, including one member representing nonmotorized transportation.
Provisions of the TIB are modified to remove references to: obsolete accounts and programs, update outdated terms, sunset retired bonds, and repeal obsolete sections.
(In support) It is an honor and a privilege to serve on the TIB whose members represent a wide range of local government entities. Those members include representatives from large and small counties, large and small cities, and lots of people with technical and engineering backgrounds. The TIB has existed for almost 60 years and is a grant agency for urban portions of counties and all cities in the state. The TIB provides nearly $400 million to more than 500 projects around the state.
The TIB provisions do contain obsolete references and to streamline the agency, it is important to update, align, and streamline the agency's accounts. This bill removes obsolete policy such as requiring cities and counties to submit long range arterial data to the TIB that is no longer needed due to advances in technology since the TIB was created in 1967. Therefore, it is important to remove the outdated language so that cities and counties are not out of compliance and at an audit risk. The TIB retired bonds in recent years that saved millions of dollars for the taxpayers. The TIB provisions contain a half-century old section that encourages funding bike lanes to address the energy crisis in the 1970s. So cleaning up the references to an outdated policy and sunsetting retired bonds is a good thing.
(Opposed) None.
Representative Sam Low, prime sponsor; and Ashley Probart, Transportation Improvement Board.