This Washington
Should UW Get a Break on the City's Commercial Parking Tax?
Opponents and backers of a bill that would give the University of Washington and a handful of other Seattle-area colleges a break on the city's commercial parking tax equivalent to the amount they spend on commute-trip reduction programs like the subsidized UPass bus program turned out to plead their cases in Olympia this afternoon.
The UPass program provides subsidized bus passes at reduced cost to students, staff, and faculty. It's funded by parking receipts at the university; in other words, students who drive to school directly subsidize students who don't, a balance transit proponents have said is fair. With higher taxes, though, proponents of the program argue that people won't use the UW's parking lots---slashing funding for the successful transit program. They asked the city unsuccessfully for an exemption from a recent 2.5-percent increase in the parking tax; now they've turned to Olympia for a similar, but not identical exemption. The bill is sponsored by U District-area Sen. Ed Murray in the Senate and transit advocate Marko Liias in the House.
Testifying before the state Senate transportation committee, proponents of the bill argued that it would provided needed relief to a program that has been effective at reducing the number of students, faculty, and staff who drive to the UW alone, and opponents said it would drain the city of Seattle's general fund at a time when the city can ill afford further cuts.
Noting that "I'm a three-time UW graduate and I hope to get it right some day," Seattle city council member Sally Clark told the committee that exempting the school from the parking tax would represent "a large cut at a dedicated funding stream that we've tried to use very judiciously"---a cut, the city estimates, of between $1.8 million and $3.2 million a year. The parking tax funds expensive, long-term projects that are bonded, like the seawall, the Mercer West project, and the Linden Ave. sidewalk project in Northeast Seattle.
"The money that is specific to the commercial parking tax is specific to those large items [where] we need a bond and we need a dedicated revenue stream to pay that bond off over time … or we're simply using the city general fund to do it, [taking] money from all the places we don't went to take it from," Clark said. She said the city is talking with the UW about a grant program that would allow the school, as well as other big institutions like Children's Hospital, to compete for city funding to offset the tax.
However, UW transportation manager Josh Cavanaugh said the grant program wouldn't provide enough money to fix the financial crisis at UPass, which has been caused, he said, by higher UPass ridership, four Metro fare increases in the past four years, and an increase in the commercial parking tax from 5 percent to 12.5 percent over the past few years. The result of all those factors, Cavanaugh said, has been "a cumulative 125 percent increase in the price of a student UPass over just the last three years" and "participation rates falling to the lowest levels in program history, effectively wiping out 20 years of program growth."
"I know of many UW students who would not be going to UW at all ... without this amazing discount through the UPass program," Associated Students of UW Senate vice chair Michelle Nance said.
The UPass program provides subsidized bus passes at reduced cost to students, staff, and faculty. It's funded by parking receipts at the university; in other words, students who drive to school directly subsidize students who don't, a balance transit proponents have said is fair. With higher taxes, though, proponents of the program argue that people won't use the UW's parking lots---slashing funding for the successful transit program. They asked the city unsuccessfully for an exemption from a recent 2.5-percent increase in the parking tax; now they've turned to Olympia for a similar, but not identical exemption. The bill is sponsored by U District-area Sen. Ed Murray in the Senate and transit advocate Marko Liias in the House.
Testifying before the state Senate transportation committee, proponents of the bill argued that it would provided needed relief to a program that has been effective at reducing the number of students, faculty, and staff who drive to the UW alone, and opponents said it would drain the city of Seattle's general fund at a time when the city can ill afford further cuts.
Noting that "I'm a three-time UW graduate and I hope to get it right some day," Seattle city council member Sally Clark told the committee that exempting the school from the parking tax would represent "a large cut at a dedicated funding stream that we've tried to use very judiciously"---a cut, the city estimates, of between $1.8 million and $3.2 million a year. The parking tax funds expensive, long-term projects that are bonded, like the seawall, the Mercer West project, and the Linden Ave. sidewalk project in Northeast Seattle.
"The money that is specific to the commercial parking tax is specific to those large items [where] we need a bond and we need a dedicated revenue stream to pay that bond off over time … or we're simply using the city general fund to do it, [taking] money from all the places we don't went to take it from," Clark said. She said the city is talking with the UW about a grant program that would allow the school, as well as other big institutions like Children's Hospital, to compete for city funding to offset the tax.
However, UW transportation manager Josh Cavanaugh said the grant program wouldn't provide enough money to fix the financial crisis at UPass, which has been caused, he said, by higher UPass ridership, four Metro fare increases in the past four years, and an increase in the commercial parking tax from 5 percent to 12.5 percent over the past few years. The result of all those factors, Cavanaugh said, has been "a cumulative 125 percent increase in the price of a student UPass over just the last three years" and "participation rates falling to the lowest levels in program history, effectively wiping out 20 years of program growth."
"I know of many UW students who would not be going to UW at all ... without this amazing discount through the UPass program," Associated Students of UW Senate vice chair Michelle Nance said.
