Details on Rep. Jake Fey's "Miles Ahead" new transportation revenue package

By Chris Herman

Senior Director of Trade & Transportation

House Transportation Chair Jake Fey rolled out his much-anticipated new revenue transportation package this week. Called Miles Ahead, it puts $6B into maintenance and preservation over the next 16 years while also making other sizable investments. The $22B package provides funding for some, but not all, anticipated bridge replacement, reconstruction and mobility improvements.  A full list of projects and funding can be found here.

While monumental in size and scope, the package is missing a key transportation funding component: revenue. Revenue conversations are happening, though, and Miles Ahead anticipates a small amount of revenue from SB 5126, Governor Inslee’s Washington Climate Commitment Act, a cap & invest program which has advanced in the Senate and will likely be heard on the Senate floor this weekend. In 2015’s Connecting Washington, the last big transportation package to pass, legislators also focused first on how to spend new transportation revenue, passed that bill and made it contingent on a revenue scheme, which they followed up with a few weeks later. Miles Ahead appears to follow this strategy.

Many questions about Miles Ahead remain. For instance, the proposal calls for $363M in funding for freight corridors but key details, such as who will select those projects and when, are unanswered. WPPA will continue to monitor this proposal along with the others which have been offered for consideration during the 2021 legislative session.