Remarkably, last month our state legislature passed a transportation bill, a long-stalled package that gave money to the Alaskan Way viaduct, 520 bridge, and I-405 expansion, among other projects. Legislators crowed about their great sense of accomplishment. Only one minor detail marred the celebration.

Those projects most likely won't be built.

That's because the funding in the state package is dependent upon voters passing a matching regional transportation package in less than 20 months, by January of 2007. The state package contributed less than half the cost of these highly expensive projects: $2 billion of the $4 billion for the preferred option for the Alaskan Way viaduct, a bit under $1 billion of the more than $3 billion necessary for I-405, and only half a billion of the $2 to $3 billion needed for a new 520 bridge. And that's not including cost overruns. Voters still need to tax ourselves more for the rest.

For voters still reeling from the shock of gas prices this year, plus a new 9.5 cent hike in the gas tax that came with the state package, it seems like a long shot--even more so considering that the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID), the body charged since 2002 with coming up with a regional plan for voters, has been deadlocked for the last three years on how to go about it. The RTID, comprised of county council members from Pierce, Snohomish, and King Counties, got as far as agreeing on a package to send to voters last year, but the business interests whose approval was needed to fund a campaign balked, saying they didn't believe the measure would pass.

If it wouldn't pass last year, it's hard to understand how a measure would pass in November 2006. That's the one and only shot RTID will have to get voters' approval. It can't come sooner because RTID is also counting on the state legislature to pass a series of reforms aimed at expanding funding options for the district. Such legislation passed the House this year, but stalled in the Senate.

The current RTID plan for funding the rest of the money needed for these hugely expensive projects is expected to come mostly through intrinsically regressive sales tax hikes. Those will hit hard for ordinary households. And that's not all. The relatively poor funding in the state bill for the 520 bridge, the cost of getting Eastside Republican legislators to go along with a gas tax hike that would expand I-405, means that further funding for the 520 bridge will almost certainly come through a proposal to turn 520 into a toll bridge.

It's all a pretty tall order. As Jon Scholes, transportation aide to King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson, told the Post-Intelligencer, "To tell [taxpayers] that we need more is difficult, but it's the reality. Twenty years of transportation neglect isn't taken care of with one vote."

Or, for that matter, with two. There's still more on the Puget Sound's transportation wish list, starting with the need for I-5, at the end of its useful life, to be completely rebuilt through Seattle. Tack on the money taxpayers are now paying for Sound Transit and the financially troubled Monorail, and it's hard to imagine voters not saying "enough!" at some point. Soon.

To further complicate matters, Tim Eyman's new statewide $30 license tab initiative would specifically repeal motor vehicle excise taxes as a means for RTID to raise money, making it more likely that the package will depend heavily on the sales tax.

This, effectively, is the price politicians pay for waiting 20 years to try to fund these projects. They're now asking voters to tax ourselves for all of it at once. If we don't--by January 2007--the state-approved money for the projects goes off the table. Politicians are betting that the deadline will force RTID to get its act together, and then will force voters, faced with an unpalatable tax to fund a transportation need, will swallow hard and fund it.

But will they? Pierce and Snohomish voters really don't care that much about Seattle's gridlock; they do care about their pocketbooks. When the legislature passed the transportation package, every Seattle-area newspaper chose to focus its headline on the gas tax, not on what it would pay for. Voters aren't likely to forget that they're already paying at the pump. Sound Transit is also happily collecting money. And Seattle car owners are experiencing sticker shock from the taxes being use to fund the Monorail.

RTID will get one chance to pass this package. What happens if they don't?

We're likely to find out.