This project conducted a statewide community outreach effort designed to inform the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) about the transportation spending priorities of state residents as part of WSDOT’s update of the Highway System Plan.
The Highway System Plan (HSP) defines the state’s vision for preserving, maintaining, improving, and operating state highways in Washington. The updated plan will cover years 2027 to 2046. Among other things, the state’s HSP informs the agency’s recommendations to the Washington State Legislature about upcoming funding allocations for the state highway system.
A major consideration for the current update is the inclusion of the opinions, perspectives, and priorities of the state’s residents, business owners, and public decision makers. The HSP survey was designed to understand Washington state residents’ relative priorities for transportation funding. Over 1,400 state residents completed the survey. Survey choices were based on funding levels proposed within existing constraints provided by WSDOT staff. Given those options, respondents prioritized spending across nine highway-related budget categories within the constraints of minimum spending levels and set spending steps for each category, an inability to skip any given spending category, and a maximum of a $3 billion hypothetical budget. The nine categories presented to respondents were pavement, bridges, stormwater facilities, maintenance, safety, operations, walking and bicycling, increasing travel options, and new and bigger highways.
The survey results indicated that respondents prioritized repair activities. Across the survey’s nine spending categories, pavement repair and rehabilitation was the only category for which a plurality of respondents chose the maximum offered level of funding. A plurality of respondents chose the second-highest spending option for the maintenance and bridges categories, whereas for all other spending categories, at least a plurality chose the lowest or second-lowest funding options offered.
Survey results were analyzed by state geographic region and by respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics.
To provide insight into potential regional differences in spending priorities, the state was categorized into four regions: Western Washington (west of I-5), the I-5 Corridor, Central Washington, and Eastern Washington. The results showed that residents held very consistent priorities among the defined regions. This consistency provided high confidence in the statistical validity of the survey’s results as a measure of public sentiment.
Respondents also provided socio-demographic information, and again, results were fairly consistent among demographic groups. Nevertheless, some demographics did seem to marginally affect spending priorities, including age, income, and vehicle ownership. The youngest respondents were less likely to allocate high levels of funding to bridges, pavement, and maintenance and were more likely to allocate higher levels of funding to walking and bicycling. Respondents with higher incomes were more likely to allocate more funds to pavement, and those with the lowest incomes were more likely to choose a higher level of funding for walking and bicycling. Those with more vehicles in their household were more likely to allocate less funding for operations, walking, and bicycling and more funding to new and bigger highways.
Authors:
Rachel Brown, UW Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center-UW
Anne Vernez Moudon, UW Department of Urban Design and Planning
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Jeremy Jewkes
WSDOT Project Manager: Jon Peterson