The state is enjoying historic prosperity, so challengers must persuade voters that the incumbents aren't doing their part. For many, traffic is the best way to make points. It's a giant problem and it's tangible. . . . It's an issue that touches every human being here, and everyone is frustrated by it. Carlson cites ever-worsening traffic to support his charge that Locke lacks leadership skills.
Republicans are the ones with a plan.
Carlson's plan includes a wider 520 bridge and a new bridge across the Columbia River to Portland. He also backs Initiative 745, Tim Eyman's ballot measure that would limit spending on mass transit and redirect more money for highway construction. Carlson lists 10 ways to pay for better roads. They include tax breaks for construction work and bonding measures to borrow from Sound Transit funds and revenues from gas taxes and automobile-related sales taxes. More money would come, he says, by privatizing state road maintenance and skimming back on state government bureaucracy.