What is odd, is the 9 cents a gallon gas tax that was approved just days ago
is going towards a fancy tunnel to replace the via duct and the 520 bridge.
Everyone in the state of washington has to pay for this gas tax, but how
often do people in other counties uses the via duct or the 520 bridge ? The
via duct tunnel is 3 times more than just replacing the old via duct. Why
does seattle have to have a tunnel ? I have lived here all my life, and
about to move out do to all the taxes we pay. Sorry I know this is off
topic but it just ****es me off about more fees and taxes in washington
state.

Thanks
Ed


wrote in message
ups.com...
Maybe you should have to buy a ticket to go through the lock. Or buy a

yearly pass.
Are the locks funded by user fees, or from general revenue?

**********************

The locks are funded by general revenue, as they are a public, federal
waterway.

Pleasure boats are at the bottom of the pecking order for using the
locks, and that's probably OK. The military has first priority, other
government agencies have second priority, commercial boats (tugs,
fishboats, charter cruises, etc) have third priority and finally
recreational users.

We were inbound a few years ago when the large locks were shut down for
repair.
We hung on the waiting wall, literally for several hours while the
traffic *didn't* move through the small lock. By some fluke of timing,
every time the small lock would be available for inbound traffic, the
PA announcer would call out, "Attention on the West Wall, next lock
through is for Argosy only!", and one of the tourist boats running from
Elliott Bay through the locks to Lake Union would go chugging past all
the waiting boats returning from a summer weekend. The poor tourists
from Cleveland, Omaha, East Bugtussle, et all......they'd line the
decks of the Argosy boat to call out "hello!" and wave to all the
waiting boaters as they motored by. When the second or third boatfull
got a good look at just how the local boaters were waving back, they
had to conclude that folks in Seattle must be rude and very unfriendly.

It wouldn't take much of a fee to keep the locks open as they are. I
would guess that a $5 toll wouldn't keep anybody from boating, and
would go a long way toward bridging the funding gap. By the same token,
they ought to charge the thousands of tourists that visit the locks in
any given week $5 or so at the gate- the vast majority of folks
enjoying the locks and using them for recreation will never go through
in a boat.

It's not quite that cut and dried.

The 9 cents goes to a large number of road projects all around the
state.
Some of it is earmarked as "seed money" for the Viaduct and the 520
bridge, but not a dime of that state money will be spent on either of
those projects unless King County residents come up with a way to tax
ourselves for the balance of the money (a few billion)
before 2007.

There has not been a final decision about tunnel vs. elevated structure
for the viaduct.

You may not drive on the viaduct or the 520 bridge or the viaduct, but
look around wherever you live at whatever you've got. "If you've got
it, a truck brought it."
Those two structures are keystones in our statewide transportation
system.
Assuming you shop at WalMart, a whole heap of the stuff you buy is
unloaded from Chinese and Korean ships on the Seattle waterfront and
trucked to your local community. Even if you never drive across the 520
bridge or the viaduct, a whole lot of the commerce and economic
vitality for the entire state flows along those highways.

Here's an interesting exercise you might consider. Add up all the
local, county and state taxes collected in your county. You should be
able to find the numbers pretty easily.
Then compare the total local, county, and state expenditures in your
county. Unless you live in King, Snohomish, or Pierce County you will
see that the total expenditures in your county exceed the total taxes
collected. Only the three most populous counties actually "export"
taxes, so don't be taken in by the radio rabble rousers trying to
increase tension between the red and the blue counties. (This is one of
the reasons that the bill to split off Eastern Washington and make it a
separate state got *nowhere* in the legislature this year) :-)

Don't leave the state, I've been lots of other places and its worth a
few tax dollars to stay here, IMO. :-)