About Us

About Us

Since 1903, the Spokane Area Good Roads Association has advocated in public and private venues for policies and projects that advance the organization’s Vision for good roads and transportation.

Goals

• Establish system preservation and maintenance as a core state transportation priority and seek adequate ongoing funding for that purpose.
  • The state highway system and many city and county roads are not adequately maintained which results in substantially increased costs for pavement repair and replacement as well as needless hazards and unnecessary costs for system users.
  • Increased funding for preservation and maintenance will produce a higher return on public investment than many of the transportation projects the State legislature has funded.
  • A better method of prioritization that reflects system costs and benefits would produce a more effective set of state investments and system management policies.
  • State transportation funds can be more effectively allocated if they are guided by a policy calling for maintaining state highways to the level needed to achieve lowest life-cycle costs.
• Ensure that all motor vehicle fuel taxes and all toll revenues are dedicated to highway purposes as required by the 18th amendment to the state constitution.
  • Improving fuel efficiency and the shift to electric vehicles is eroding fuel tax revenues. To ensure that future revenue is sufficient to fund preservation and maintenance it is essential that state and regional plans comply with the constitutional requirement that dedicates fuel taxes, license fees, toll revenue and related road user charges collected from system users “exclusively for state highway purposes”.
  • Adequate preservation and maintenance of tolled facilities can be provided by reserving a share of revenue for that purpose (in addition to facility operations and debt service).
• Increase awareness of the safety and environmental benefits of highway improvements.
  • State highway reconstruction and expansion projects have significant benefits that usually include saving lives and reducing injuries, improving water quality, reducing emissions, removing barriers to fish, and reducing noise. State and regional grant programs would better reflect adopted policy goals by incorporating those benefits in evaluation criteria.
• Set a course for a 21st Century transportation system.
  • Advances in technology and a rapidly shifting market for mobility are creating both the need and the opportunity to improve the state transportation system so it better serves a growing population and increasing travel demand.
  • To help guide transportation planning and budgeting the State Highway System Plan needs to specifically address developments in vehicle automation, electrification, highway system instrumentation, variable tolling, and road user charging.
  • The specific enhancements needed to optimize highway system efficiency need to be identified in WSDOT plans. Increasing freight volumes and growing personal travel mean that simply maintaining the status quo isn’t sufficient. Economic growth will be hindered unless highway enhancements are implemented that increase efficiency and capacity.
  • The way in which state highways, county roads and city streets function as an integrated multi-modal system merits greater emphasis in State and MPO/RTPO plans.