Cross_cutting

1:13:00 They bought a new flat screen TV. They replaced their washer and dryer. Those big ticket items boosted our sales tax. And so the first year after the pandemic, there was so much sales tax, plus the federal dollars we had that the transportation budget could be backfilled, even with the diminishing value of the gas tax. That's not true anymore. So we are really slowing down projects, not starting things, trying to finish what we started, and trying to put more money into maintenance and operation. Because every year of delay of taking care of what we have makes it more expensive in the long run. So transportation budget is going to be an ongoing problem, and we're going to have to take some big steps in order to address it. Yeah, very well said.

1:13:53 I'll just share from the Senate perspective that I know that our chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, Senator Leas, while this was a supplemental budget year, it was a top, top priority that the budget, transportation budget this year, reflect the need to put resources toward preservation and maintenance. And so while this supplemental transportation budget that we passed this year does that, it doesn't increase. There are no new revenues involved. It's funded primarily through new bonds and existing resources that are there, and with the exception of a couple of additional new fees. But I can share that with a focus toward preservation and maintenance, within that budget there was 1.3 billion that was designated for road and bridge preservation,

1:14:50 200 million for maintenance work, 28 million for ferry preservation projects, and additional 100 million for safety focused prevention. I'll also mention that we have experienced some pretty challenging flooding, as we all know, in various areas of the state recently, and oftentimes those floods have impacted and damaged roadways as well. And we just had a recent, as you know, mudslide on I-5 up north of us in the Woodland area. And a larger one that I think they've only just gotten cleared up and reopened in Bellingham.