The House passed the Transportation Budget yesterday 78-19. I was one of a mere 19 votes against the measure, and one of 5 Democrats to do so.

I do not pretend to have a deep domain of knowledge about how the gas tax flows to highways and ferries, nor can I pretend to suggest that the work of the transportation committees has been insufficient. There are clearly very compelling projects in the budget–some that will benefit my own city–that are vital to keeping our state moving.

I voted against the transportation budget as a symbolic protest against the decision of the ferry system to include $15.9 million, to be spent over 10 years, for a reservation system. Of course a reservation system makes sense in terms of improving the efficiency of the existing public infrastructure.

Yet the question remains: How should the Washington Department of Transportation tackle this challenge? Big or small, hardware or software, heavy or light, proprietary or open?

Simply, building a massive infrastucture for what should be a more modest application doesn’t make sense.

Here’s the agency’s proposal:

• The total cost of the system includes $12.4 million for the system and $3.5 million for communication for a total of $15.9 million.
• Costs associated with the IT system include hardware and software acquisition, customization expenses, license renewal expenses, project management staff time costs, WSDOT programming staff time costs, and costs associated with the procurement process for IT systems. IT costs are scheduled in two phases: (1) purchase and integration of an industry standard reservation system, and (2) system build‐out and additional customization needed to accommodate larger volumes and commuter requirements. The $12.4 million includes:
o $3.9 million for the main system
o $350k for IT support staff
o $225k for Software support staff
o $1.3 million for contingencies
o $6.3 million for terminal specific IT improvements (including: New tollbooths will need to be equipped with the current Wave2Go machinery that will read reservation bar codes. New and existing tollbooths will be upgraded with new software that provides access to reservation system information (and the ability to enter a reservation confirmation code, if necessary))
o $288k for the pre-design study
• The $3.5 million for communications will fund queue detection system at 8 terminals, web cameras as well as additional Highway Advisory Radio. The pre-design study included $9.4 million in communications costs which would support Variable Message Signs on the Highways. This item was not funded in the House floor proposal.

I suggest we take a different strategy.

First, the fact that this entire program is designed, developed and executed within the silo of Wash DOT and is not being coordinated with DIS or securing a second opinion goes against our goal of building an enterprise wide approach.

Second, while committees, task forces and studies have all endorsed the idea of embracing operational efficiencies, and this idea has been discussed for years, I am unaware of whether the agency has done any actual needs analysis/focus groups/detailed user surveys. Even if it has the question remains, what type of reservation system do users really want? I suggest we don’t really know what users want, how they’d use it and what value it would bring.

Third, rather than build this massive infrastructure, I suggest we hire 5 guys in a start up company in my district (there are lots of them) to build a web based reservation system. Let’s start small and light and test out the idea before building a massive infrastructure. Once you learn what users want, the quality of your application will increase exponentially. There are hundreds if not thousands of reservation systems in our state alone to say nothing of other states, nations and systems from the private sector. Do we need to build it ourselves? No way.

This is an old fashioned approach. We need change.

Your partner in service,

Reuven.