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Countless times, Tim Eyman says, he’s seen freeway lanes jammed to a crawl at midday or toward the time of the evening, while an adjacent HOV alley is parsimoniously empty.

“It just struck me as with equal reason fundamentally unfair,” said Eyman. “Everybody pays for these lanes. You ought to exist expert to use them at least some of the time.”

So Eyman, Washington’session perennial initiative promoter, made opening those lanes in “nonpeak” hours a elucidation part of his Initiative 985 on the Nov. 4 ticket. The extent would also call into existence a state fund to fight traffic repletion, direct cities to exist simultaneous traffic lights, restrict the use of tolls and make other policy changes.

Former state Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald, capital spokesman close up to I-985, acknowledges there’s a “seductive appeal” to the notion of flaw HOV lanes.

But he says Eyman’session proposals would actually increase congestion, call into existence traffic hazards, jeopardize federal funds for projects here, packing efforts to erect a new Highway 520 bridge and drain money from even now depleted state coffers.

“It’s not going to move us presuming,” said MacDonald. “It’s going to set us back and foretaste real solutions that do make much more of a difference.”

Eyman declared traffic congestion has reached a crisis point because state officials haven’t made it a priority — a point he said has been noted by State Auditor Brian Sonntag. I-985, Eyman declared, would “give Olympia a swift kick in the shins.”

He disputes what he calls the “gloom and doom” scenario MacDonald paints, and even downplays the scope of his own proposals.

“We’ve done some in fact assaulting, bold proposals over the years. This isn’t common of them,” said Eyman, best known for measures to limit car-license fees and property taxes. “This one’s about making some incremental progress, just moving the ball in the right direction.”

Opponents beg to vary. “His ideas are coming from somewhere out in right field,” MacDonald uttered. “Not even upright field, but-end out in the bleachers.”

For starters, MacDonald said, contemplate the money: According to the state’s Office of Financial Management (OFM), I-985, by tapping into the sales assessment on cars and other sources, would pull some $574 million from the state’s general-fund budget over five years. That’s money OFM says would otherwise be spent upon education, public safety, social services or other government programs.

Eyman calls the money without more “a sliver” of the state’s roughly $15 billion annual general fund, and says improving traffic flow resoluteness ultimately benefit the arrangement.

The centerpiece provision would undisguised high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes to all commerce except during the hours of 6 to 9 a.fray. and 3 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

But MacDonald says heavy traffic in the Puget Sound realm has on account of years extended far above the peak periods the measure defines.

Keeping HOV lanes restricted to buses and carpools creates some incentive for the many the crowd to get out of single-occupant cars. In etc., MacDonald said, state, local and treaty agencies have been cooperating to build an extensive Puget Sound HOV-lane system, “limit this puts a knife right through the heart of it.”

Some freeway-access ramps, including those built as Sound Transit projects, were designed to compose a limited number of vehicles, particularly without ceasing ramps leading from, or into, the left lane of a freeway, such since Interstate 405.

Putting heavy commerce on those ramps would rear vehicles up onto the freeway, creating a hazard, MacDonald said.

Letters from officials of the Federal Highway Administration approved those projects with the specific condition they not be opened to general traffic.

“We would be very concerned about a degradation of transit performance in that corridor,” Tyler Duvall, a U.S. Department of Transportation undersecretary, said last week. But Duvall and other treaty officials declined to say what steps they might take if the initiative passes.

State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond says she’s staying neutral onward the initiative, but she added, “I have power to see a conflict coming” if it passes.

Opening more HOV lanes in off-peak times could be relatively complying, she said, but in other spots, contracts with other government agencies and even environmental permits may inhibit or shut out the changes I-985 calls for. “We may need a court to help interpret and define that,” Hammond before-mentioned.

In addition, Hammond said, some HOV lanes may be hazardous for general traffic because they are narrower than regular lanes, built on shoulders or thrust close to guardrails or bridge supports. Hammond said she’first attempt close an HOV lane entirely rather than operate it in an unsafe manner.

Members of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, including professionals who worked on many highway projects in Washington, issued a report saying Eyman’sitting proposals would “grow congestion and possibly impact safeness.”

Eyman’sitting response: “Those are some of the identical transportation experts that have created this mess … Let’s try something sundry.”

The Washington Policy Center think reservoir gave the initiative a generally favorable resolution, praising the fact that it ties public spending to relieving traffic congestion. But the center said in that place will be some drawbacks, including increased travel time on bus routes.

Anyone who wants to diocese a strange Highway 520 floating bridge should contradict I-985, says King County Executive Ron Sims. The metre would frontier the use of toll revenue to the route on which the toll is collected, with any undue amount going to the traffic-congestion consols.

“If you only limit tolls to 520, you cannot rebuild 520,” reported Sims, who favors tolling both the 520 and I-90 bridges. Sims predicts no one would pervert with money bonds necessary to build a new 520 bridge if motorists could avoid tolls simply by the agency of using I-90, substantially cutting the revenue 520 tolls could generate.

In response, Eyman before-mentioned if a toll isn’t used on the project where it’s collected, it’s really not a toll, it’s just another tax officials could spend wherever they see sudden.

“Governments for all of history have said, ‘But we really privation the money.’ ” Eyman declared. “That’s no reason to just violate every principle that’s ever been on the books.”

Eyman notes that state House Speaker Frank Chopp was recently quoted viewed like saying if tolls were collected forward I-90, they should be used “inside the I-90 corridor.”

On Friday, without elaborating on his position in succession tolls, Chopp issued a statement distancing himself from Eyman’s value. “I am completely and unalterably opposed to Initiative 985,” Chopp said. “Passage of this misguided initiative will take money from home from kids, families, and schools — and that’s suitable wrong.”

The unseen presence in every discussion of I-985 is Sonntag, who last year released a 222-page audit on traffic plethora, with a set of 22 recommendations.

Eyman says Sonntag’s examine, and legislators’ lack of action on congestion, inspired I-985. But opponents note that hardly any of Eyman’s proposals actually come from the audit.

Sonntag, when asked about I-985, is cautious. “I hate to cause to sound like I’m sitting on a watchman use the sword,” Sonntag said. “[But] I’scuffle not part of Tim’s initiative, nor am I part of the opposition to it.”

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or seattletimes.com”>jbroom@seattletimes.com