“Gov. Locke can call all the special sessions he likes to come up with a transportation package. But the Washington Legislature won’t accomplish anything without a dramatic change in attitude somewhere, Bainbridge Island’s representatives say. And one of Locke’s political allies says that the change may have to come from the governor himself.The devil is in the details, said Sen. Betti Sheldon, (D-Tracyton), the Senate majority floor leader. The governor did come out with a plan, but didn’t follow through on the details that could turn it into a bill that would gain majority support.After a regular session and two special sessions, the Legislature was able to pass an operations budget and a transportation budget that preserve the status quo, including the ferry system.But the budgets do not contain money for expansion or major renovation of either the state’s congested highway system or the ferry system. Vowing to make a dent into traffic gridlock, Gov. Locke has called a third special legislative session beginning July 16 that he says will be limited to transportation issues.Locke’s plan calls for $10 billion in new state spending over the next 10 years. Additionally, he calls for creation of regional transit districts with their own taxing power to raise additional money for big-ticket items like the expansion of Interstate 405 in King County’s Eastside, and rebuilding the floating bridge across Lake Washington.The island’s Republican representative, Beverly Woods of Poulsbo, is reasonably sanguine about a statewide transportation package.We need a new revenue package, she said, and there’s a general feeling that something needs to be done, so I’m hopeful.Rep. Phil Rockefeller, (D-Bainbridge Island), said he has not been a part of the negotiating team. I’m something of an innocent bystander, he said. Negotiations are going on, I understand, but we haven’t seen anything yet.What has set the tone in Olympia this year is the even division in the House of Representatives, with each party holding 49 seats. Under rules instituted at the beginning of the session, the House co-speakers could prevent any bill from coming to the floor for a vote, a prerogative that both Republican Clyde Ballard and Democrat Frank Chopp used to block consideration of transportation-related bills.Ballard has balked at considering any transportation bill, arguing that efficiencies have to be imposed before new tax revenue is generated.Chopp has refused to move forward with the present plan for building a second Tacoma Narrows Bridge in a public-private partnership, holding out instead for a plan that uses state funding. Woods called upon Democrats to pressure Chopp about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. But she was unwilling to predict whether Ballard would allow the transportation spending bill to come to a vote before the transportation efficiency measures. Veto powerBecause so many people have effective veto power, Rockefeller said, negotiations over a transportation package have involved the co-speakers, the transportation committee chairs from the House and Senate and the governors’ office, with limited input from the membership at large.Woods has been part of the team negotiating the proposed regional plan for the Puget Sound area. But so far, she said, that discussion has been dominated by the anticipated $8 billion cost of expanding Interstate 405 through King County’s Eastside. The bills on the table do nothing for Kitsap County or the Olympic Peninsula, she said.It’s a struggle, she said.According to Sen. Sheldon, the small-group negotiating process is preventing the legislative system from working, Sheldon said.I haven’t yet seen a bill I could support, she said, because none of them do anything for Kitsap County. Somebody should be talking to the individual members and saying ‘what do you need to support a transportation bill,’ and I would say ‘ferries.’ But that hasn’t happened.All three want fast-ferry service from downtown Seattle to Kingston and Southworth included in any statewide bill.That service was in the package the Legislature and the voters adopted a few years ago, Rockefeller said. We need to restore that.The Legislature and voters approved a long-range transportation improvement plan in 1997, but funding for the plan was wiped out in 1999 when the value-based Motor Vehicle Excise Tax was eliminated by voter passage of Initiative 695, then by legislative repeal before the Supreme Court declared I-695 unconstitutional. Rockefeller said the foot-ferry service would require an initial outlay of $210 million for fast passenger-only boats and to renovate and expand the terminals at Kingston, Southworth and Seattle. Providing the full passenger-only service called for in the 1997 plan would cost some $270 million, he said.That’s 2.7 percent of a $10 billion plan, Rockefeller said. I think Kitsap County can justify that much.One project that won’t appear in either the statewide or regional plan is a widening of Highway 305 across Bainbridge Island. But Woods said that at some point, Bainbridge is going to have to cooperate in solving that congestion, which is becoming a regional problem.When crews from my (contracting) business work on Bainbridge, it takes them 45 minutes to get back across the island because of the traffic, she said.But Bainbridge Island won’t address the problem. They don’t want a second bridge to the peninsula, and they don’t want a wider highway, but they need to enter into a dialog about this. “