County approves roads tax

Published 2:45 pm Tuesday, June 16, 2026

King County officials have approved a 0.1-percentage point countywide sales-tax increase to maintain, repave, repair and improve roads — mostly in unincorporated areas like Vashon Island.

The King County Transportation District — a special-purpose government whose board members are the nine King County Council members — passed the tax bump Friday by a 5-4 vote.

The increase is effective Jan. 1, and will expire in 10 years. It will raise the sales-tax rate on Vashon from 8.9 to 9.0 percent.

It’s expected to generate $101.9 million next year, an estimated $1.17 billion over 10 years. More than 87 percent of that money will go to road projects on Vashon and in other unincorporated areas, including White Center and Skyway.

The county’s 39 incorporated cities will get just 12.5 percent, even though more than 95 percent of the new tax revenue is expected to be generated by transactions inside their city limits.

That’s appropriate, supporters argued, because roads in unincorporated King County have been underfunded and neglected for far too long.

“We are starting to bring back dollars to some of our areas that have long been [on the] back burners,” said Council Member Teresa Mosqueda, whose district includes Vashon.

The King County Road Services division, supported largely by a property tax that’s collected only in unincorporated areas, says it hasn’t had nearly enough money to do its job adequately in years.

It attributes that to a number of factors, including loss of property tax dollars when once-unincorporated urbanized areas formed new cities or were annexed by existing ones, and a state limit on annual property tax revenue increases that doesn’t keep up with inflation.

Since 2024, the Roads division says, the percentage of unincorporated roads in good or excellent condition has dropped from 79 to 58. Smaller roads have seen an even bigger drop, from 77 to 46.

“They have been underinvested in for a very long time,” Council Member Claudia Balducci of Bellevue said.

Alejandra Tres, co-founder of the Vashon-based non-profit Comunidad, spoke in favor of the tax increase for roads. She said the only bad auto accident she’s ever had occurred on “a poorly maintained Vashon road.”

Her car was totaled, she said. Tres was five months pregnant at the time, and said she had to spend the rest of her pregnancy on bed rest.

Even with the new dollars, Roads won’t have nearly enough to do everything it says is needed. Companion legislation, also approved Friday, asks the county’s executive branch to provide an implementation and spending plan by Oct 1.

The legislation highlights some projects and project categories as particularly important. Among them: “Climate resiliency projects on Vashon Island.”

One project in that category, although it’s not specifically named: Southwest Quartermaster Drive just west of Portage. It floods, and sometimes must be closed, during king tides.

Most of the debate before the final vote Friday focused on how much of the small percentage of tax dollars reserved for cities should go to Seattle, how much to suburban cities.

But Council Member Rod Dembowski of Seattle, who voted no, said some of the new money should go for transit improvements. “The balance is out of proportion,” he said.

That’s next, other council members said. The legislation states the Transportation District’s intent to present another, 0.2-percentage point sales tax increase to voters to fund transit.

The sales tax is regressive, council members on all sides said, but it’s one of the few tools they possess.

King County Roads is responsible for 1,500 miles of road in unincorporated areas, including 132 on Vashon.

Eric Pryne is a retired Seattle Times journalist whose many beats included transportation.