If you want a sense of how traffic congestion hurts the Puget Sound region's economy, ask Tom Taft to tell you about the executive who got away.

Taft, managing partner of Seattle-based Laurel Group, an executive search firm, was recently trying to lure a Seattle executive into taking a job at Clearwire, a high-flying wireless Internet start-up. It was an attractive job as vice president of marketing and it came with a great salary. But when the man learned he'd have to cross Lake Washington on traffic-snarled State Route 520 to get to Kirkland, he quickly lost interest. "'Nope,'" Taft recalls the man saying. "'I'm never going to commute on that bridge again.'"

A decade ago, traffic wasn't such a big issue in the decision making of career-conscious executives, says Taft. Now he hears about it constantly.

That's hardly a surprise to anyone who commutes in the Puget Sound region. Commuters now spend 285,000 hours per day more on the road than they would if traffic was moving at normal speeds. With the region projected to add another 1.7 million people and 1.2 million jobs by 2040, traffic problems will grow to unimaginable levels. Hours lost to congestion each day are expected to nearly quadruple to 1.12 million hours by 2025. By then, the average trip that now takes 30 minutes during the afternoon rush hour will triple to 90 minutes.

As a result, traffic congestion is no longer just a horror story you hear over cocktails after work. Highway choke points and rush-hour migraines are galvanizing businesses concerned about the impact on their bottom line and on the lives of their employees. And in a political episode of strange bedfellows, the business community has joined with environmental groups to back a $17.8 billion capital investment proposal to raise taxes to run more light rail and to extend more roads to carry more people and commerce in Puget Sound.

The Washington Roundtable, which counts Microsoft, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Bank of America and Puget Sound Energy among its members, has joined with chambers of commerce and downtown associations to support a pair of ballot measures proposed by Sound Transit and the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID). The measure encompasses numerous projects in urban King, Snohomish and Pierce counties, including replacing the State Route 520 bridge across Lake Washington, widening Interstate 405 on the eastside, extending State Route 509 to Interstate 5, upgrading State Route 167 and U.S. Route 2, and making improvements to I-5 at Mercer and Spokane Streets.

The Sound Transit part of the measure would extend light rail service to Tacoma, Mill Creek, Bellevue and Redmond. But even if voters agree the region needs to do something now and approve the tax package, studies show and many experts agree it still won't be enough. Sprawling and traffic-choked cities like Atlanta have shown that you can't build your way out of congestion with more roads. And as more-compact cities like Portland have shown, the benefits of light rail often come years later, and only when you deploy your land use laws effectively and early to make mass transit fit people's busy lives.

In Atlanta, where the city has spent heavily to add roads, per capita vehicle miles traveled is a high 32 per day. In the Puget Sound region, between 1980 and the early 1990s, as population moved out toward the suburbs, vehicle miles traveled grew four times faster than population growth. By 2000, per capita vehicle miles traveled reached 24 per day, with Seattle joining Atlanta on national lists of the worst congested metro areas in the United States. By contrast, in Portland, effective regional planning has actually reduced the number of miles driven on a per capita basis to 19 per day. And that number continues to shrink. The number drops to 10 in areas of the city where mixed-use, transit-oriented developments dot the landscape. "We have congestion, but the congestion is in smaller areas because we don't have as much sprawl," says Rex Burkholder, who serves on Portland's regional governing agency, Metro.

The rails-and-roads tax package wrapped by Sound Transit and RTID, headed to voters in November, is the latest step in a series of moves by the region to dig itself out of a swamp of traffic that is hurting the economy, degrading the environment and reducing the region's long-touted quality of life.

But as extensive and expensive as this latest transportation proposal is, experts say it slaps a bandage on a deep problem that requires more fundamental solutions, including more tolls, better city planning and new regional coordination of the region's network of roads, rails, and urban and suburban landscapes.

And for businesses, the alarming numbers don't stop at the projections of mind-numbingly long commutes. In a region that relies on timeliness in moving its goods from ports to marketplaces, the average truck trip time has increased by between 30 percent and 50 percent over the past three to five years and threatens to reduce the ability of Seattle's and Tacoma's ports to compete with less congested places in Canada.

One study showed that inventories for processed food and beverage companies in the region were inflated by 15 percent to 20 percent to compensate for unpredictable delays and traffic congestion. In Puget Sound, congestion consumes 45.4 million annual person hours and wastes 49 million gallons of fuel, with the annual cost of lost productivity, economic inefficiency and personal opportunity estimated in the billions.

Although some business leaders and environmentalists say the region needs to do more than build expensive transportation projects, their collective opinion seems to be this: We have to do something now or it will continue to get worse.

Some environmentalists did balk. They urged the rails focused Sound Transit to go to the ballot alone, arguing that more road building only creates more sprawl and forces people to drive even longer distances. But other organizations, including the transit-friendly Transportation Choices Coalition, believed that linking the roads-focused RTID with Sound Transit was a necessary compromise to move the region forward. "This is a 50-year investment," says Jessyn Farrell, executive director for the coalition.

Businesses will largely foot the bill for what one early estimate pegs as a $3 million campaign to pass the Sound Transit-RTID measure. Powerhouses like Microsoft Corp. are putting their muscle behind the campaign. The software giant already provides numerous programs to help its workers beat traffic congestion, including granting preferential parking for employees who carpool or vanpool at least three days per week. It believes the Sound Transit-RTID measure is another key to boosting mobility for its workforce.

Traffic congestion and education "are probably our top two issues from a corporate perspective," says Jim Stanton, senior community affairs manager for Microsoft. It is estimated that for every job Microsoft creates, four more are generated. "We attract skilled professionals from all over the world, many of whom come from cities and countries that have robust transit options," Stanton says, "and they get to Puget Sound, and we're not quite there yet."

The Washington Roundtable, the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, and the Everett Area Chamber of Commerce have all endorsed the tax package. "There's a strong sense out there, including in the business community, that the region is behind on investing in transportation and needs to take action to fix that," says Geoff Patrick, a spokesman for Sound Transit.

This isn't the first time businesses have thrown their support behind tax increases for transportation. In 2005, several high-profile companies, including Microsoft and The Boeing Co., helped fund the campaign organization Keep Washington Rolling to defeat Initiative 912, which sought to overturn the Legislature's decision to approve a 9.5-cent increase in the statewide gas tax. Keep Washington Rolling never disbanded. The organization had, by mid-July, already raised $162,000 to convince voters to approve the Sound Transit-RTID measure. Early contributors included the Washington Association of Realtors ($50,000), the Washington chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties ($40,000), Pemco Mutual Insurance Co. ($25,000), and the global law firm K&L Gates ($4,700).

Gary Chandler, vice president of governmental affairs for the Association of Washington Business, says businesses have recently become more supportive of higher taxes to pay for transportation projects as the state Department of Transportation has increased its accountability by compiling reports of how tax dollars are being spent and tying specific projects to specific tax increases. "The DOT has done a good job of identifying those projects," Chandler says, noting the agency has gone as far as posting informational signs along highways so drivers may see where their tax dollars are being spent on improvements. And the DOT would have responsibility for projects funded under RTID, including rebuilding the 520 bridge and extending State Route 509.

Kelly Evans, campaign manager for Keep Washington Rolling, says the campaign for the rails and roads ballot measure will employ television, radio and direct mail to show voters in each of the three counties what projects they will pay for with increased taxes and how those projects will improve their commutes. In Pierce County, for example, the campaign will highlight projects there, but also "projects just over the line in King County, because so many people commute out of Pierce County to jobs in King County," Evans says.

And this might be the last chance to put a combined regional rails and roads measure to voters. If the November measure fails, then the Legislature would have to reauthorize the RTID, since the roads focused taxing district sunsets at the end of this year. Sound Transit, meanwhile, could go back to voters alone in November 2008. "This is our chance to make these investments," Evans says.

Still, the question of what to do beyond November, whether or not Sound Transit and RTID are successful, lingers. Some business leaders, environmentalists and lawmakers already are laying the groundwork to carry the debate beyond the expensive measures included in the November ballot. They are proposing two radical solutions to the region's rush-hour migraine and its haphazard way of planning communities and funding transportation. One is to adopt "congestion pricing," which gives drivers the choice of paying a toll immediately to pull into a high occupancy toll (HOT) lane to get to where they're going more quickly. The other is to adopt a new system of regional governance to more effectively coordinate land use and transportation planning for the urbanized archipelago that is King, Pierce, Snohomish and Kitsap counties.

Although they disagree about the benefits of roads and light rail, business and environmental interest groups seem to agree on at least one thing: congestion pricing. The fiscally conservative Washington Policy Center doubts the cost-effectiveness of light rail and has publicly criticized the high cost of the Sound Transit-RTID measure to taxpayers. The organization, however, finds congestion pricing promising as a way to manage the demand placed on the region's roadways. It would have to be done comprehensively, and questions of fairness and implementation would have to be resolved, says Michael Ennis, director of the organization's Center for Transportation Policy. "You can't toll just two bridges," he says. "You have to toll the entire system."

On the environmental side, Transportation Choices Coalition views congestion pricing as the most comprehensive way to relieve congestion, reduce vehicle miles traveled and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And in a little-known but significant way, it has further opened the door to comprehensive congestion pricing by getting the RTID to sign off on a policy that forces it to work on implementing "variable pricing, HOT lanes, tolling and other management tools" in congested King County corridors, as well as "to ensure tolling feasibility work" in Snohomish and Pierce counties.

And the Transportation Choices Coalition plans to make sure the policy is honored. "We get to bird-dog that," says Farrell, the executive director. Some experts say system-wide congestion pricing is only a matter of time. The Washington Department of Transportation expects to open a pilot project in spring 2008, creating nine miles of HOT lane along State Route 167 from Auburn to Renton.

King County Executive Ron Sims commissioned a report that advocates turning all major freeways from Everett to Lakewood, near Fort Lewis, into toll roads. Under the March 7 draft report, revealed first by Washington CEO Magazine in May, all vehicles except transit and emergency responders would pay a fee to travel within this network of major highways, with the cost determined by time of day and distance driven. The report says as much as $1.6 billion in revenue could be generated annually for the next 20 years, reducing traffic congestion and bringing in sufficient money to rebuild the region's dilapidated transportation infrastructure while avoiding "statewide contributions or sales tax measures that degrade the economic competitiveness of the region."

Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington, is a principal author of the report. He says all transportation is an economic good but that our system of managing it doesn't reflect that reality, because there's never enough to go around. "It is the only economic good in the U.S. that we don't ration capitalistically," he says. "We ration it communistically -- first come, first serve. Because there's not enough of it, we stand in line." Raising the price of water and electricity during periods of heavy use, for example, has led to more rational use of those goods. Unless you raise the cost of driving during rush hour, you can't discourage the driving habits that gum up roads and force everyone to crawl.

For others, the root of the region's problems with transportation and land use begin with how it governs those two important issues. Earlier this year, the Regional Transportation Commission, created by the Legislature and appointed by Gov. Chris Gregoire, issued a 112-page report that recommended replacing the region's jumble of transportation agencies with a new, 15-member, partially elected regional agency that would coordinate transportation and land use planning and decide funding for mass transit and road projects in King, Pierce, Snohomish and Kitsap counties. The agency would have taxing, tolling and borrowing authority. And it would take over many decision-making powers held by the state Department of Transportation, Sound Transit, county councils and the Puget Sound Regional Council of local governments.

The report by the commission, co-chaired by former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice and telecommunications billionaire John Stanton, found that 128 agencies now play some part in transportation decisions for the region. As a result, some officials champion their area or one kind of transportation instead of developing regional solutions. "If 128 parties are theoretically in charge of aspects of a problem, we concluded that in fact no one is really in charge," according to the report.

In researching the report, the commission studied several cities, including Portland, Ore., where a directly elected regional government, Metro, oversees land use and transportation planning. It also looked at Vancouver, B.C., where a regional authority, TransLink, supervises a system that includes light rail, commuter rail, buses, ferries, roads and bridges.

Portland's Metro, which was established in 1977, serves 1.3 million residents in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties, and the 25 cities in the Portland area. Burkholder, a Metro councilor, says Portland's form of regional governance reflects the reality of the geography it serves: People work, live and play regionally. They cross borders. Metro has the teeth to overcome obstinate local governments that use building permit processes to hold things up or to encourage sprawl. Burkholder says the agency rarely needs to bite. "A lot of it is peer pressure," he says, since officials share problems and information and must hammer out agreements before heading back to their respective cities. On especially tough issues, Metro forces local officials to forge agreements on everything from taking their fair share of affordable housing to zoning for town centers that encourage more walking and transit, and less driving.

With its regional focus and authority, the agency avoids piecemeal land use and transportation decisions. For example, in 2002, Metro approved an expansion of its growth boundary, which marks the separation of rural and urban areas for the three-county area, bringing in more than 18,000 acres of land, including 2,800 acres for new jobs. "We are able to get above all the jockeying around for money and control," Burkholder says. "We are charged with what policies to create. We are elected. We're not just planners trying to say, ?Don't do that.' We are peers of the mayors and the councilors out there."

By contrast, Puget Sound has seen more than its share of skirmishes between local governments and agencies, and refusals to cooperate on the part of elected leaders. For example, Sound Transit and the city of Tukwila locked horns over light rail, adding to costs and delays. In 2002, Tukwila rejected a pact on how it would handle light rail permit applications. In 2004, the city demanded more parking around a light rail station, pushing the debate for months, adding $5 million to the cost and prompting one Sound Transit official to accuse the city of holding the transit agency hostage.

Perhaps a new, elected regional government, in charge and accountable to the public, would prevent such time-consuming and unproductive battles. "The issue is whether this region's current governmental structure is interested in giving away some level of its power to adopt regional government," says UW's Hallenbeck. "The reason you have local government is to have local control, and people like local control. The problem is, too much local control tends to mean you're overwhelmed by regional things that are beyond local control." Portland, for example, was able to start early on its light rail system partly because it made the transition to a regional land use and transportation authority early. The city launched its system in 1986, using federal dollars that otherwise would have built a highway. And in the years that followed, the city extended light rail to its suburbs to encourage what Puget Sound leaders now seek: an expansive system that shuttles commuters, reduces traffic congestion and encourages developers to build houses, stores and offices around rail hubs. Now, the Portland area boasts a 44-mile system with 64 stations connecting the cities of Portland, Gresham, Beaverton and Hillsboro, as well as

Portland International Airport. The system provides 33 percent of weekday transit trips and has generated more than $6 billion in development within walking distance of its stations.

Meanwhile, Sound Transit, approved by voters in 1996, ran into budget and political problems early on and was eventually forced to scale back its vision for a 21-mile light rail system from Seattle- Tacoma International Airport to the University of Washington. Now, the agency plans to open a 13.9-mile light rail line from Westlake Station in Seattle to Tukwila in summer 2009, with a 1.7-mile extension to the airport opening by the end of 2009. The agency also is working to use existing local tax dollars and to secure $750 million in federal funds to extend the line north to the University District.

But early setbacks and a lack of cohesiveness in transportation planning aren't the only problems. Not every local government in Puget Sound bought into early efforts to fight sprawl. And if the entire region isn't fighting sprawl early on, then the whole region suffers from the effects of poor-quality development and ineffective transportation planning. For example, King County was years ahead of the region in coordinating its land use and transportation objectives. Its cross-commuting neighbor to the south, Pierce County, however, after decades of anything-goes general zoning, was considered the poster child of poor urban planning when the Legislature approved the antisprawl Growth Management Act in 1990.

Nevertheless, the region has been playing catch-up as the economic and quality-of-life costs of traffic congestion and sprawl have ratcheted up. The state's growth law has directed new development into designated urban growth areas (a definition that happens to include major suburbs such as Bellevue and Redmond). Between 1995 and 2003, for example, the region funneled 85 percent of its population growth and 96 percent of its employment growth into those areas.

This trend bodes well for a region attempting to build mass transit, which requires urban-style, high-density settings, even as it receives help from the state to pay for critical road and highway needs. In 2003, for example, the Legislature added a nickel to Washington's gas tax, the first such increase in 13 years, to pay for $4.2 billion in transportation projects statewide, including key projects in Puget Sound.

Puget Sound, long an innovator in business, could choose to speed past other metro areas by not only investing heavily in more extensive transportation networks, but also by fully embracing congestion pricing and a new form of regional governance.

Given the region's challenging geographic features, bordered by the sound on one side and lakes in the middle, there are clearly limits to what road building can accomplish. "Building as the only solution for congestion relief turns out to present significant challenges and a very unrealistic transportation vision," says Washington's Department of Transportation.

Moving forward requires money, political will, fundamental changes and recognizing that traffic congestion may be the greatest threat to the region's future prosperity and to its residents' quality of life. The November tax package, if it passes, will be only the latest step for a region making up for lost time.

Aaron Corvin is a senior writer at Washington CEO Magazine.