The Washington State Transportation Commission and Washington State Department of Transportation - WSDOT for short - are descendants of the original State Highway Board, which was created on March 13, 1905. The Board's first two-year budget totaled $110,000.

Washington had been a state for only 16 years, and fewer than 1,000 miles of state roads (almost all unpaved outside of cities) served a population of about 600,000. Railroads and steamships handled most long distance travel and freight, and people got around locally by foot, horse, wagon, streetcar, or bicycle. There were perhaps 100 automobiles in the entire state.

One hundred years later, Washington's population exceeds six million - and every year nearly three million motor vehicles clock more than 55 billion miles on our state’s streets, roads, and highways.

Today, WSDOT spends more than $1 billion annually for planning, construction, operation, maintenance, and management of key elements of a complex "multimodal" system of transportation, It including more than 7,000 miles of official state highways (only 9 percent of all road miles, but carrying nearly 60 percent of all traffic), a Washington State Ferries fleet that serves more than 25 million annual riders, aid to 129 general aviation airfields, and special passenger and freight rail services. In virtually everything it does, the Department works in partnership with other levels of government, transit agencies, port districts, regional councils, Indian tribes, the private sector, and local communities.

This Web site retraces the evolution of the Washington State Department of Transportation over the past century.

We hope that the lessons of the past will help us to make the choices and meet the challenges our state faces in order to keep Washington moving ahead for another 100 years.