"It's really hard to go to the taxpayers and say, we want a referendum to join the RTA or we want to find a funding source for this, unless we get these studies done," he said. "We can't go to the taxpayers and say, we'd like to raise money for this, but you have nothing to show them. On the flip side, if say Washington ever does come up with a big capital bill, and they have millions ready for shovel-ready projects, we would like to have that phase one engineering (study) done."