Congestion Pricing
April 25th, 2008 by Republican By DefaultThe Puget Sound Regional Council today released what they called a study. I guess in some definitions it would qualify as a study, but in the truest sense, it’s a piece of agitprop. Their goal was obviously to find out if drivers would actually pay more money, but they veiled it in other terms. Anything to avoid doing their job of building roads.
The problem with congestion pricing:
Starting with the basic premise of the study, asking the question, “would drivers change their driving habits if they were charged congestion pricing”. What happened to the question of ’should they have to change their driving habits’? They have paid for the roads, they shouldn’t have to pay for them all over again.
Next, congestion pricing is a punitive fee placed on taxpayers for a failure in government. Neither the drivers nor the taxpayers are at fault for congestion. The responsibility rests solely on the shoulders of government for failing to meet the demand. Taxpayers trusted these people to provide adequate means of transportation, but the people they trusted used the money for pet projects instead of paying for the roads that the money was intended to cover. Here’s some comments on that from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation:
Secretary Paula Hammond displayed a trend graph of the last 25 years, which showed population, licensed drivers, employment, and vehicle miles traveled rising between 50% and 100%, while new lane miles barely increased 10%.
Many people really don’t have a choice about when they drive or where. Here’s a bit of liberalism showing through the title of the ’study’. “Traffic choices”. This isn’t about ‘choice’, it’s about punishing people for having to drive a certain time of day on a certain stretch of road. From the summary (of the summary) (PDF):
Other households appear to have had very limited opportunities, in the short-run, to avoid using high demand roads during peak travel times.
Congestion pricing puts the biggest burden on the people who can’t afford it. People living at or near the poverty line often don’t have a lot of options when it comes to their employment (hence the living at the poverty line problem). If they are forced by circumstances to drive congested roads at congested times they will pay a much larger percentage of their income than the Cadillac-driving politician who imposed the tax (who won’t even be paying the fees since his transportation is taxpayer funded).
If congestion priced tolls were placed on a particular stretch of road, people might chose a different road instead of a different time. All that would do is to spread the congestion onto different roads. In case these geniuses haven’t noticed, congestion does that all by its little ol’ self. When roads are plugged with traffic, people find different roads. It’s why I-5, I-405 and 1st Ave. get plugged up every day.
And what will happen if congestion pricing works? When all of the congestion is gone, will people still have to pay congestion prices? Will the investment in tolling equipment suddenly be wasted because this bright idea worked? Or will they adjust it just enough to make the maximum amount of money they can while still justifying the existence of the system?
Something else that needs to be considered is whether previous instances of implementation of congestion priced tolling was on a stretch of road that would have had tolls anyway. This will affect the statistics of the effectiveness and acceptance such a plan.
The summary of the study:
They start going wrong on the first page of their summary:
…in most cases new road and transit capacity is a small portion of the total system, is increasingly expensive, and is often quickly congested with new trips. Not only is new capacity less effective and more expensive than it used to be, but funding to build that capacity has grown slower than the growth in traffic.
These problems have encouraged transportation professionals and regional policy makers to consider more seriously the role that time-of-day variable road tolling can play in bringing more balance to transportation supply and demand. [emphasis added]
So what this says is that when it was cheaper to build more road capacity, it wasn’t funded. Is this a tacit admission that it’s government’s fault that our roads are plugged with cars every day? Do you think they’d point to all the years of Democrat control of funding that created this mess? Nope. They just whistle past the graveyard and point their boney, little, taxpayer funded fingers at drivers and their ‘driving habits’.
Congestion occurs when too many people want to use the same route at the same time. Thus, road tolling, based on charges that vary by time of day or amount of congestion, lets people know that they are imposing uncompensated costs on others, and that they are contributing to the poor performance of existing road capacity. It is appropriate that these users contribute the greater portion of the funding required to improve the supply. By failing to price road use under congested conditions, current policy prematurely justifies new capacity and, simultaneously, limits the fiscal capability to respond. The absence of congestion tolls leads to time wasted stuck in traffic, an overstatement of investment needs, and fiscal disarray. [emphasis added]
What dumbfounding arrogance! I am almost speechless at this over-the-top display of blaming the victims for the failure of government to do its job. This statement could only come from someone who has absolutely no concept of life outside of a government office.
Businesses work with other businesses. A workday schedule is not a randomly imposed artificial barrier created by decadent capitalists, nor is it an archaic concept that predates the light bulb. It exists because businesses interact, not only with each other, but with government.
Businesses sell to other businesses and to government, which requires interaction. Once a sale is made there is work to be done that requires interaction. Parents get their kids ready for (government run) school then jump in their cars to get to work. After work they have to get home and take care of the kids and spend time raising them.
Government cannot arbitrarily reset the entire economy to operate at times that are more convenient for ‘Brave New World’ agenda. Doing so will have a ripple effect that could cause a severe downturn in local economies and by extension in regional, national and even global economies.
Do these narrow-minded bureaucrats actually believe that they can change the entire economic system without repercussions?
Businesses that can operate at different times often do. Boeing has been staggering start and end times for employee shifts in order to allow employees to avoid traffic congestion. Others do so to also avoid congestion on side streets, in their own parking lots and even security checkpoints.
But I digress. From the summary:
Congestion-based tolling can not only turn stop-and-go congestion into flowing traffic; it can also generate revenue and give signals to road operators about where travelers think trips are important enough that they are willing to pay for road improvements.
And this is based on what empirical study? This one?
And speaking of revenue, what exactly have we been paying for with our gas taxes, car tab fees and vehicle sales tax all of these years. Has anyone done a study to compare how much money was charged taxpayers in these ways with how much of it actually went into building roads?
As for adding to the cost to drivers, have these bureaucrats considered the fact that they are already paying for congestion in lost time, which translates directly into lost money for gas, wages, daycare and quality of life issues (such as, oh, I don’t know, raising children)? What about the cost of added stress, both in dollars (for stress-related medical conditions) and in quality of life issues?
Traffic sucks. People avoid it whenever possible. All congestion pricing would do is make traffic more stressful and more burdensome for the people who have to be in it.
The ‘primary goals’ of the study were buried on page 3 (of 4) of the summary:
The primary aims of the Traffic Choices Study were to (1) accurately describe the behavioral response to the variable tolling of roadways, (2) better understand issues of policy related to the implementation of road network tolling, and (3) test an integrated system of technical solutions to the problem of tolling a large network of roads without installing substantial physical hardware on the roadside.
Using 275 participants out of hundreds of thousands who use the roads in the Puget Sound area won’t give anything near an accurate ‘behavioral response’. In addition, they didn’t actually use tolling to measure this response. Had they assessed actual tolls the participants response would likely have been different.
The “issues of policy” cannot be understood until the tolls actually go into effect so that the degree of impact on local businesses and on families can be seen.
Is it even possible to accurately test this ‘integrated system’ on such a small sample? What are the problems of scalability that will need to be addressed? How will the system assure that everyone on the road has one of these units in their car? What if someone wants to use the road but they don’t have one of these units? Will we have to build toll booths to collect from the occasional drivers?
Pages 3 and 4 of the summary mention some of the things I’ve brought up, but the comments are loaded with assumptions and social ideologies. I’m going to have to come back to this study again. But this was my summary of the summary of the summary of the report, which isn’t released yet.
And since I’ve just scratched the surface of this information, I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks. And I have a funny feeling that the word ‘fascism’ will come up.
Update: London voters elect mayor who promised to reform congestion pricing, including addressing the carbon fees. New York state rejects a similar proposal by RINO NYC Mayor Bloomberg. WPC has more.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
RBD, would you support adding enough lanes to I-5 to entirely reduce congestion, if it meant that the state had to seize land through eminent domain? I’m thinking specifically of the hotels and many many businesses built very close to the freeway in south Tacoma who may not be willing to sell off their land.
I ask because I’m fairly convinced that to get enough lanes to entirely reduce congestion on the freeway you would have to significantly expand the right-of-way.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Actually, before the Seattle Convention Center was built, it was possible to build another level for I-5. So if land has to be seized, it’s the fault of the Seattle City Council, not the drivers or the taxpayers.
So a second option would be to tear down the convention center.
You’re talking about an artificially (and possibly deliberately) created problem. Liberals seem to be playing a game of chess where they move pieces around to block the moves that their opponent (in this case the taxpayers and drivers) might want to make. In this case it’s a building. In another it’s a salmon run. Soon we’ll see the ‘carbon footprint’ argument. In the end, it’s the taxpayer, the employee and the business who lose the game.
Or we could just wait for liberals in Seattle to drive business out of town or cause enough of them to fail with the high cost of doing business there. Then there won’t be so much traffic. It worked in downtown Tacoma. (In case you didn’t catch it, I’m being facetious here.)
April 25th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Urban areas are a whole other issue, I’m talking about the suburban areas like south Tacoma. Widening I-5 in South Tacoma would either require buying up land bordering the current right-of-way or building vertically. I would imagine that some amount of eminent domain would be required to get the land needed either way (the off and on ramps for double-decker take up more room I believe).
So again, would you be willing to use eminent domain to get the needed land in Tacoma? (and why do I always have to repeat my questions to you?)
April 25th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Are you proposing congestion toll pricing on I-5 through South Tacoma?
Of all the things that I brought up in this post, you want to use a red herring argument to try to prove that congestion pricing is a good thing?
It never comes down to a simple either/or, black-and-white choice between the two. Removing HOV lane restrictions is often an option. Metering where necessary. Rebuilding intersections, off-ramps and on-ramps can help. Sometimes just retiming traffic lights on streets used for ingress and egress can reduce congestion.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Um, no, I’m not suggesting congestion toll pricing. I didn’t even bring it up.
South Tacoma has bad congestion. My understanding of your argument is that bad congestion in South Tacoma is a result of the government failing to expand the lanes there. So I’m asking (for the third time) do you believe that lane expansion of freeways is important enough that the state should use eminent domain in order to expand the lanes if the property owners are unwilling to sell their land to the DOT?
It’s not a red herring, it’s a legitimate question about the practicality of expanding freeway lanes. I take the point about the convention center, although that brings up another question: if lane expansion is de facto not an option somewhere regardless of the cause (geographical, a convention center, etc) then what? Metering and re-timing lights isn’t going to do much good if you have many lanes forced to converge into a few.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I’ve already answered it and it is a red herring. You’re trying to take a point that I applied to all of Western Washington and apply it on one small stretch of road. A stretch of road that still has other options.
Another option is expanding other roads that will take some of the burden off of that area of I-5.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
My question had two possible answers, “Yes, eminent domain should be on the table when considering lane expansions” or “No, there are always other alternatives to lane expansion that does not take away property from private owners because eminent domain should not be a tool of the state.”
I hate to keep getting all meta on you, but have you noticed that anyone who disagrees with you in an argument is either tossing out a red herring, a mouthpiece for their party, outright lying, imposing their values on others, or is just not informed? Can you not allow that someone who disagrees with you might be sincere, arguing in earnest, intellectually honest, respectful of other opinions, and well-informed? Perhaps even coming from a similar value system as your own, despite arriving at a different stance? Or that someone who asks you a question, like how you would weigh lane expansion vs eminent domain, or whether you think investing in rail might deliver an ROI greater than the investment (a la freeways) may actually just want to hear your answer?
April 25th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
‘Meta’. I would have used the word ‘petulent’. You’re trying to trap me into saying what you want me to say. It’s Slanted Journalism 101. I’m not falling for it. Haven’t you ever watched a White House press briefing? Think ‘Helen Thomas’.
If you want to weigh lane expansion vs. eminent domain, then just say so. But you’re trying to plug that question into a post on congestion pricing. Context is everything.
As for how you frame my disagreements with you and others on this site, each of those has a different context that has to be considered. That context extends to other sites because some people, I won’t mention any names, have a habit of continuing discussions from this site on other sites where I may not notice them until weeks later.
Also, you didn’t mention when I agree with people. More often than not, if I agree with someone, I say nothing. Which shouldn’t be confused with my saying nothing when someone is being a jackass or is refuting their own comment.
This isn’t a fluff site where we all just want to get along. It’s an issues site.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I see no reason why–in a post where you specifically argue that congestion pricing is unfair because the government has failed to build more roads and lanes–it is petulant to ask how you would suggest actually going about expanding those lane miles. If the lane miles and roads can’t be expanded or added, then that calls your argument in question.
So, instead of asking for your thoughts, I’ll just lay out mine. I see enormous problems with expanding roads and lane miles in our region. You write:
“Next, congestion pricing is a punitive fee placed on taxpayers for a failure in government. Neither the drivers nor the taxpayers are at fault for congestion. The responsibility rests solely on the shoulders of government for failing to meet the demand.”
Our region offers geographic and topographic bottlenecks that make expanding lane miles either impractical or wildly expensive. In addition, urban and suburban development has built up to the edges of the freeway (in the case of the Seattle Convention Center and the Mercer Island cap, over the freeway). Expanding lane miles on the Narrows required not only the cost of building the bridge but the cost of buying significant amounts of property.
With all that in mind, I would guess that expanding the local freeway system “to meet demand” would be untenable because of an incredibly high price tag and that it would likely require unpopular decisions like using eminent domain.
I would argue against your point that the Democratic controlled house is to blame for the funding problem. The high price tag of redoing overpasses, buying land, and building vertically would deter a lot of Republicans. In fact, the 2005 gas tax is a good example of road infrastructure was opposed by a lot of Republicans. I know that many did favor it, but I think it’s a good example where there is opposition to road expansion from non-Democratic corners.
I’m not saying that congestion pricing is the best option to fix the congestion problem. In fact, I think it’s probably not a great idea for regions without a strong mass transit system that gives a viable alternative to poorer commuters. But to say that the government has failed to provide for adequate lane miles is incorrect. A better way to say is that the population of the region–through their elected representatives and the initiative process–doesn’t want more lanes.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Erik,
- ‘Petulent’ was in reference to you trying to trap me into saying that eminent domain is the only solution and/or is a good thing;
- the voters in this region are well aware of the ‘geographic and topographic bottlenecks’ and aren’t afraid to pay for what it takes to get around them. They’ve approved tolls for several bridges over the years including the most recent over the Narrows;
- The Seattle Convention Center and the Mercer Island Cap are examples of man-made obstacles. As far as I’m concerned those should be higher on the list of options than land grabs through eminent domain laws;
- Had the government in this state (particularly in this region) acted in a timely manner there might have been less impact from widening in many areas. The growth was going on in the 80’s when I moved to the region and they weren’t keeping up with growth then either (I-405 seemed to under construction for 20 years and was still inadequate, they could have added extra lanes when that construction was going on);
- You picked South Tacoma as an example of the need for widening and land grabs. There are other freeways that could be expanded (SR-512, SR167/Fife) that might take some of the load off of I-5 in South Tacoma by providing alternate routes from/to the North from outlying areas such as Puyallup (which has grown significanly in recent years). There’s still room for improvement on the I-5/512 interchange as well.
- Christine Gregoire is just one example of a push to get people out of cars in the region and has stated so publicly. The resistance to building roads comes from Democrats and a few liberal Republicans. WA DOT also combined both roads and mass transit into Prop. 1 thinking it would have broader appeal. It didn’t. It was broadly unappealing.
- Additionally, Prop. 1 has been interpretted by many to mean conflicting things. Liberals didn’t support it because it didn’t add enough transit. Conservatives didn’t support it because it didn’t build enough roads. We won’t know what the voters want until roads appear separately on the ballot from transit. But gas taxes for roads have passed/failed in favor of paying for roads even when there were no guarantees in the legislation that certain projects would be finished.
- Recently there was an announcement that over a half-billion dollars were wasted (was that in one year?) because roads weren’t built when they should have been.
Government should be responding to demand not trying to regulate it with higher prices. We need to see results (or lack thereof) from light rail before it is expanded. Otherwise, it’s just another pet project that isn’t justified by demand.