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President Obama's new $50 billion infrastructure initiative--part of his $447 billion American Jobs Act (AJA)--offered no surprises. It's almost an exact replica of his FY 2012 budget request which included a sum of $50 billion for transportation to "jump start" a proposed $556 billion six-year surface transportation reauthorization.
The rhetoric may have changed--Obama avoided using the terms "stimulus" and "infrastructure" in presenting his AJA initiative to Congress--but the substance of the two initiatives is remarkably similar. Both proposals would fund an identical mix of programs (highways, transit, Amtrak, high-speed rail, aviation and the TIFIA credit program) and both would establish a National Infrastructure Bank.
The FY 2012 transportation budget request failed to obtain congressional approval for two reasons: (1) the Administration failed to show how the proposed $50 billion program would be paid for; and (2) there was no convincing evidence that the program would promptly create new jobs. Indeed, all evidence pointed in the opposite direction. The $48 billion in Recovery Act funds for transportation had failed to create the millions of jobs promised by the Administration. The money earmarked for highways had been spent largely on short term roadway maintenance-type contracts and had produced only temporary jobs. Nor was there much to show for in terms of an improved condition or performance of the nation's transportation system. As for the Infrastructure Bank, it is widely believed that at least one or two years could pass before the Bank would become operational and in a position to begin financing large-scale job-creating infrastructure projects.
The same reasons that led Congress to ignore the Administration's FY 2012 transportation budget request will likely cause the lawmakers to reject the new transportation initiative. They are skeptical that a fresh infusion of funds will succeeed where the first stimulus failed. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results may not be exacly insanity but it does suggest a certain denial to look facts in the face.
The President said that "everything in this bill will be paid for" and that he will call on the Joint Deficit Committee to come up with additional deficit reductions necessary to pay for the American Jobs Act. But by proposing to end tax breaks for people making more than $200,000 and for oil and gas companies, the White House is setting itself up again for a fight with the Congress which already once before rejected this approach to "revenue enhancement." It remains to be seen if the independent congressional committee will do Obama's bidding. With the President's approval ratings at an all time low, they just might be emboldened to ignore his plea.
In a bi-partisan pitch, former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell (a Democrat) and current Mesa, Ariz., mayor Scott Smith (a Republican), argue in today's Wall Street Journal for a stronger U.S. investment in transportation infrastructure.
Whether it involves highways, railways, ports, aviation or any other sector, infrastructure is an economic driver that is essential for the long-term creation of quality American jobs.
When it comes to transportation, Washington has been on autopilot for the last half-century. Instead of tackling the hard choices facing our nation and embracing innovations, federal transportation policy still largely adheres to an agenda set by President Eisenhower.
Investments in transportation infrastructure--especially strategic, long-term investments--are investments in the future of the country. And as Rendell and Smith argue, true transportation investments aren't (or shouldn't be) a partisan issue.
Building America's transportation infrastructure has been a national goal since Thomas Jefferson promoted canals and roads and Abraham Lincoln helped forge the Transcontinental Railroad. And still today, there remains a justifiable federal responsibility to address the country's infrastructure decline. But it must be addressed thoughtfully, and much differently from the past. The sole responsibility can't be left up to the federal government--from a financing or management perspective. (Indeed, given the current economic outlook, we're probably well past the days when this made sense--if it ever did.) Instead, infrastructure investments could benefit tremendously, especially in terms of innovation and financing, from public-private cooperation.
Ultimately, despite the economic chaos we find ourselves in, we need infrastructure improvements that will contribute to the long-term economic growth of the country. Hopefully, Messrs. Rendell and Smith aren't the only ones willing to cross the political aisle to cooperate on this issue.
Policy shifts are often so nuanced and subtle that they're almost not recognizable. Sometimes, however, as with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's announcement about new funding guidelines for transit projects, they are stark enough to warrant the laudatory adjectives found in the press releases describing the policy change. The latter is true for the announcement that the U.S. transportation chief made at yesterday's Transportation Research Board's annual meeting.
"Our new policy for selecting major transit projects will work to promote livability rather than hinder it," said Secretary LaHood. "We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities and how it makes our communities better places to live."
The Obama administration is indeed proposing a "dramatic change" that adds two more criteria for major transit projects to receive funding: economic development and benefits to the environment. The current policy only focused, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, "primarily on how much a project shortened commute times in comparison to its cost."
Among the type of projects that might benefit from the change in policy would be projects such as streetcars--ones that The New York Times reported Secretary LaHood as saying would make it possible to "...make the case for investing in popular streetcar projects and other transit systems that people want..."
A small but influential group of individuals gathered recently at the downtown Washington office of University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs at the invitation of its Director, former Gov.Gerald Baliles. The bipartisan group included two former U.S. Transportation Secretaries and some 30 key players and opinion leaders who constitute what could be loosely described as Washington's unofficial permanent transportation policy establishment.
The purpose of the meeting was to solicit advice on a set of recommendations stemming from the Miller Center's fall transportation conference. The central challenge was posed succinctly by Gov. Baliles at the outset of the meeting. The transportation sector, he suggested, is being neglected despite the evidence of a mounting crisis - aging infrastructure, growing traffic congestion, strained freight and logistical facilities. Both the Congress and the Administration are extemporizing rather than taking bold steps to avert the looming crisis.
Where is the outrage, Baliles asked. Why is there no popular outcry? And what can we do to overcome this inertia? How can we create a sense of urgency and develop a narrative that will reverberate with the public, capture the media's attention and goad Congress and the Administration into action? The Governor's conclusion: we must involve "the three Ps": the Public, the Press and the Politicians.
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation under George W. Bush, Mary Peters recently told the Austin-San Antonio Corridor Growth Summit that the country needs to move toward a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax to replace the failing gas tax. At the same time, a new survey conducted by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University shows drivers warming to a mileage tax if lower emission vehicles get discounted rates. At issue is how to pay for maintenance and expansion of roads and transit systems after 40 years of vast growth in system use, and looking toward a tricky double-whammy. More population and jobs in coming decades will strain metro-region surface transportation systems, while flattening per-capita miles driven and greater fuel efficiency are curtailing growth in the per-gallon gas tax revenues that have traditionally been the prime source for surface transportation funding.
Broad implementation of the mileage tax is at least 10 years off, maybe 15. In the nearer term, variable-rate, electronically tolled express lanes are needed aside free lanes on major metro region highways, along with expanded opportunities for public private partnerships and other local and regional funding tools. Eventually, the mileage tax could be levied for travel on arterial and feeder roads, plus highways, with discounts for less congested routes, and possibly, lower emission vehicles. Incentives such as pay-per mile car insurance and meter-less, ticket-less parking could help compensate for privacy concerns. With a slew of VMT pilot projects, technical studies and surveys completed and more underway or coming, this bold policy initiative continues to gain momentum. Here's the San Antonio Express-News on Peter's remarks:
Yesterday in Crosscut, the Northwest online daily journal of politics and public policy, I published a piece titled "Time to Go 'All In' On Tolls." It starts this way:
The four-lane Evergreen Point Floating Bridge across Lake Washington on State Route 520 is a relic of a bygone era, congested and disaster prone. How urgent is the need for a planned six-lane replacement? The Washington State Department of Transportation has gone so far as to graphically model on YouTube how the bridge might buckle under duress, threatening lives and paralyzing the region's highway network.
And is the region stepping up to the challenge? Less than half the funding is secured. The Seattle-side configuration is still being debated. More broadly, the project begs a more comprehensive regional tolling strategy because our bridges and highways are all connected. We can't keep doing transportation mega-projects on a disjointed, one-off basis.
A key to any solution is tolling, and soon. Here and nationwide, 40 years of sizzling growth in vehicle miles traveled has left too many sections of highways, arterial roads, and bridges overburdened, in disrepair, and obsolete in the face of seismic and other hazards. Those ballyhooed federal stimulus funds were a mere drop in the bucket, amounting to less than one-quarter of what a landmark Congressional commission report says is needed annually. The per-gallon gas tax is badly failing at the federal and state levels. The federal gas tax trust fund is bankrupt, and living on bailouts. Even tripling state gas tax contributions to pending mega-projects in Washington state would do little to close wide funding gaps, state data show. A big new federal transportation bill — which may well include the first hike in the U.S. gas tax since 1993 — will help some, but not that much.
Among the pressing legislative priorities facing Congress this autumn -- besides the headline-grabbing health care and climate change bills -- is an extension of the federal surface transportation program. The program authority expires on September 30 and its renewal is essential to keep federal transportation money flowing. The House and Senate have been on divergent paths in their approach toward renewing the program. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, under the leadership of Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN), has been intent on passing a six-year $500 billion surface transportation measure ($450 billion for highways and transit, $50 billion for high-speed rail) during this session of Congress. In late July, a bill to this effect was reported out by the House Highways and Transit subcommittee. Chairman Oberstar announced at the time that he would hold a full committee mark-up soon after the House returns from its summer recess.
The Senate, on the other hand, has been working toward an 18-month extension of the existing surface transportation program. Its rationale for doing so was succinctly stated by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking minority member. There simply is no way, the two senate transportation leaders concluded, that Congress could pass a multi-year authorization of the surface transportation program before the program's expiration at the end of September. "There are just too many big questions left unanswered, not the least of which is a lack of a consensus on how to pay for it," Boxer and Inhofe stated. A better approach, they said, would be to pass an 18-month extension as recommended by the Obama Administration.
Left unsaid were probably two other motives for wanting to postpone enactment of a long-term legislation.
In a significant return to a controversial topic - the positive mention of which once earned him a sharp public rebuke from President Barack Obama's press secretary - U.S. Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood today in Chicago reiterated the possibility of vehicle mileage fees to help pay for mounting U.S. surface transportation needs. His remarks indicate a softening of Obama's official position against the idea. Underscoring evolving bipartisan support, Republican U.S. Rep. John Mica, the ranking minority member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, explains to a Florida paper today why the mileage tax makes sense, long-term. No such policy will be enacted anytime very soon, but could begin to move more seriously toward eventual mainstream adoption as part of a broader surface transportation bill reauthorization with which Congress will grapple after the 2010 mid-term elections. LaHood today also reiterated earlier conceptual support he expressed on the administration's behalf for several other next-generation funding tools, including expanded electronic, time-variable tolling and public-private partnerships, as Dow Jones Newswires was first to report.
The U.S. administration is still considering a higher gas tax or mileage fees to upgrade the road network, though there would be no move until the economy improves, transportation secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday.....LaHood, speaking at a transport conference in Chicago, said state and federal officials had to look at 'other creative ways' beyond the (troubled Highway Trust) fund to maintain and expand roads. President Barack Obama has ruled out any increase in the gas tax that funds the HTF until the economy improves, noted LaHood. Other possibilities include tolled 'HOT lanes' running alongside existing roads, as well as more public-private partnerships and even imposing tolls on existing roads. "That's going to be a wildly debated topic," LaHood said of any scheme to toll existing roads. He said it would be 'hard' to persuade taxpayers to pay again to use something funded from general taxation.
The trick there is to offer them a tangible improvement in the form of guaranteed faster travel times and ramped-up express bus service, in express toll lanes that whenever possible are carved out from the existing highway's footprint, with free passage for vehicles carrying three or more passengers, plus toll rates determined by real-time congestion levels, and parallel lanes free to all drivers. In any case, after Congress works through health care and climate change, and the transportation "revenue enhancement" window opens wide after the 2010 mid-terms, look for a rollicking debate on transportation. Funding tools, land use and greenhouse gas emissions, and systems-focused performance measures to guide spending decisions are all likely to be part of the commotion. Whatever's decided in D.C. will set the stage for heavy lifting by states and regions.
Jarred into action by the tragic I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007, the Minnesota legislature in early 2008 proudly passed a $6.6 billion surface transportation funding bill including the state's first gas tax hike in 20 years, plus optional sales tax hikes, a major bonding program and other measures. But 18 months later, according to its new transportation policy plan, the North Star State faces a $50 billion gap in paying for surface transportation projects over the next 20 years. Of $65 billion in needed work, only $15 billion is currently expected to be available, with three-quarters of that targeted for preserving existing roads and bridges. Officials say safety won't be compromised. But mobility and pavement condition will. The executive summary from the report reveals (pp. 14-15) the full battery of envisioned projects are to meet system performance targets as the population grows, mainly by improving mobility in inter-regional corridors and mitigating congestion in the Twin Cities, Rochester and St. Cloud areas.
Chapter 4's discussion of state trends affecting transportation provides more detail. Population is projected to rise 25 percent from current levels by 2035, which would be 50 percent since 1990. Congestion in the metro regions is expected to grow due to more population, a high rate of solo driving on all trips, greater commuting distances and high use of inter-regional corridors. (State highway map here). Needed projects are detailed in the accompanying statewide highway investment plan (full report here; Twin Cities district here). Given the wide funding gap between needs and resources, leaders want to encourage new ways of maintaining roads, pricing limited peak-hour highway capacity, deploying in-vehicle technology, and funding system improvements. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:
When Congress passes a new $450 billion six-year surface transportation reauthorization sometime in the next 18 months or so, it would directly yield $90 billion per annum, split nationwide over its term. That probably sounds like a lot of money, but it's not. As the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's blueprint for the reauthorization bill notes on p. 7, needed U.S. road and transit projects require $225 billion to $340 billion per year in public and private investment over each of the next 50 years - this according to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. Even scaled-down needs identified by the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure and Finance Commission - also cited in the committee's reauthorization blueprint - are sizable: $200 billion per year in public investment to maintain and improve the most essential components of the nation's highway and transit systems.
The expected $48 billion in 2009 ARRA stimulus bill spending on transportation makes only a minor dent in either amount. Despite the possibility of some additional leveraged funding via an envisioned infrastructure bank that could be rolled into the reauthorization bill, it's increasingly clear that manna from Washington - though important - isn't a stand-alone solution.
That's because of deepening maintenance and construction needs resulting from four decades of robust growth in passenger and freight vehicle miles traveled, plus simultaneous under-investment in infrastructure, and continuing population growth. And so across the U.S., more and more states and regions are grappling with difficult political choices to pay for fixing eroded transportation infrastructure, and for building new capacity and instituting other strategies to ease traffic congestion as the economic recovery unfolds in the next several years.
The first step is realizing you have a problem. There's a fair amount of that going around.
Congress has adjourned for the summer recess with neither house taking action to extend the federal surface transportation program. Hope for a timely enactment of a long term transportation bill this year all but vanished when Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, acknowledged that he does not favor raising the gas tax at this time to pay for the $500 billion transportation authorization ($450 billion for highways and transit, $50 billion for high-speed rail). He made this admission in testimony before a hearing of a House Ways and Means Subcommittee on July 23. "Although increasing and indexing the gasoline and diesel user fee is a viable financing mechanism,...I do not believe that the user fee should be increased during the current recession," Oberstar stated, echoing the posture previously taken by the White House.
Instead, the T&I Committee chairman and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, suggested several potential sources of additional revenue to supplement the gas tax and close the funding gap.
How America moves its people and goods in an efficient, effective, and in a secure and environmentally friendly way, will have at least as great of an effect as any other major policy decisions that the current Administration and Congress make. But, woefully, transportation isn't really the stuff of eye-catching headlines and cocktail party chatter. That might be why, except among a small group of policy wonks, one of the most comprehensive calls for a new way of doing transportation business went largely unnoticed when it was released one month ago in Washington, D.C.
After stressing funding shortfalls facing King County Metro's bus service and declining gas tax revenues for road projects, Carlyle explores several important macro-level policy options for funding improved mobility.
...the long-term, big picture is important and we can't let the battles over the tunnel, 520 bridge and other mega projects be a conversation killer about our broader structural challenges. Several ideas are on the front burner. Tolling is making a comeback, as evidenced by the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and soon on the 520 bridge. It makes sense for the people who use facilities the most to pay a greater share of the construction and maintenance costs for a specific facility or geographic area....comprehensive regional tolling - with e-tags and other solutions to help make it easy logistically - makes good economic sense so long as we have a real action plan....
Another, if controversial, idea is charging according to vehicle miles traveled (VMT), tracked by a transponder. This would take into account actual road usage, whether or not a vehicle uses gasoline, electricity or something else. It also opens up some interesting new policy ideas such as integrating car insurance, parking (no more parking meters!), tolls, etc., into one system that is able to charge drivers accordingly and accurately. Obviously, a concern about privacy is one major obstacle to this idea, so we'll have to continue looking at innovative ways to address this very legitimate concern.....
A third option is the car-tab fee model and using the funds for direct transportation services so the money doesn't disappear into the institutional bureaucracy of government but rather goes for real services on the ground.
Kudos to Rep. Carlyle for highlighting in a community forum the need to develop long-term surface transportation funding strategies. Regional (electronic, time-variable) tolling and further consideration of a vehicle mileage tax - along with a local-option motor vehicle excise tax applied at annual license renewal time - are all important options that our Cascadia Center and others have advocated.
More than that, Carlyle's commentary is especially timely.
For those who follow transportation policy closely, last week was an eventful one.
The week started with a June 22 release by the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee of its 775-page draft surface transportation bill, a "blueprint" of which had been released the previous week. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's decision (also released the previous week) to seek an 18-month extension of the existing surface transportation law was met with approval by some, regret and resignation by others, and incredulity and defiance by still others. In seeking a delay, Secretary LaHood joined a growing body of doubters that the crowded legislative calendar - controversial climate legislation, contentious health care reform, a Supreme Court confirmation, among others - would permit the House and the Senate to reach agreement on a new bill before the current law expires at the end of September. Our first priority, the Secretary said, must be to fix the Highway Trust Fund shortfall so that money continues to flow to the states without interruption.
The urgency of acting promptly, i.e. before the Highway Trust Fund runs dry in mid-August, was reinforced by a June 22 letter from Governors Ed Rendell (PA) and James Douglas (VT), to the congressional leadership. Writing in their capacity as chairman and vice-chairman respectively of the National Governors Association, they urged the lawmakers to pass an extension to eliminate the impending shortfall "as soon as possible" so that states can continue planning for and funding critical highway programs. The letter left a clear implication that the governors considered ensuring the continuity of funding offered by Sec. LaHood's proposal to take precedence over a long-term reform of the program - especially given the uncertainty of finding the money to pay for the long-term program.
Further support for the Administration's proposal came from the Senate side.
Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee unveiled a blueprint for the next surface transportation authorization bill on June 18 to generally positive reviews (long version of blueprint here). However he left two key questions unanswered: Can the bill be enacted this year? and, Where will the money to fund the ambitious $500 billion program come from?
It's common enough to hear that we need more tolling in urban regions to help fund maintenance, repair and extension of highways (not to mention the time-saving benefits of tolled express lanes). But tolling in Wyoming, a.k.a. "Big Wyoming" and "the Cowboy State," population 493,782? What gives?
Here's what: Interstate 80 across Wyoming is wearing down, traffic is expected to more than double by 2037, and money is scarce. As the Interstate Atlas shows, I-80 is an important route to our Cascadia region, via a short spur to I-84, which then runs through Boise to Portland and I-5 just south of the border with Washington; in Sacramento, it also connects directly with I-5, the major artery defining the West Coast Corridor from the U.S.-Mexico border to the U.S.-Canada border. I-80 runs the length of the country, east to west. Trucks will comprise 57 percent of the I-80 load in Wyoming in 2037, up from about half now. Forty percent of the highway in the state is in poor to moderate condition, and 50 percent will need major rehabilitation by 2013. So, as the Laramie Boomerang reports, the state is already in the second phase of an I-80 tolling study that's looking at several options to fund current and future road maintenance needs. Tolling would be electronic, with vehicle and license plate cameras and radar detectors mounted above the highway. The main options are:
tolling I-80 in Wyoming at 30 cents per mile for heavy trucks and 3 cents per mile for passenger vehicles (two possible configurations);
employ tolling to help pay for construction of a third lane in each direction for heavy trucks only on I-80 in Wyoming.
Operators could stand to pay up to $116 per truck in tolls to cross the state, according to the Wyoming Department of Transportation. Any more and they would tend to divert to other routes. Permission is required from the Federal Highway Administration to toll interstate highways, but this would likely pose no obstacle because the federal government simply lacks the resources its gas tax once provided for highway upkeep and construction, after four decades of steep growth in highway usage and ever-mounting maintenance and expansion needs. Tolling has already been allowed and implemented on a number of other interstates. And Wyoming's own gas tax, for better or worse, is a scant 14 cents per gallon and unlikely to be hiked by any significant degree. That Mustang won't ride.
Unlike more urbanized locales, the issue is upkeep, not that plus congestion. Wyoming's prescient attempt to figure out how to keep I-80 in good repair is a useful reminder that highways we may take for granted aren't free to maintain. The story also underscores the crucial role of freight in the economy. It's great to buy local when we can, but that's often simply not possible. All lofty rhetoric aside, we want what we want when we want it, and price matters. So, there are lots of trucks rumbling down I-80 through Wyoming, and many more to come. Take the same reality and multiply the traffic volumes exponentially, and you begin to get the scope, nationally. Moving more freight via rails is a good idea - and should be pursued energetically. But that too will take many billions of dollars, in this case for new infrastructure, and serve only a portion of growing freight volume.
In addition to evaluating specific in-state revenue scenarios, the study consultants - Parsons Brinkerhoff - will also produce a stand-alone memo reporting on outreach to neighboring states along I-80 (Nebraska and Utah) on a joint approach to tolling the corridor, and the possibility of pursuing a public-private partnership to help assure the highway's continued viability.
As for the main menu options right now, a first-phase feasibility study completed last October by Parsons seems to all but rule out the new, tolled truck-only lanes as too expensive, at $7 billion, leaving two other "all lanes tolled" possibilities. One - the so-called "baseline" alternative - would entail no expansion of the highway and raise $3.01 billion between 2009 and 2037, with the lowest annual maintenance and operations costs. The other would add a lane in each direction, with each inside (left) lane for cars only, and trucks keeping to the right except to use the center lane for passing. This would cost $2.8 billion, with tolling raising $3.21 billion by 2037. The feasibility study also indicates additional funds could be generated if a politically-problematic attempt to raise the state's exceptionally low fuel taxes succeeded.
Although the feasibility study is only a first-phase product and more detailed analysis including community input is occurring now, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the baseline alternative - with its $3 billion in revenues and lowest costs by far - will be the final choice. Maintenance and operations needs include work already forestalled, ongoing work with annual price tag of at least $25 million, and an every-15-years major rehabilitation and repair program that actually unfolds over the course of several years. According the feasibility study, that latter effort alone would cost about $1.1 billion in the cycle pegged to 2024.
Results of the current, second phase of the I-80 tolling study will be presented September 1 to the Wyoming legislature.
U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rep. James Oberstar (D.-Minn.) says, enough already with studies and pilot projects. Why not just phase in over the next two years the controversial vehicle mileage tax, in order to supplement and eventually replace the flailing gas tax? More from Associated Press:
..Oberstar...(pictured, right) said he believes the technology exists to implement a mileage tax. He said he sees no point in waiting years for the results of pilot programs since such a tax system is inevitable as federal gasoline tax revenues decline. "Why do we need a pilot program? Why don't we just phase it in?" said Oberstar, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman. Oberstar is drafting a six-year transportation bill to fund highway and transit programs that is expected to total around a half trillion dollars.
A congressionally mandated commission on transportation financing alternatives recommended switching to a vehicle-miles traveled tax, but estimated it would take a decade to put a national system in place. "I think it can be done in far less than that, maybe two years," Oberstar said at a House hearing. He was responding to testimony by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who recommended...pilot programs in every state to test the viability of a mileage-based tax. Blumenauer said public acceptance, not technology, is the main obstacle to a mileage-based tax. Pilot programs "would be able to increase public awareness and comfort and it would hasten the day we could make the transition," Blumenauer said.
Oberstar shrugged off that concern. "I'm at a point of impatience with more studies," Oberstar said. He suggested that Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the highways and transit subcommittee, set up a meeting of transportation experts and members of Congress to figure out how it could be done. The tax would entail equipping vehicles with GPS technology to determine how many miles a car has been driven and whether on interstate highways or secondary roads. The devices would also calculate the amount of tax owed.
Oberstar's comments may be based in part on savvy bargaining tactics. It's unlikely a nationwide plan for VMTs would be implemented in just a few years. But when it comes time for his committee and the House to sign off on the reauthorized surface transportation funding bill later this year, he can always justify a large appropriation for further (and important) investigations - and new state and multi-state pilot projects - by noting he's backing down from an earlier proposal of his to go much faster. In any case, the idea of the VMT isn't just to enrage taxpayers, though that's certainly a near-term downside. More from AP:
Gas tax revenues -- the primary source of federal funding for highway programs -- have dropped dramatically in the last two years, first because gas prices were high and later because of the economic downturn. They are forecast to continue going down as drivers switch to fuel efficient and alternative fuel vehicles.
...the challenges in continuing to provide a safe and free-flowing transportation network have never been greater. One of the biggest...is addressing the decline of revenues coming into the Highway Trust Fund, the main source of funds that pay for construction and maintenance on our expansive network of highways and bridges. Today, the highway trust fund is primarily supported by taxing fuel by the gallon (18.4 cents for gasoline and a 24.4 cents for diesel). Unfortunately, due to the sluggish economy, high gas prices and an increase in fuel efficiency, we are experiencing substantial declines in tax receipts into the trust fund. This method of using federal fuel taxes to fund our nation's highways and bridges is no longer adequate to support the growing infrastructure needs in the country. In fact, simply maintaining current levels of highway spending would result in a Highway Trust Fund deficit of about $70 billion by the end of the next highway bill.
In the short term, we are exploring numerous alternative financing mechanisms to increase revenues into the highway trust fund, because no single option will provide a complete solution. We must be willing to explore new options, including expanded use of public-private partnerships; and requiring all users, not just motorists, to contribute to the Highway Trust Fund. In the long term, to ensure that all those who use the system pay their fair share, transportation experts are discussing a user-funded fee for actual miles driven, known as a Vehicles Miles Tax. It is important to note that this system would not raise taxes, but replace the gas tax with a new more accurate collection mechanism.
Hmmnn. Anything that can unite James Inhofe and the deep green advocates at Grist magazine in Seattle, probably has legs. The University of Iowa's Public Policy Center is currently running a six-region VMT pilot project called The Road User Study. Participants will test the concept on the byways of Austin, Baltimore, the Research Triangle of North Carolina, Eastern Iowa, San Diego, and - this is interesting - Boise. They're using volunteers with on-board GPS devices in their cars, who will be billed by the miles they travel and which roads they use. They will not actually pay, but will report valuable information on how the system worked for them and under what circumstances they'd be willing to actually pay a VMT in the future. Results will include simulated revenue distribution to jurisdictions, and the thoughts of participants on travel information privacy. A major pilot project in Oregon found this concern could be addressed satisfactorily and that overall, test users would welcome implementation of a VMT system.
Many questions still remain, such as how VMT rates would be fitted to drivers of lower-weight, lower emission vehicles, and to rural area drivers. It's already clear that in populous metro regions, there must be some degree of discounts for avoiding crowded roads and highways during peak hours, as well as for ride-share and transit vehicles. Another issue is whether the system users will see more robust benefits from federal or state management of a VMT system. Gabriel Roth of the Independent Institute argues strongly here for the latter.
Chairman Obertar's "do it, already" view reflects some gamesmanship, or heartfelt impatience with the "study, study, study" ethic - or some of both. But his voice is an important one. Oberstar's strong support for the VMT concept is likely to accelerate the pace of adoption. Because it is already a question not of whether, but when, and exactly how.
When I was nine I liked to poke a stick into ant nests I’d find in sidewalk cracks. Ants scattered in every conceivable direction. They ran in circles, they ran over and through each other. They screamed without logic. I was fascinated.
The state of professional transportation opinion in the US today is pretty much the same. The stick poked at the nest in this case was the report released by the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Finance Commission this February. The opening ant-scream was the spanking Obama’s Press Secretary Gibbs gave to Transportation Secretary Lahood. We professionals cringed in unison. Gibbs was in turn spanked next day by Congressman Oberstar, chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. We cheered. Of course the press went in every ant-direction imaginable for that and for the release of the NSTIFC’s Paying Our Way report 5 days later. Joe Motorist will have gleaned no real insight, and after fears were supplanted by next days’ tedious economic headlines will have simply forgotten, secure in the fact that opinion was sufficiently variable that no leader could possibly find a coherent position.
It seemed to me that in the weeks following the release of the report, US transportation professionals were – among friends – largely in favor of the key message in the report: “The gas-tax is a clever and simple idea whose time has run out and paying-for-use is the tax-shift to fix it.” We mocked Gibbs, commiserated with LaHood, and delighted in Oberstar’s defense – which had just vindicated all of us. On the whole we nodded in unison at the work of Rob Atkinson’s Congressional commission. Of course we would not all recommend spending the revenue the same way, but we all seemed aligned with the principles: meter all road use and pay according to number of miles traveled weighted by when and where the driving happened and of course by type of vehicle used.
With that in mind, I attended the April 14-15 Symposium on Mileage-Based User Fees (updated web page here) hosted in Austin by the Texas Transportation Institute’s University Transportation Center for Mobility, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, and Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota. This would be about my 20th symposium dealing with Road Use Charging in five years.
Editor's Note: Cascadia Prospectus is pleased to welcome as a contributor Bern Grush, chief scientist and founder of SkyMeter Corp., who in periodic posts will share insights on road user charging technology and other aspects of surface transportation and system pricing.
Worldwide, the need to toll roads is increasing, whether for sustainable funding, transportation demand management, or emissions management. While this includes the usual toll by segment approach using radio frequency identification (RFID) or dedicated short-wave radio communication (DSRC) many transportation planners are looking to wide-area methods such as Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) in the United States and Time, Distance and Place (TDP) in the EU. This trend will almost inevitably continue, with the end result approaching universal tolling and presumably the abandonment of fuel taxes.
The technology to provide "one road-use meter/one bill" is ready now, and tax policy is now being considered by many transport thought leaders. But methods to migrate from fuel tax with free access to "pay for use" over wide jurisdictions such as states, provinces or countries are less well understood.
This paper will look at the new enabling technology and propose a four-stage approach that can help us migrate from fuel tax plus segment tolling, to uniform network-wide pricing.
Read full paper here. (First presented as "Moving From Road Road Pricing To Network Pricing," at ITS Asia 2009.)
Reuters reports that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a senate committee the administration of President Barack Obama will not sign off on any hike in the increasingly ineffective federal gas tax, though Congress may propose that.
LaHood's declaration signaled that the Obama administration will take the same stance as former President George W. Bush. Revenue generated by the tax of 18.4 cents on each gallon of gas sold in the country goes into the Highway Trust Fund to fix U.S. roads and public transit. That fund has already been depleted once and Congress had to pass emergency measures last summer to replenish it. The tax has not been raised since the early 1990s...
The Bush administration also opposed a tax hike and last summer suggested looking beyond taxes to privately run electronic tolling systems and tax incentives for transportation investments. LaHood told the hearing that there are "a number of other things that will help us raise the revenue to satisfy the needs that we want to meet here."
True, the Obama administration's current position on the gas tax does not rule out a modest hike when the economy recovers, but even then and even if indexed to inflation, by-the-gallon fuel levies by the federal government and the states will provide only marginal cash compared to growing system needs fueled by dramatic increases in road usage over the past 50 years, and ongoing U.S. population growth. Additionally, today's vehicles are much more fuel-efficient, depressing revenue growth, and the "price signal" sent by the gas tax is weak.
Even if the federal gas tax were raised another 10 cents a gallon (about the limit politically), and a state's gas tax raised another five cents or so, what conclusions would the average motorist draw given that pump prices fluctuated more than two dollars per gallon in recent years and are headed toward settling at far higher levels than in decades past? The motorist's obvious quick take is correct: there are a number of factors more influential than how often and how far they drive - including geo-politics, oil supply and demand, and oil company prerogatives - that influence price at the gas pump.
If what we're looking for is to is allocate scarce roadway capacity, use it more efficiently, and broaden adoption of alternatives to peak-hour solo driving, the connection between choices and costs must be far more direct. We need something which unites the choice of driving on roads and highways and bridges, with the hefty costs of operating, maintaining and in some cases, replacing them.
An alternative set of options includes politically-charged strategies such as raising state gas taxes, county sales taxes, or regional vehicle excise taxes. Another, better type of approach is sometimes called "the user pays," and it's more direct than a fuel tax can ever be. This menu includes:
electronic tolling of new highway express lanes in major metro regions, with higher charges at peak hours and lower charges off-peak (transit and ride-share vehicles go free);
creating a network of such electronic, variably-tolled express lanes on all major highways in populous regions, which would exist side-by-side with more congested free lanes;
Electronic time-variable tolling of all lanes of all major highways in a metro region;
The latter would likely involve mandatory GPS tracking devices on all vehicles by a year certain (either built-in or retrofitted), though other technologies are also being discussed. Strict privacy protections are understood to be crucial.
Lanes managed under electronic time-variable tolling are already in use in a variety of locales, with some eyeing full-on regional systems of these "managed lanes" encompassing a number of major highways and state routes. They typically involve overhead gantries and windshield transponders keyed to prepaid or billed user accounts, although currently, automated cameras snapping pictures of license plates can replace or augment that approach.
Then there is the conversation about so-called "public-private partnerships" in surface transportation, which will surely continue to advance in the U.S. as atomic rhetoric is supplanted by calm and accurate analysis, of their variety and applicability.
In its final, February 2009 report "Paying Our Way," the congressionally-created National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission concluded motor fuel taxes won't get us from here to there. (End of Chapter 4, "Paying By The Gallon: Motor Fuel Taxes".)
...a variety of factors are converging to challenge the preeminence of (motor fuel taxes) as the primary source of surface transportation funding. Due to a combination of travel growth, system deterioration, increasing construction costs, and lack of indexing, fuel tax revenues are becoming increasingly inadequate to meet investment needs. This inadequacy will likely be exacerbated as improved fuel efficiency and alternative fuel vehicles reduce fuel consumption. Moreover, the public's willingness to pay for the required investments through an increase in motor fuel taxes appears to be weak and may be declining...In urban congested areas, it is possible that charging users of the system more directly will not only raise revenues, but also influence driver behavior and lead to reductions in both congestion levels and the investment that is needed.
The real take-away from the nation's capital is not that we should start laying odds on when the federal gas tax will finally be raised, and by how much, but that "user pays" is the road map to the future.
During his successful campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama embraced the cause of surface transportation, arguing with gusto for improvements to inter-city high speed rail, for research and development to advance the mainstream adoption of alternative fuels, and for other green transportation initiatives. In contrast, his general election opponent John McCain trilled one note on the evils of transportation funding earmarks. To those who follow surface transportation policy, the difference between the two was stark: Obama won big points as the more knowledgeable, engaged, and passionate of the two. McCain appeared to be either out of his depth, disinterested, or constrained by poor political counsel.
Now flash forward to our current and befuzzled times. While a disappointingly scant $50 billion of the $787 billion federal stimulus bill was allocated to transportation, Team Obama seemed again to be warming to transformation when newly-appointed Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a wide-ranging recent interview told Joan Lowy of the Associated Press the country needs to take a good hard look at taxing vehicles by the mile, and more regional tolling. The White House brusequely and publicly notified LaHood that in mentioning a mileage tax he had wandered far off the reservation.
That's hardly where the story ends, as I will explain below. But first, just what is this beast, anyway?
The envisioned vehicle miles traveled tax, or VMT, is seen by backers as a better way for drivers on our nation's worn out highways, bridges and roads to pay as they go, resulting in a more sustainable surface transportation system. A VMT is also meant to make choices such as transit, ride-sharing and tele-work more attractive than peak-hour solo driving, while helping to fund those alternatives, too. Why do some believe a VMT is needed? Even if raised, the by-the-gallon federal gas tax will fail to deliver over the long haul, as vehicle fuel efficiency continues to increase. The big federal Highway Trust Fund it feeds is already on last-gasp life support. Meanwhile, VMTs have already been successfully beta-tested in, of all places, Central Puget Sound, and the state of Oregon, which is widely seen as a national leader in evaluating the policy's possibilities.
What about common criticisms of a mileage tax? The answer is to design it well. A VMT can be designed to protect privacy. It can also be calibrated to give discounts to drivers of more fuel efficient vehicles and those who travel during off-peak hours and on less-congested roads.
By 2020, Congress willing, GPS trackers could be built into all new cars sold in the U.S. and added to older ones. Cross-state coordination would be required, as would inter-operability between a federal roads VMT and state or regional tolling systems. Regional systems, in addition to imposing time- or congestion-sensitive electronic tolls on certain bridges and stretches of highways, could - if Congress does not - extend the VMT concept to major arterials or even all streets and roads. Such a bold step is all but unthinkable today, but could help make maintenance of county and local roads and funding of regional transit less dependent on endless ballot measures and special pleadings to the legislature.
To be sure, the costs and benefits of the current versus the new approach would have to be convincingly detailed to win voter approval for anything so radical as a mileage tax on arterial and sub-arterial roads. The political risks would be considerable at the front end, but could diminish sharply over time as turmoil around surface transportation funding eases and user benefits steadily accrue.
For Washington state, a national VMT on federal-aid roads would mean a steady funding source for the $2 billion worth of mostly-orphaned work needed on Interstate 5 between downtown Seattle and Northgate, and for the nearly $2 billion needed to fix fatality-plagued U.S. 2 which runs east from Snohomish County. That same VMT could be divvied up in such a way as to help fund more transit in those corridors, too. A regional or state VMT could provide a steady share of funding for all manner of languishing pavement repair, interchange re-design, Active Traffic Management, Intelligent Transportation Systems and life safety projects on roads, plus high-capacity corridor transit enhancements.
Some politicians intuit the game-changing possibilities. That's why the VMT has been gaining momentum in recent years and months despite predictably visceral reactions from the general public. Recent news reports show the VMT concept being advanced, at various stages and in various ways, in Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan and Massachusetts. The head of Missouri's state transportation department says a VMT is probably inevitable there within several decades. Even Idaho's Republican Governor Butch Otter has voiced support for taxing vehicles by the mile. In Washington, the state transportation commission's 2009 policy platform suggests a closer look at a VMT tested across state lines on the West Coast.
So the VMT's prospects are considerable, though we're only in the early innings of this contest.
Yet no sooner had the mention of a mileage tax escaped Secretary LaHood's lips to Web news sites, than Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a sharp rejoinder, saying a VMT was not, and would not, be a policy of this administration.
A predictable barrage of stories immediately ensued, declaring the mileage tax dead, sunk, history, D.O.A.
But Gibbs' curt smackdown of LaHood was itself quickly overtaken by events.
In an interview with Congressional Quarterly, Oberstar said that LaHood "had the temerity to think...and what did he get? Slapped down. He's a good man. A decent man. Don't let him get slapped down by know-nothings." Oberstar then suggested that Gibbs ought to stay out of the conversation on transportation policy.
"I've got news for you," Oberstar said, "transportation policy isn't going to be written in the press room of the White House."
"Oh, it's on," Tapper concluded with relish.
That it is. For then came the velvet hammer: the issuance last week of a long-awaited final report of the Congressionally-created National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Revenue Financing Commission, titled "Paying Our Way" (executive summary here). An earlier version had already favorably highlighted the VMT option.
In its final report, the commission first noted the troubling backdrop. There's been a doubling of U.S. auto and truck traffic from 1980 to 2006 while growth in highway lane miles was virtually flat and maintenance of roads and bridges lagged. Real spending per highway mile traveled is down by nearly half since the Interstate system was established in the late 1950. Total highway and transit outlays as a percent of gross domestic product is down one-quarter over the same span, to 1.5 percent today. Because it has been unadjusted for inflation, the federal gas tax has lost one-third of its purchasing power since the last time it was hiked, 16 years ago.
The price of inaction is high. With resulting lost time, squandered fuel and vehicle deterioration, congestion in the U.S.'s 437 urban region costs upward of $78 billion annually. The commission reported the feds ought to be providing half of the $200 billion required per year to maintain and improve the nation's highways and transit systems, but that currently all levels of government are generating only one-third the needed funding. The commission took pains to point out - quite properly - that state, regional and local governments must shoulder the burden too, finding new resources to boost capacity and make other improvements.
What to do, then? The 15-member commission in its unanimous report said the gas tax - buried in a per-gallon price that is shaped by other factors - sends poor price signals to motorists, and that a mileage tax would clarify the linkage between driving and the needs of a poorly maintained, underpriced system.
The commission emphasized that a VMT could be calibrated by time of day, type of road, vehicle weight and fuel economy, and could be implemented nationally in 2020 after a decade of thorough research and development, and demonstration programs. To meet the base-case goal of providing sufficient federal funding for maintenance and improvement of highways and transit, the rate would need to be set at about 2.3 cents per mile for cars, if a VMT was charged on all roads. If the charge were restricted to federal-aid roads only, it would need to be somewhat higher, according to the report.
In its report, the commission also pinpointed variable tolling as a key approach at the state and regional levels and identified a slew of effective federal revenue-generating measures complementary to a VMT, such as a tax on auto and truck tire purchases, a 10 cent per gallon hike in the federal gas tax to help meet near-term needs, a 15 cent per gallon hike in the federal diesel fuel tax, and a federal carbon tax.
Major national dailies weighed in thoughtfully after the release of the commission's final report, drawn to the flame of the VMT debate. The Christian Science Monitor editorialized:
Gas taxes - at both the federal and state levels - must inevitably go the way of the gas guzzler. As vehicles become more fuel-efficient, they'll drink less gas, and thus produce less revenue to maintain and improve America's aging roads and mass transit. Add electric cars to the mix, and this revenue stream turns to a trickle.......Financing for transport infrastructure can no longer depend on indirect fees hidden in the overall cost of a gallon of gas but must rely more on direct user fees, such as tolling and congestion pricing.
Gasoline taxes may have sufficed to build the highways of the 20th century, but they've done little to influence vehicle use of roads. Changing behavior is the key to 21st century transport that must unclog crowded highways and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Taxing miles alerts drivers to the real cost of using roads and can better motivate them to drive less....Last week, the US Department of Transportation secretary spoke favorably of the VMT, but the White House press secretary quickly dismissed the idea - odd for an administration interested in innovation.
Members of Congress, which commissioned the panel in the first place, can drive the VMT idea when they reauthorize the surface transport bill, which expires this year. Well they know the fragility of the federal Highway Trust Fund, which last year neared bankruptcy and needed an $8 billion infusion because the gas tax couldn't keep up with repair and improvement needs. A VMT is the more reliable and efficient way to pay for transport. Its time has come.
A mileage tax could be tailored so that Hummer drivers, for example, paid more per mile than Prius owners. The tax could also be levied at higher rates during rush hour or on congested highways, discouraging people from driving at times when they would spend the longest on the road. It's no surprise, then, that groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund have praised the proposal.
Most mileage tax proposals call for a tracking device in vehicles that, according to the commission, would "function like the GPS devices that million of Americans have already installed in their cars without worry of privacy loss." There are potential privacy pitfalls, but, as the commission wrote, "such systems can and should be designed to fully protect travelers' privacy." The trackers could be designed so that the government would only receive information about how much a driver owes, not where the driver has traveled. Reassuringly, a successful mileage tax pilot program in Oregon protected drivers' privacy.
In leaping to quash any further discussion of a mileage tax, Obama spokesman Gibbs was more likely than not doing the bidding of some higher-up adviser wary of blowback from the political Right. But Team Obama's Old School move has had exactly the opposite of its intended effect, as indicated by the reaction from Chairman Oberstar and the national dialog that has ratcheted up following the issuance of commission's final report.
If Oberstar is as serious as he sounds about continued examination of a VMT, the next logical step would be for Congress to include robust funding in the reauthorized surface transportation bill this autumn for several VMT demonstration projects. The I-5 corridor - crowded and worn, but vital to freight and passenger vehicle mobility - is an especially suitable candidate.
As it happens, in April a national symposium on VMTs will be staged by the Texas Transportation Institute. Leaders of the completed Oregon and Puget Sound pilot projects will be among the featured presenters, as will a representative from Germany, where a VMT for heavy trucks has already been instituted. Also scheduled to speak is a representative of U.S. DOT's Federal Highway Administration. Perhaps the White House should send an envoy as well, to listen, and learn.
The much-hyped federal economic stimulus package isn't looking like it will do all that much for surface transportation. The New York Times reports that the House stimulus bill contains a scant $30 billion for roads and bridges and $10 billion for transit. Turns out most of the infrastructure spending in the bill is not for surface transportation. The new administration has weighed in, supporting the bill. Washington State would get $530 million for highways, roads and bridges and $216 million for transit from the bill, according to D.C. correspondent Les Blumenthal. To put that in context, we have about $38 billion in unmet transportation funding needs, as shown on p. 5 of this overview from the Washington State Transportation Commission.
On the way to final passage, the federal stimulus bill's funding level for surface transportation nationwide could be tweaked somewhat, with more coming to our state and others. But not a lot more. As the Wall Street Journal reports, among House members the hoped-for level of surface and air transportation combined spending in the stimulus bill topped out at $85 billion, and a key committee chairman was eyeing a more achievable $53 billion. The $85 billion (including air transport) would be less than one-quarter of the estimated annual nut to address national surface transportation needs for each of the next 50 years (air transport not included). Even assuming that best-case, one-time $85 billion jolt, plus an envisioned federal infrastructure investment bank and the surface transportation bill re-authorization this coming autumn, the gap between what states need and what the feds can supply will be vast in coming decades.
It's true that a proposed U.S. infrastructure bank could raise some $60 billion over 10 years for deserving projects. That'd be a start, but as Congressional Quarterly reports, the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission in a major report issued (in 2008) said $225 billion per annum is needed for the next 50 years for repairs and upgrades to meet future needs. That's $12.5 trillion. The commission noted that current expenditures are less than 40 percent of their recommended yearly nut, and that future funding will need to be closely tied to cost-benefit analyses and performance-based outcomes.....The commission's scarifying estimate dovetails, roughly, with one by the American Society of Civil Engineers that just to get moving on vital projects, the nation's infrastructure needs an infusion of $1.6 trillion over the next five years.
As you'll see toward the bottom of this recent report from the Houston Chronicle, the Congressional Budget Office projects the federal highway fund will run out of money by this year's end, likewise the federal transit fund by 2012. An increase in the federal gas tax is seen by some as partial remedy, but with government and consumers moving steadily toward ever more fuel-efficient vehicles, this by-the-gallon tax will have a diminishing yield even if the huge political barriers to raising it can be surmounted.
Which brings us to the multi-faceted Cod Liver Oil Solution. One part is exploration of a vehicle-miles travelled tax, certain to bring out the musket-bearers in the near term, but probably one key element - here and elsewhere - in the long term. Another piece, already taking shape, is networks of time-variable tolled lanes in metro regions. The Bay Area is among a number of regions nationwide beginning to roll out that strategy; it is distinct there from a smaller and more controversial initiative to impose a pricing cordon around the central city aimed at individual drivers. Arguing in the journal Mass High Tech that regional time-variable electronic tolling systems are smarter than hitching our wagon to the dying gas tax is Craig Carlson, director of Cambridge Consultants. These "fast lanes" raise maintenance and operations funds directly from users - but even more importantly, help control peak hour use by solo drivers while transit and ride-share vehicles go free. If you're still skeptical, at the New York Times' "Freakonomics" blog UCLA researcher Eric Morris explains why free highway lanes recall the Soviet food lines of yore.
Similar perspectives are beginning to take root in The Evergreen State, in practice and in theory.
One important indicator of where the thinking on best practices is heading comes from our state transportation commission, which recently unveiled its 2009 policy platform. Scroll down to "priority policy issues." Among the key recommendations for legislators to consider are further development of regional tolling, and - take a deep breath - a West Coast pilot project to test out a vehicle-miles-travelled tax. The commission, whose statutory duty is to advise the legislature on transportation and to approve toll rates, is also keen on a carbon tax structure for the state and eventually nation, which rewards greener vehicles. Some of their policy priorities, in their words:
A Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) based system in which drivers pay for the miles they drive with per-mile rates varying according to location, time of day, and day of week is a technically feasible approach. However, it appears doubtful that one state can implement such a system on its own. While there are serious political challenges with such a concept in the short term, the topic is gaining interest nationwide and is actively being discussed in Washington, D.C. One possible approach ...would be to implement a federally funded pilot VMT-based project on the West Coast - perhaps an I-5 "Corridor of the Future" project. This idea is advocated by the West Coast Transportation Commissions.
Tolling and congestion pricing should be applied over time where appropriate, to transportation facilities as identified in the Commission's 2006 Tolling Study. (Parts 1 and 2 here). Pricing has been proven to be an effective means to manage congestion, maximize the efficient use of scarce transportation resources, and reducing VMT which carries climate change benefits. Tolling has these effects in virtually all cases in which demand out-paces capacity, including both highways and ferries. Indeed, the recent experience in the United States with relatively high gas prices began to demonstrate the impact of pricing on personal transportation decisions. We must act now to move critical tolling projects forward.
Consider imposing a state carbon tax structure based upon vehicle type. Ordinarily this concept would be a long term notion in this country and in Washington State. However, such taxes are being implemented in other parts of the world and should be acted upon in the near future in this state and nation.
The commission also urges a closer look at strategies including these:
Increase vehicle registration fees.
Reinstitute some form of a value-based vehicle "excise tax" with a reasonable depreciation schedule.
Explore, using cost-benefit analysis, public/private partnership investments in delivering capital construction projects and how such investments can be employed to help shape our economic and environmental future around sustainable mobility.
The commission discusses a range of additional strategies highlighting environmental concerns and the crucial role of transit. Legislators will need to ensure that some judicious share of new road revenues is directed to transit in major metro regions, so that better alternatives exist for those who'd like to sidestep expanded road pricing when their schedules permit.
Drawing on the transportation commission's 2009 policy priorities, Washington state legislators and Governor Chris Gregoire can help pave the way for a new breed of revenue solutions to our long-neglected and growing surface transportation needs. These solutions in turn can help meet - and disperse - the future transportation funding obligations of a state now badly overextended, while simultaneously fueling our economic engine.
Though the details are far from settled, a federal economic stimulus package of roughly $600 billion to $800 billion has strong support from President-elect Barack Obama. Congress, including the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrat caucus, is bound to register concern over more borrowing. Still, something will pass and everyone will be grabbing for their share. As much as $300 billion of the stimulus could be set aside for infrastructure, primarily surface transportation.
Hammered by declining tax revenues tied to the economic downturn, plus tight credit markets and growing transportation infrastructure needs, states are feeling needy, and many are voicing great hopes for stimulus package aid.
But the stimulus money has to be spent wisely; and regions and states will have to pitch in themselves, using innovative approaches to transportation finance and funding (about which more at our conclusion, below). Whether the stimulus provides $250 billion, $300 billion, or $350 billion for infrastructure, spread across the nation, it will only go so far. Looking at surface transportation alone - not including other essential infrastructure such as utilities - many major metro regions and states have priority project needs running well into the tens of billions.
The first step, securing congressional approval of the stimulus package and ensuring a hefty share for infrastructure, is vital. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (pictured at right, with friend) explains, in Newsweek:
Our infrastructure is more than just a quality-of-life issue. It is an economic issue. Americans waste billions of dollars while semi-trucks carry goods on gridlocked roads and lose millions of gallons of water in leaky old pipes. We lose time and dollars because our ports are not computerized or modern enough to meet today's demands. Our businesses lose real dollars because our buildings are not energy efficient. This kind of waste raises the costs of everything from clothing to cars to raw carrots. It's clear that the faster we can move people and goods, the stronger our economy is. In short, we are a dinosaur economy trying to compete in a space-age global environment.
...why do we sit bumper to bumper on the freeway for two or three hours in order to get home from work during rush hour?...why do Americans stand in long security lines at the airport, in our socks, just to sit in the terminal for hours as our flights get delayed because of overcrowded airport runways?...we still rely on trains that go the same speed as they did 100 years ago, so our shipping times and commutes are longer than other countries....
...when you think about America's aging infrastructure, we're going to get beat...by our competitors China, India, Europe and Brazil. Travel overseas and you see faster commuter trains, better public transportation, double-decker freeways, and more efficient ports. Meanwhile, infrastructure spending as a share of gross domestic product in the United States has dropped 25 percent over the past 20 years. So, government spending is at an all-time high, while investment in our critical infrastructure is at a historic low. Recession or no recession, our nation desperately needs to update infrastructure that lags behind that of even some developing countries. But it is also true that a recession is the perfect time to put money into long-term investments like massive public-works projects because it creates jobs while pumping up our economy.
Tell it, Guvernator. But how can Congress ensure that the stimulus money for infrastructure - and other purposes - is spent wisely? Some useful guidelines are offered by a national group called America 2050, which tracks land use, climate change, demography, trade and infrastructure, with a focus on emerging U.S. mega-regions. The organization is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, and others. Civic, business, environmental and transportation leaders convened by America 2050 say:
...it cannot be spending as usual. A new approach is needed that establishes a new level of accountability, transparency, and economic and environmental performance for how this country invests in infrastructure projects.
All well and good. States should adopt similar guidelines. Washington D.C. may even figure out some new ways to boost surface transportation spending after the stimulus package is passed, such as this autumn when the surface transportation spending bill has to be re-authorized. Yet in the end states and regions will bear the lion's share of the burden in coming decades for funding surface transportation systems and boosting alternatives to solo driving. That means they will need to move more aggressively on:
regionwide electronic, time-variable tolling;
laying the groundwork for taxing vehicle miles travelled, with off-peak discounts;
investment by public employee and trade union pension funds, and private infrastructure funds in projects which will yield a steady stream of revenues;
"alliance contracting" with performance incentives for teams which design, build, operate and maintain surface transportation facilities - so project delivery schedules can be compressed, quality assured, and costs controlled;
developing better incentives and capabilities for tele-work and ridesharing;
better marrying scheduled public transit with para-transit provided by public and private operators.
In metro regions up and down the West Coast Corridor including Puget Sound these future-facing approaches are vital to regional mobility and accessibility and will require an unprecedented degree of cooperation between city and suburban mayors, state and federal legislators, community, labor, environmental and business interests.
That in turn will necessitate a resurgence of the old-fashioned kind of leadership, one which is less concerned with getting re-elected and pleasing everybody than with getting done what needs to get done.
The new year is shaping up as the most eventful period in the history of the federal transportation program since the enactment of the Interstate Highway Program more than 50 years ago. 2009 promises "transformational change," to use a currently fashionable phrase. It will be the year in which the transportation sector may expect the injection of an unprecedented sum of money in the form of an economic stimulus. It also will be the year in which the administration of President-elect Barack Obama, a new team at US DOT, and a heavily Democratic Congress will be putting their own stamp on a new multi-year transportation authorization. Lastly, it will be the year in which the federal transportation program is expected to undergo fundamental reform to respond to the changing needs and circumstances of the 21st century.
One key development is the long-awaited report of the congressionally chartered National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission which is about to be released later this month. What follows is a brief summary of the Commission's findings, based on the open record of the Commission's public meetings, supplemented by interviews and informal conversations with individual Commissioners. We believe that no significant changes will occur in its key conclusions as presented below.
Multi-pronged Approach
The Commission has concluded that the current federal surface transportation funding structure is unable to generate sufficient revenues to support the country's future transportation needs. Hence, the nation must begin to shift to a more sustainable system that is able to raise substantially greater revenues. A search for alternative funding mechanisms has led the Commission to focus on the potential of direct user charges, and particularly on a charge system based on vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT). Such a funding framework is consistent with the Commission's guiding principle that users and direct beneficiaries should bear the full cost and pay more directly for the services they use.
However, a transition to a VMT-based charge system cannot occur overnight, and the immediate needs are simply too critical to wait. Therefore, the Commission will recommend a two-phased approach. To accommodate transportation infrastructure needs in the near and intermediate term (i.e. possibly over the next two authorization cycles), the Commission will recommend a program of incentives to help states and local governments finance infrastructure investments through tolling and other user fees. To enable the federal government to meet its share of capital funding (currently this share amounts to about 40-45 percent of total national system-wide infrastructure investment), the Commission recommends a one-time increase of 10 cents/gallon in the federal gasoline tax and a 15-cent increase in the federal diesel tax, both taxes to be indexed for inflation. In the long term, as the nation converts to a VMT-based charge system, the federal fuel taxes should be progressively phased out. Because of the complexity inherent in transitioning from the current system to a VMT-based system (both institutionally and technologically), the Commission believes the transition process must begin immediately.
State & Local Incentives Program
State and local governments have always been major partners in the funding of transportation infrastructure. In recent times, they have contributed nearly 60 percent toward the funding of highway and transit infrastructure. To enhance their future ability to invest in infrastructure, the Commission will recommend a number of incentives aimed at facilitating the use of tolling and other direct user charges. Specifically, Congress should (1) allow tolling of new highway capacity and of existing Interstate highway capacity in large metropolitan areas; (2) continue and expand the Interstate Highway Reconstruction & Rehabilitation Program which allows tolling of existing Interstates for the purpose of reconstruction and rehabilitation (currently the program is limited to only three projects); (3) authorize pre-feasibility assistance for toll projects and "gap financing" for projects that cannot be fully supported through toll financing alone; (4) reauthorize the existing federal credit (TIFIA) program at a higher annual volume of credit support than currently allowed; and (5) continue and expand the Private Activity Bond (PAB) Program. In addition, the Commission will offer certain observations and make certain recommendations as to how Congress should consider proposals to create a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB). Some Commissioners think the incentives program is a key to getting states and localities to embrace tolling and invest in transportation infrastructure.Â
Private Sector Financial Participation
The Commission wishes to encourage private sector financial participation where such participation is necessary to get projects to move forward or where it can improve project cost effectiveness and accelerate project delivery. The Commission believes that appropriate governmental controls should be put in place to protect the public interest. Appropriate provisions should be enacted to govern concession arrangements for new toll facilities ("greenfield" projects) and for long-term leases of existing transportation assets ("brownfield" projects).
Federal Fuel Tax Increase
To fund the near-term federal capital contribution to transportation infrastructure investment, the Commission will recommend a one-time 10-cent increase in the federal gas tax and a 15-cent increase in the federal diesel tax (neither of which has been increased since 1993). All future fuel taxes should be indexed for inflation. Part of the proposed diesel tax increase should be dedicated to freight-related investments. The Commission estimates that the proposed tax increases would generate an additional $20 billion per year to the Highway Trust Fund. (This would still leave a $10 billion annual shortfall, assuming a $66 billion annual budget for surface transportation as proposed by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.)Â
Transition to a VMT-based Charge System
The Commission will recommend that Congress define a clear roadmap for a transition to a VMT charge system as part of the next reauthorization of the federal surface transportation program. The Commission also will recommend a comprehensive program of technology development, pilot test programs and standards development to support the transition to a mileage-based user fee system. Lastly, the Commission will recommen that Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation should initiate and support extensive public outreach to raise awareness and understanding of the need for a shift to a VMT-based charge system. Public support will be essential to a successful transition to a new funding system.
Analysis
Only time will tell how influential the Commission's thinking will be in shaping and reforming the federal transportation program, and what impact the Commission's report will have on future legislation. Our own sense is that the Commission's report will confirm and add authority to the already widely held notion that the current fuel tax-based system must eventually be replaced with a more robust charge system based on vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT). We also think that the Commission's support of tolling and public-private partnerships will add legitimacy to these concepts and strengthen the states' resolve to expand their use. We hope that the Commission's proposed program of incentives for tolling and other direct user fees will be embraced by Congress and the Obama administration and contribute to mainstreaming these measures and realizing their full potential as both a source of revenue and a tool of congestion management. As for the Commission's recommendation for an increase in the federal gas tax, we reserve our judgment. Looming over this recommendation is the almost certain prospect of a massive economic stimulus bill, a sizeable portion of which is expected to be dedicated to infrastructure (a recent proposal by a group of governors would devote $350 billion to infrastructure investments out of a total stimulus package of $675-775 billion or more). Such a huge injection of capital over two years would be bound to affect the need for and the politics of a federal gas tax increase in ways that cannot yet be fully assessed.
President-elect Barack Obama Friday is to name retiring Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood the next U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary. Though he has served on the House Transportation Committee, moderate Republican LaHood's upside is his well established role as a bipartisan diplomat with close ties to Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, as the Chicago Tribune reports. He'll need to use well the relationships he's built in seven congressional terms. The surface transportation landscape poses big challenges and real opportunities for establishing a new way of doing business. This article about LaHood's appointment, from the New York Times, highlights several important menu items.
Mr. LaHood...has overseen major spending projects as a member of the House Appropriations Committee....The next transportation secretary will face several challenges. One is that the gasoline tax, regarded since the Eisenhower administration as a user fee to pay for building highways, is no longer reliable or sufficient. Gas at $4 a gallon stunted sales and tax revenue, and the Congress had to come to the rescue of the Highway Trust Fund with $8 billion.
With a growing number of hybrid cars, use of tax-exempt ethanol and the possibility of plug-in hybrids, gasoline consumption is becoming disconnected from highway use. When the bill to re-authorize the Transportation Department is considered by Congress in 2009, there will be proposals for a variety of replacement financing methods, including tolls that vary by time of day, possibly using transponders like those now provided by E-ZPass and similar systems. Another open question is the status of rail transportation, both passenger and freight. Many freight lines are now operating at capacity. And Amtrak, strongly backed by Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and spoken of favorably by Mr. Obama, needs cash for new equipment.
All along, Cascadia Center has been advocating for time-variable electronic tolling, as well as plug-in electric hybrids and increased inter-city passenger and freight rail capacity, as well as new ways of funding surface transportation. It's going to be an eventful, exciting time. But even with federal stimulus spending on infrastructure, states that are tens of billions short for roads, bridges, and transit, will have to raise the lion's share of funds at the regional level. Against a backdrop of region-wide time-variable electronic tolling on highways and major state routes, that means more and more emphasis on complementary funding tools such as transportation benefit districts, local improvement districts, performance-based "alliance contracting" and investment by public employee union and building trades union pension funds. Over the long term, impetus will grow for a mileage-based tax on vehicles, with discounts for off-peak travel.
In ways yet to be fully determined, Congress must help pave the way for this new era. The gas tax - for which prospects of a large hike are politically nil - will have an increasingly ancillary role in transportation funding. Many key players at the federal level either realize that already, or will soon.
The group representing America's transportation and highway officials wants you to tell President-elect Obama and the next Congress what you think should be done about transportation. AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) today launched a campaign -- to run through inauguration day -- to make sure citizens' voices are shared with the 111th Congress and the 44th president. The Web site, www.IToldThePresident.org, lets you send comments or video.
AASHTO represents state departments of transportation. According to its release announcing the online campaign, "State departments of transportation (DOTs) across the country will be encouraging citizens to post videos about what's happening in their communities."
Click below to read the extended post and to view AASHTO's press release.
The Washington Post paints an accurate picture of the surface transportation funding and financing crisis that will confront President-elect Barack Obama (below at right), Congress, and Obama's pick to head the U.S. Department of Transportation.
As roads and bridges are crumbling and cracking and transit systems struggling with rising costs and ridership, the U.S. Highway Trust Fund is in bad repair itself. Headed for bankruptcy and saved last fall only by an $8 billion raid of the U.S. Treasury's General Fund, this highway and transit account dates to 1956 and relies on a federal gas tax that hasn't been raised from the current level of 18.4 cents per gallon for 15 years. A high-profile federal commission has urged the tax be hiked to 40 cents per gallon, but that's unlikely, given the economy's woes, and the politics of raising taxes.
Yet, to ensure highways and transit can support economic growth as U.S. population booms in coming decades, surface transportation spending will need to rise from the current $140 billion a year ($50 billion from the feds, $90 billion from the states), to $225 billion per annum. What else besides a gas tax hike should be considered? The Post:
Other ideas to raise revenue include expanding toll roads, increasing public-private partnerships and using congestion pricing, a system in which motorists or transit passengers pay more during peak travel periods. Another idea, which is being tried in Oregon, is to charge motorists a tax based not on the gas they buy but on the number of miles they drive.
The Clinton administration experimented with some of these initiatives, but the Bush Transportation Department has embraced them, particularly toll roads and public-private partnerships. Under Bush, the department has been shrinking the federal role in road building and public transportation and opening the sector to private investors who assume the risks of building the projects in exchange for profits from tolls and fees. Congressional Democrats and some Republicans, along with transit advocates, have accused the department of rationing good road transportation to those who can afford fees, tolls and taxes. In some cases, the public-private partnerships have lacked adequate protection of the public interest, according to reports by the GAO.
"We need to look at all kinds of alternatives," said William Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association, an industry group that represents transit systems. "Tax credit bonds, public-private partnerships, tolling, user fees - we should be looking at it not from an ideological standpoint but from a very practical standpoint. . . . There may be places even in public transit where you could charge more for certain services."
In a sidebar, the Post profiles four leading contenders for the DOT hot seat, including Mort Downey of PB Consult, and ex-FAA head Jane Garvey. Obama and the Congress will really hold the cards, but the DOT pick will have to do some heavy lifting, including broad coalition-building.
Cost-saving, exacting "design-build-operate-maintain" (or DBOM) contracting arrangements need to become more prevalent. More state legislatures should take whatever steps are necessary to make it easier for public employee pension funds to invest in road, bridge, tunnel and transit projects while meeting their market-rate fiduciary obligations to pensioners. This means eschewing lower-rate state highway bonds in favor of P3 partnerships where the pension funds help provide investment capital through alternative means such as a private infrastructure investment fund or direct investment, in return for a share of toll or fare proceeds over the long term.
That long-term orientation is a plus. Although nearly all U.S. public employee and building trade pension funds have taken a hit during the financial meltdown, they're still flush, typically with with tens upon tens of billions in assets, and a growing interest in diversifying further - into more stable investment classes such as infrastructure.
Another key element of the strategy going forward must be time-variable pricing of roadways and transit. We all pay for the water and electricity we use according to our own consumption patterns, often with higher charges for peak-period use, and no one cries out about economic injustice - either because of the pay-as-you go approach or the peak differentials. The same model should be more broadly applied to surface transportation infrastructure, especially as demand grows, supply becomes constrained, and maintenance and operations costs threaten to continue spiraling upward.
In The Olympian, Adam Wilson reports Washington state officials are bracing for a widening gap of $95 million between expected and actual gas tax revenues through June 2009, as sharply higher gas prices constrict the volume of fuel purchased at the pump. The renewed transportation revenue concerns are indicative of a larger, long-term challenge that's also felt due to the nearly bankrupt federal gas tax trust fund and the shifting landscape in infrastructure.
...construction costs increased by 60 percent in five years, as demand in India and China drove up prices for steel and concrete, and the cost of diesel fuel for construction equipment soared.
In Washington, as elsewhere, some planned road and bridge projects to improve safety and reduce congestion on existing facilities will likely have to be postponed if not cancelled; and funding for important new projects looks even more problematic.
Despite two state gas tax hikes, in 2003 and 2005, totaling 14.5 cents more per gallon, the state is collecting less inflation-adjusted money from the gas tax and car fees in the current two-year budget cycle than in 1998-1999. That was before gas prices spiked, and before a controversial voter initiative, I-695, forced the legislature to dramatically reduce car license tab fees. Some lawmakers want to look at another gas tax hike, but others say that's politically dead in the water and some sales tax revenues used for other priorities should be shifted to transportation. However, advocates for the environment, health care and education would object strongly, and the state faces a budget shortfall next year.
Congestion and safety projects on state roadways are still urgent. The apparent downturn in vehicle miles driven is in the low single digits, coming after years of growth in traffic volume and underinvestment in infrastructure. But it's enough to begin wreaking havoc with plans to catch up with that growth in travel.
What now then? Impetus will grow for tolling. Time-variable tolling on major highway corridors needs to be implemented, but as much if not more to ration peak-hour congestion as to raise money for road projects and transit. Politicians will agonize over revenue enhancement measures, known to most of us as "more taxes." Good luck there, with the economy in a tailspin.
It's time for state lawmakers to consider much more seriously how they can open the door wider for transportation public-private partnerships in Washington state. P3s, as they're sometimes called, are part of the solution to the funding conundrum. They can provide needed investment, stretch public funds farther, transfer risk to the private sector and help ensure stringent performance goals are met.
According to the state, $2 billion is needed for crucial pavement and interchange work on I-5 in Seattle, and another $1.84 billion for safety and traffic improvements on U.S. Route 2 in Snohomish County, the notorious "Highway of Death." In Pierce County, the Cross-base Highway and extension of SR 167 to the Port of Tacoma languish for lack of funding. Federal and state funds would only cover a portion of these projects; a tiny fraction of the first two. When the full environmental mitigation plan is settled, expect total costs for the new SR 520 floating bridge to well exceed current estimates. Across the board in Central Puget Sound, tolls will help but won't come close to paying full freight. Nor should that be their primary purpose.
It's time to bite the P3 bullet. This includes a necessary public education effort involving political leaders, to clear up misconceptions that P3s equal "privatization." That's wrong. The assets are still owned by the public sector, which also retains control over rates and fees. If P3 interest costs can be somewhat higher than with traditional public financing, that's a fair trade-off considering that the pay-off in project delivery comes much sooner; that the payback can stretched out over a longer period and offset with user fees such as tolls rather than general taxes; and can be pegged to construction and project performance milestones met by the private partners.
To get the ball rolling, political leaders should initiate a very public conversation about transportation P3s for Washington state.
The Seattle Times has a story this morning about new projections of a Washington state gas tax revenue shortfall of $1.5 billion, and the added impetus this gives to tolling as means of funding crucial transportation projects. The story says the expectation of state forecasters is for continued high gas prices and constrained demand, and that although the revenue shortfall is relatively small now, it is a real problem in the long term.
With our commitment to renewable energy resources and tradition of hydropower, the Northwest could be the first area in the country to eventually power its transportation sector oil-free.
Finally, let's acknowledge that scores of drivers and freight haulers are still going to be on the road, and help them "green the highway." In part, that means retrofitting park-and-ride lots with electric plug-ins; expediting government fleet purchases of PHEVs; and electrifying truck stops, port container storage yards, and rest areas on major Interstate highways such as I-5.
TECHNORATI TAGS: GAS TAX, WASHINGTON STATE, U.S., TOLLING, HOT LANES, TRANSPORTATION FUNDING, PLUG-IN HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLES, TRANSIT, GREEN HIGHWAYS
Approaching 2008, tolling has entered the mainstream and begun to influence transportation decisions throughout the country. At the same time - as Forbes magazine notes - transponder technology is enabling higher-speed, automated "open road" tolling, foreshadowing an eventual end to the era of tollbooths.
Recent news reports underscore the increased momentum for tolling - although often the pathway to implementation is challenging, and some proposals pencil out while others ultimately do not.
Let's survey the tolling landscape.
With the state facing a projected 30-year, $74 billion shortfall in needed road funding, Georgia Board of Transportation member David Doss has unveiled a plan which includes a 10-year statewide one percent sales tax hike to raise $22 billion for transportation, and which calls for the infusion of private capital for a tolled east-west connector north of Atlanta and an eight-mile tolled tunnel to relieve downtown congestion.
Near San Francisco, the (Silicon) Valley Transportation Authority is vetting plans to widen Highway 101 and add a High Occupancy and Toll (HOT) lane that is free to some carpoolers but for which lower-occupancy vehicles would be charged. Conversion of current High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes to HOT lanes that are open to toll-paying solo drivers is also being evaluated for other Bay Area highways, including portions of southbound I-680, I-580, I-880 and Route 101 in the North Bay.
Installing more HOT lanes has increasingly become a priority for the federal Department of Transportation, which recently released $1.2 billion to agencies across the country willing to charge tolls...."The feds are looking for dramatic, dynamic ways to get big projects moving," said John Ristow, who is overseeing the VTA's toll plan for 85 and 101. "The huge piece is there had to be tolling involved. You see that in Seattle, in New York...That is where the trend is moving both on the federal and state level in a major way."
Virginia is proceeding with plans to construct HOT and toll lanes on a 14-mile stretch of the Capital Beltway. Private firms will finance $1.3 billion of the $1.7 billion project, the state will provide the rest. The private partners will maintain and operate the HOT and toll lanes. Transit and commuter buses, plus vehicles with three or more passengers will ride free in the HOT lanes; vehicles with fewer than three passengers will pay a congestion-based fee to use the HOT lanes, typically five to six dollars.
Alabama Governor Bob Riley has directed the state transportation department to evaluate the feasibility of private or public-private funding for toll roads on up to five key projects which can't be fully financed by the federal goverment or via a raised state gas tax, which is considered politically unviable. The projects include a southern bypass around Huntsville; an elevated roadway to skirt the congested intersection of two interstates in Birmingham; and a limited access road from Dothan to I-10 in Florida's Panhandle. Alabama already has four privately-operated toll bridges.
The Legislature's Transportation Committee voted Wednesday to direct the Maine Turnpike Authority to study the feasibility of charging tolls on the Interstate. Just hours after the vote, Gov. John Baldacci released a strongly worded statement opposing new tolls. "I oppose the idea of adding tolls to Maine's existing Interstate highway system, and I can assure you it will not happen during my term in office," he said.
Regardless of the governor's feelings, Transportation Committee Chairman Rep. Boyd Marley, D-Portland, said the study will go forward. "I think it's irresponsible not to at least look at it," Marley said, adding that the state Department of Transportation is facing a funding crisis. "We're at such dire straits," he said. "The gas tax is flat, construction costs are out of control, we have 288 bridges in need of repair." The department is projecting a $2.2 billion funding gap over the next 10 years. The study will look at the feasibility of adding tolls to I-295 from Falmouth to Gardiner and I-95 from Augusta to Houlton.
In North Carolina, regional planning officials have signed off on a state-backed plan for a $553 million 21-mile tolled bypass road running parallel to I-74 from Monroe to Marshville.
Backers of an interstate highway forking together from the North Carolina and South Carolina coasts and then running through Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio to Michigan's Canadian border heard from U.S. Assistant Secretary of Transportation Tyler Duvall at a recent gathering. He said the multi-billion dollar proposal would certainly require extensive tolling, transponders instead of toll booths, and would would also greatly benefit from pension and hedge fund investment. Any interstate road projects costing more than $500 million will need to incorporate tolling, Duvall said.
The Palm Beach Post reports that at Florida Governor Charlie Crist's urging, the state will closely examine possible privatization and new or increased tolls on four road facilities: "Alligator Alley," or I-75 running east-west between Naples and Fort Lauderdale; the Tampa Bay Sunshine Skyway Bridge; Pinellas Bayway in St. Petersburg; and the Bee Line Expressway in Orange County. Early indications are that management of I-75 may be best retained by the state.
A combination of factors has helped to propel highway tolling into the mainstream.
Growing transportation budget shortfalls have been keeping the tolling option front and center before governors, state legislatures and state transportation officials. In a Washington Post op-ed, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters wrote:
"A substantial increase in the nation's gas tax is ill-advised. Of far greater promise than traditional gas taxes is direct pricing of road use similar to how people pay for other utilities."
Secretary Peters' skepticism about the potential of increasing the fuel tax is well founded. As the New York Times recently observed, "The mere mention of raising gasoline taxes remains almost tantamount to political suicide."
Private capital markets, especially institutional investors with long term investment horizons such as pension funds, have discovered transportation infrastructure to be an attractive investment opportunity. Toll facilities in particular, produce a steady cash flow that is relatively unaffected by economic downturns, and offer stable, long term investment returns with a relatively low risk. CalPERS, the nation's largest public pension fund ($246 billion in assets), may have been the harbinger of the new mindset when it announced in September that it was creating a $2.5 billion pilot infrastructure program and establishing a new asset class focused on investments in new roads, bridges, airports and other utilities. In announcing the decision, Charles Valdes, Investment Committee Chair, said "CalPERS could become a major player in solving some pressing public policy problems related to transportation."
State legislatures and public authorities have recognized the need for periodic toll increases to keep up with inflation, enhancing the attractiveness and popularity of toll road investments to private capital markets, which now consider toll roads a sound long-term investment.
The willingness of private toll concessionaires to accept availability payments and toll revenue sharing has contributed to the public sector's embrace of tolling, by allowing the state to retain the toll revenue. -- This arrangement is politically more defensible than letting a private concessionaire pocket the toll proceeds. Second, by tying payments to the volume of traffic, the state creates a profit incentive for the private concessionaire to manage the facility efficiently and attract a maximum number of customers. Third, the state owes money to its private sector partner only to the extent the facility generates revenue. If traffic is lower than forecast, the private partner bears the risk.
Unlike the politically unpopular private leases of existing public toll roads (as exemplified by the Indiana Toll Road and Chicago Skyway deals), concession agreements involving new toll roads have received a positive reception.
Tolls may well assume a dominant role in the funding of new highway capacity as early as the next decade. This conclusion does not stem from an ideological preference for "privatization" nor from a libertarian impulse to seek a reduced federal presence in the nation's transportation program. Rather, it is grounded in the reality that every last cent we can raise through the gas tax will be needed to maintain and modernize our aging infrastructure.
Resorting to tolls and private capital to help finance future highway capacity is not only the logical way -- it's the only way to ensure the growth and long-term vitality of our surface transportation system without imposing an unacceptable tax burden on the American people.
TECHNORATI TAGS: TOLLING, TOLLS, TRANSPONDERS, PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, CALIFORNIA, MAINE, WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH CAROLINA, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, ALABAMA, VIRGINIA, MARY PETERS, TYLER DUVAL
A report by U.S. Department of Transportations's Inspector General titled "Review of Congressional Earmarks Within Department of Transportation Programs" has determined that the Fiscal Year 2006 surface transportation appropriation contained 7,808 earmarks with a total amount of $8.08 billion or over 15 percent of highway appropriations and 28 percent of transit appropriations.
This compares with 2,094 earmarks in FY 2005 ($3.27 billion), 2,282 earmarks in FY 2004 ($3.36 billion) and 1,493 earmarks in FY 202 ($3.22 billion). During the 10-year period from FY 1996 to FY 2005, the number of earmarks within the U.S. DOT appropriations increased by more than 1,150 percent.
...funds provided by the Congress for projects or programs where the congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents Executive Branch merit-based or competitive allocation processes, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the Executive Branch to manage critical aspects of the funds allocation process.
earmarks can reduce funding for the states' core transportation programs;
many low priority, earmarked projects are being funded over higher priority non-earmarked projects;
earmarks provide funds for projects that would not otherwise be eligible;
earmarks can disrupt the agency's ability to fund programs as designated when authorized funding amounts are exceeded by overearmarking.
The IG report is the first authoritative review of congressional earmarks within DOT programs. It should be required reading for any one concerned about the future of transportation financing.
TECHNORATI TAGS: TRANSPORTATION EARMARKS, U.S. DOT INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. CONGRESS, TRANSPORTATION SPENDING, INFRASTRUCUTURE
The bridge collapse in Minneapolis stressed the precarious state of the nation's infrastructure, and has made infrastructure financing a tempting subject for an election-year policy debate. First to react publicly was Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He said a temporary 5-cent/gallon gas tax extending over 3 years might be necessary to finance his proposed trust fund to repair structurally deficient bridges in the National Highway System; that would raise roughly $28-30 billion. He'll hold a hearing on the state of the nation's bridges on September 5.
Ranking Member John Mica (R-FL) was next to react. He called the chairman's proposal inadequate, "a band-aid solution" which ignores the larger problem of the deteriorated condition of other transportation modes, for which dramatic investment in all is required. Toward that end, national columnist Neal Pierce offers a provocative proposal for a new weight-based federal excise tax on every new vehicle sold in the U.S.
President Bush, at a press conference on August 9, threw cold water on the congressional talk. He rejected the idea of a gas tax increase, saying that Congress should first look at how it spends existing funds before calling for more money. He said, "if bridges are a priority, let's make sure they get funded first" in an obvious allusion to the congressional penchant for earmarking transportation funds for pet local projects ($24 billion or approximately 8 percent of the total SAFETEA-LU authorization.) It is clear from Mr. Bush's remarks that any congressional proposal to raise gas taxes during this session of Congress will invite a presidential veto.
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, also came out against an increase in the federal gasoline tax, further dimming the hopes of Rep. Oberstar and other tax proponents. In an interview, Baucus said continuing to rely on gas tax revenue is not practical. "There are better alternatives," he said, "I don't think an increase in the gasoline tax is needed." Baucus' opposition is particularly significant since his Senate Finance Committee (along with the House Ways and Means Committee), would have to pass upon any tax increase.
That is how the lines were drawn as Congress adjourned for the summer recess.
With national elections 15 months away, the state of public infrastructure and how to pay for its upkeep and reconstruction could become the subject of a lively policy debate.
The Conservatives vs. The Innovators
At the risk of oversimplification, we shall call the advocates of the opposing perspectives, the Conservatives and the Innovators. Both the Conservatives and the Innovators see a need to increase transportation funding. And both condemn the excessive use of congressional earmarks. Where they differ is how to finance the funding shortfall.
The Conservatives (in the Adam Smith sense of the word) look upon the gas tax as the mainstay of the surface transportation program and favor a fuel tax increase (plus indexing) as the principal means of dealing with the funding shortfall. They cite ease of collection and proven revenue raising capacity of the gas tax as compelling reasons for retaining it as the main source of highway funding. They acknowledge the value of tolling, private capital and public-private partnerships but tend to dismiss them as minor contributors to the transportation program. Nor are they convinced that congestion pricing can be a serious source of revenue.
The Conservatives favor maintaining a strong federal role in the surface transportation program and oppose any movement toward devolution. Rep. Oberstar and Jack Schenendorf, vice chairman of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission appear as the most prominent spokesmen for this point of view.
The Innovators, on the other hand, tend to think that the time has come for a fundamental rethinking of how the nation's surface transportation system should be financed and managed. They question whether the gasoline tax alone can continue to fund the nation's growing transportation needs. They point to the likely trend of rising vehicle fuel efficiency, increasing cost of road construction and eroding value of the tax dollar as reasons why we need to diversify the funding sources.
They do not suggest doing away with the Highway Trust Fund, for its resources will be vitally needed to help preserve, rehabilitate and upgrade existing highways and bridges. But they think that funding new infrastructure will require a fresh approach. They see tolling, congestion pricing, private capital, private road concessions and public-private partnerships becoming vital elements of highway financing and management.
With financial responsibility for new infrastructure shifted to the states, Innovators see the federal role in surface transportation diminishing. They think inflation-indexed tolling may become a significant source of revenue to the states and they assume that toll roads will become a sound investment for the private sector. Finally, they believe that the surface transportation program should become more targeted. Federal funding, they contend, should be focused on the most pressing problems such as traffic congestion and freight movement and not dissipated on a large number of unrelated projects of local interest.
The most prominent spokesmen for this point of view are Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, certain members of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Finance Commission and several governors, notably Mitch Daniels (IN), Rick Perry (TX) and Charlie Crist (FL). Secretary Peters summarized the Innovators' philosophy succinctly when she said, in announcing the winners of the USDOT Urban Partnership grants: "We must stop relying on yesterday's ideas to fight today's traffic jams."
Public opinion and the mood of the times seem to be on the side of the Innovators. Voters are reluctant to accept gas tax increases in the face of $3 per gallon gasoline. Even in Minnesota, 57% of respondents in a recent Survey USA poll said they oppose higher gas taxes to fix infrastructure. Equally important, the public is skeptical that new taxes would be used to improve roads and bridges.
Secretary Peters agrees: "When you or I pay our gas taxes today we don't really know where that money is going to go or whether or not it's going to benefit us directly in our communities," she remarked in a PBS interview. "People are reluctant to spend more money [in taxes] unless they know that money is going to actually make an improvement in the transportation infrastructure,"
Nevertheless, a modest increase in the federal gas tax seems inevitable-- if not during this congressional session then in the next Congress. The Highway Trust Fund is expected to reach a negative balance in FY 2009 and needs an injection of fresh revenue simply to maintain current levels of expenditure. However, it seems equally inevitable that tolling, private capital and public-private partnerships, rather than new taxes, should become the primary means of expanding the surface transportation system. This conclusion does not stem from an ideological conviction. Rather, it is grounded in the reality that every last cent we can raise through the gas tax will be needed to maintain and reconstruct our aging infrastructure.
TECHNORATI TAGS: ROADS, BRIDGES, FINANCING, FEDERAL GAS TAX, JAMES OBERSTAR, JOHN MICA, GEORGE W. BUSH, MAX BAUCUS, MARY PETERS, TOLLING, PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, NEIL PIERCE, FEDERAL VEHICLE EXCISE TAX
The catastrophic collapse yesterday of a worn down, 40-year-old, 1,900-foot-long bridge with a single steel arch at its center, spanning Interstate 35W across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis had as of this morning resulted in four deaths, up to 30 people unaccounted for, and at least 79 more injured - some quite severely. The fatality toll is likely to grow. Very recent maintenance work on the bridge had focused on joints, lights and guardrails, and resurfacing work was being done on it when it failed. The cause of the collapse is unknown and will remain so until an investigation is completed. However, it can come as little comfort that, as the Associated Press notes in a report today from Minneapolis, the feds identified the bridge as "structurally deficient" in 2005. Yet it turns out that term is considered by many officials to be less alarming than it sounds.
The bridge had been inspected by the Minnesota Department of Transportation in 2005 and 2006 and no immediate structural problems were noted, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Wednesday. A federal database, however, showed the 40-year-old bridge had been rated as "structurally deficient" in 2005 and possibly in need of replacement, the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune reported citing the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Bridge Inventory. The White House also confirmed the 2005 inspection. White House press secretary Tony Snow said the span rated 50 on a scale of 120 for structural stability. "This doesn't mean there was a risk of failure, but if an inspection report identifies deficiencies, the state is responsible for taking corrective actions," he said.
Jeanne Aamodt, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, said her agency was aware of the 2005 assessment. She noted that many other bridges around the country carry the same designation and declined to say what the agency had done to address the deficiencies.
Two terms used to summarize bridge deficiencies are "structurally deficient" and "functionally obsolete." Structural deficiencies are characterized by deteriorated conditions of significant bridge elements and reduced load-carrying capacity. Functional obsolescence is a function of the geometrics of the bridge not meeting current design standards. Neither type of deficiency indicates that a bridge is unsafe.
Got that? "Deteriorated conditions of significant bridge elements and reduced load-carrying capacity" does not indicate that a bridge is unsafe. What a relief!
Call it "defining deterioration down." According to the report, as of 2004, 26.7 percent of the nation's bridges were either "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete." It wouldn't do to have one-quarter of our nation's bridges considered unsafe: that would raise the scepter of malignant neglect.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer this morning reports that in a 2005 study, the American Society of Civil Engineers found that 26 percent of Washington state's 3,000 bridges also earned the classification of "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete."
Of the state's bridges, (Washingtoon State Department of Transportation chief bridge engineer Jugesh) Kapur said two -- the (Alaskan Way) viaduct and the Evergreen Point Bridge, which crosses Lake Washington as part of state Route 520 -- cause him the most concern. "Those two keep me up at night," he said. Six years ago, engineers determined that a magnitude 6.5 earthquake in the wrong spot could collapse the Evergreen Point Bridge and the viaduct.
....The city and state remain at an impasse over the elevated structure's future and a possible replacement option. A $4 billion-plus initiative is planned to replace the Evergreen Point Bridge. Studies have shown that the bridge wouldn't survive a catastrophic earthquake and could also sink in a windstorm. A review panel -- mostly lawyers and engineers appointed by Gov. Chris Gregoire -- has advocated decisive action. "The existing viaduct and bridge will continue to deteriorate and inch closer to catastrophic failure" until a decision is made, panelists wrote in a September report.
Richard Miller, director of roadway structures for Seattle, said Wednesday that several of the city's 180 bridges need to be replaced, most notably the Magnolia Bridge. Miller said the city Transportation Department is reviewing several design options for a new Magnolia Bridge. Construction of a new bridge would likely start no earlier than 2009. Several South Seattle bridges are also in need of repair or improvement, Miller said. The Airport Way South Bridge is being help up by temporary supports, and several other smaller bridges are due to receive seismic retrofits.
The national problem of bridge safety carries a daunting price tag. In Chapter 7 of the FWHA 2006 report, the agency warns that merely to keep travel time, operational and crash costs from deteriorated bridges at their current (2004 constant dollar) level through 2024 will cost $78.8 billion; and to actually reduce such infrastructure-related costs in the same time frame would cost $131.7 billion in improvements, including increased local, regional and state user fees or taxes.
Solutions intended to ease the increasing demands on our transportation system and to improve highway conditions, capacity and safety are multifaceted, and do not always mean simply building more roads and bridges. America must change its transportation behavior, increase transportation investment at all levels of government, and make use of the latest technology. Cities and communities should be better planned to reduce dependence on personal vehicles for
errands and work commutes, and businesses must encourage more flexible schedules and telecommuting. By 2010, all levels of government should ensure that fewer than 15% of the nation's bridges are classified as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete (itals in original).
As Cascadia Center pointed out in this 2005 Puget Sound Business Journal op-ed, the federal Highway Trust Fund generated via the federal gas tax and additional fees is increasingly insufficient for repairs and improvement of major transportation infrastructure.
Now in Washington state, political and business leaders and policy experts need to join with voters to build trust in transportation system management, funding and decision-making. That means an end to balkanization in transportation governance. That means developing a shared vision of convenient, fast transit options needed to dramatically boost actual transit usage. And that means innovative financing of necessary road and bridge repairs or replacements using tools such system-wide time-variable tolling on major highways, and public-private partnerships.
Let's not wait for one of our bridges to collapse before we get moving.
TECHNORATI TAGS: MINNEAPOLIS, 35W, BRIDGE COLLAPSE, BRIDGE SAFETY, MAINTENANCE, FUNDING, WASHINGTON STATE, EVERGREEN POINT FLOATING BRIDGE, ALASKAN WAY VIADUCT, TOLLING, PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
We've already mentioned the 50 km tunnel for $3.5 billion that the Swiss voted to build. I wondered: the Swiss are building some fantastic tunnel in the Alps (see Matt's 6/11 post)... but they're Swiss. Surely they must be crazy.
As it turns out, their costs are not unusual for transportation infrastructure projects in developed countries. A random grab-bag since 1994:
English Channel Tunnel
Cost: 9 billion pounds (US $14 billion)
Length: 50 km (31 miles)
Cost per mile: $451 mil
Cooper River Bridge, SC, longest cable-stay bridge in America
Cost: $531 million
Length: 2.5 miles
Cost per mile: $212 mil
Woodrow Wilson Bridge, Washington DC
Cost: $2.4 billion
Length: 1.1 miles
Cost per mile: $2.2 bil
Daily Commuters: 200,000 (twice the capacity for the same price as ours)
Millau Viaduct, France
Cost: $394 million
The builders, Eiffage, financed the construction in return for a concession to collect the tolls for 75 years, until 2080. However, if the concession is very profitable, the French government can assume control of the bridge in 2044.
Length: 1.5 miles
Cost per mile: $262 mil
Sydney Harbor Tunnel, Australia
Cost: A$ 554 mil
Built by a private partnership, the tunnel is currently on a thirty-year lease, and will be handed back to the State Government in August 2022.
Length: 1.4 miles
Cost per mile: A$ 395 mil
Yesterday was the first day for office sales of electronic toll stickers for use later this year by drivers on the new eastbound, Route 16 Tacoma Narrows Bridge. State transportation officials by mid-day had sold or mailed out to customers 2,654 of the stickers, to be read by overhead transponders which automatically deduct toll costs from drivers' pre-paid accounts. (UPDATE: registrations had grown to 6,131 by mid-day today, but with some short-term DOT server glitches, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports). This DOT animation contrasts the more free-flowing "Good To Go" electronic toll lanes, and the slower toll booth lanes for single-purchase customers. The animation also demonstrates how overhead cameras will capture the license plate numbers of scofflaws, who will be issued fines of $40 plus thrice the unpaid toll, per violation. Passage west on the old Tacoma Narrows Bridge toward Gig Harbor and beyond will remain free of charge.
Next year, DOT is expecting to begin a "HOT Lane" pilot project on a nine-mile stretch of SR 167 between Renton and Tacoma, a crucial north-south alternative for many drivers to congested I-5. The project will convert carpool/HOV lanes to not only free for multiple-occupant vehicles, but also available to solo drivers for a pre-paid electronic toll like that to be used on the eastbound Narrows Bridge. There's an added twist: Toll amounts will vary according to how much usage the HOT lanes are getting when drivers pass under the transponder.
Tolls have of course been applied before on bridges here, but only the old-fashioned way, which if used as a blanket approach to tolling today would add greatly to congestion already making motorists gnash their teeth.
"It's the wave of the future, as far as tolling in this state," said Janet Matkin, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Transportation. Doug MacDonald, the state transportation secretary, has predicted that in a couple of decades, electronic tolling will be pervasive on Puget Sound-area highways. Recent gas-tax increases and proposed regional taxes fail to cover the price of highway megaprojects, so politicians are considering tolls, even at the risk of a public backlash.
...Even though Opening Day for the Narrows Bridge is a few months off, dozens of people lined up Wednesday in Gig Harbor to open their accounts, at a $30 minimum. Some paid $100. "We like to be ahead of things," said Patrick O'Dell of Port Orchard. It's fair to make users pay, he said: "We can't seem to come up with enough money to fix our roads. They've been doing it back East for years." The sales office resembles a small bank branch, with young women in teal polo shirts behind teller windows, a promotional video playing on a wall-mounted screen, and sign-up forms in the lobby. But most transactions will happen online...The goal is to have 50 percent to 60 percent of drivers equipped with a chip when the bridge opens.
If you drive regularly across the Tacoma Narrows you're going to want one of these. The DOT "Good To Go" page, including an online purchase interface, is here.
DOT and Sec. MacDonald deserve hearty congratulations for moving forward on the "Good To Go" Tacoma project and the SR 167 HOT lanes effort. With continued leadership from DOT, legislators and business, tolling can become widespread on Puget Sound highways within one decade, as opposed to several.
TECHNORATI TAGS: TOLLING, ELECTRONIC TOLLS, TRANSPONDERS, TACOMA NARROWS BRIDGE, WASHINGTON STATE
"Public-Private Partnerships For Toll Highways," Robert W. Poole, Reason Foundation, Testimony To U.S. House Committee On Transportation & Infrastructure, Subcommittee On Highways & Transit, 2/13/07.
"A New Vision For Developing Transit For Livable Cities." Enrique Penalosa, former
mayor of Bogota, Columbia speaks at a Cascadia Center co-sponsored event on implementation of Bogota's TransMileno Bus Rapid Transit system. Seattle Channel video, 9/27/06.
Chapter 7, "I-405 Plan: Transit and HOV", in "I-405 Congestion Relief & Bus Rapid Transit Projects - Final Recommendations Report," WSDOT. (See "I-405 BRT Service").
Speaker Presentations At Cascadia/Microsoft/Idaho National Laboratory "Beyond Oil: Transforming Transportation" conference, 9/4/08 and 9/5/08, Redmond, Wash. (Topics included electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, renewable energy, traffic management systems and technology, transit. Many of these files are very large and may take several minutes to open/download depending on your internet connection).
Speaker Presentations at Cascadia-Microsoft "Jump Start To A Secure Clean Energy Future" Conference on Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Alternative Fuels, 5/7/07
"Future Visions," Washington Transportation Plan Update Process, WSDOT/Washington Transportation Commission, 6/17/05. (See pp. 27-34, "Intelligent Transportation Systems").
The estimated cost now is as high as $4.4 billion to replace the dangerously earthquake-prone Evergreen Point Floating Bridge on State Route 520, which crosses Lake Washington to connect the populous and job-rich Eastside with Seattle. But only $560 million is in hand; and the rest is decidedly iffy, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. (UPDATE: The state DOT's 520 page lists $1.25 billion in identified funding, including $700 million in tolls). The P-I editorializes we need to get the full funding package pulled together ASAP.
...we're told that the Evergreen Point Bridge will be rebuilt, pronto, even though we're $3.5 billion short on the project's budget. We currently have just under 20 percent of the bridge's $4.4 billion secured....This "build now, figure out how to settle the bill later" approach is reckless. We're not advocating the endless dithering for which our city and state have become unfortunately famous. What we're asking our legislators and transportation officials to do is to firm up the numbers for necessary, urgent projects such as the 520 bridge.
Getting the money requires knowing the real final cost, which in turn requires settling important components of the project. The ingredients most necessary are leadership and planning. There is no decision yet on what kind of transit will go on it, no final decision on the number of lanes. The current discussion centers on a six-lane replacement for the existing four-lane structure. Six lanes are an utter necessity, anything less offers insufficient capacity. An additional wild card - perhaps carrying substantial added costs beyond the current estimate - is environmental mitigation. This includes forcefully-voiced concerns from neighborhood residents on both ends of the bridge corridor. What is the endgame price tag for mitigation really going to be? The sooner we know, the better.
Message received. But with no solid plan yet on its configuration or funding, the likelihood of further delay and cost inflation grow. We need a single point of authority, namely an empowered Central Puget Sound regional transportation commission, to settle the configuration questions legally and in a timely manner, and put together a full public-private funding plan for the bridge. The fall 2007 regional roads and transit ballot measure would include just $1.1 billion toward the $3.5 billion now thought needed to complete the bridge replacement; this as part of the larger $16 billion package. If that proposal does win voter approval, there will still be a backlog of about $46 billion in Central Puget Sound road and transit project needs. A clearly stated comprehensive plan to prioritize those projects and pay for them in a series of public funding votes, and through private partnerships and tolls, will be essential. If the fall ballot measure fails, the need for such planning and leadership will be even more pressing.
Piecemeal, scattershot planning undercuts public trust. Without that trust, the necessary taxpayer support of expanded roads and transit cannot be expected to materialize.
TECHNORATI TAGS: EVERGREEN POINT FLOATING BRIDGE, STATE ROUTE 520, WSDOT VIDEO, FUNDING
If November's joint (roads and transit) vote in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties is to succeed, voters will have to be convinced that they'll get their money's worth. Merging the planning and funding of regional transit and highways - functions currently under the separate wings of Sound Transit, the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Regional Transportation Invesment District and the state Department of Transportion (whew!) - under a single, accountable commission would be a step toward winning voter trust.
One version of such a commission is contained in ESSB 5803, which passed the Senate earlier this month. The House Transportation Committee is considering its own bill, and an amendment to shelve the creation of a new regional body could be introduced as early as today.
Other media supporters of transportation governance reform for Central Puget Sound include the Seattle Times editorial board, Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly, and Seattle Times Sunday columnist (and editorial page editor) James Vesely.
ESSB 5803 stems from the final report of the Regional Transportation Commmission study group tasked last year by the legislature and Governor Chris Gregoire with investigating restructured transportation governance for the region. Headed by former Western Wireless CEO John Stanton and former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, the study group wrote in its final report, issued Dec. 31, 2006:
...the system has to be structurally re-knit at the regional level....Transportation represents an enormous financial challenge to the region....Three interrelated strategies need to be implemented:
Emply user fees (tolls, fares, parking charges) to manage demand for transportation - these should reduce demand and thus the amount of construction that must be funded.
Raise more money from a combination of tax increases and user fees.
Prioritize projects throughout the region and across modes so that the most important projects get built.
The challenge with prioritizing is establishing who is in charge. Today there are 128 agencies that manage aspects of transportation in the four-county region. If 128 parties are theoretically in charge of a problem, we concluded that in fact no one is really in charge.
It is reasonable to wonder whom such arrangements truly benefit. Certainly not taxpayers and commuters. Accountability must be more than just a buzzword.
However, it can come as little comfort that, 
