Comments

1. 

   Anonymous

   March 3, 2005

   On “Interstate Crime”

   “The idea of an interregional superhighway system in the United States has roots in the 1890s at the dawn of the age of gasoline-powered private vehicles (aka, the Automobile Age).”

   By 1800 there were already thousands of turnpike franchises in the Northeast alone. In 1808, Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury under Jefferson, prepared a “Report on Roads and Canals.” Under his plan the nation was to be tied together by a web of federally sponsored turnpikes and canals. In the early days many turnpikes and canals were constructed with private funds. The experience with these enterprises showed several things: 1) long term construction projects, like canals, could not easily provide the immediate return on investment required to attract shareholders. In an era when the lifespan was only 50 years an investment requiring ten years to complete, let alone provide returns was hard to justify. Government alone has a lifespan sufficient to reap the rewards of such an effort. Therefore, various means of providing financial assistance and associated oversight to these enterprises became common. 2) Even when the financial success of a canal or turnpike was dubious, the financial success it contributed to businesses and towns which used it were not. Frequently financial failure of these enterprises occurred because they charged enough to cover operating expenses but not enough to cover maintenance. In the case of canals it turned out that maintenance was hardly necessary because of the quick advent of railroads. Railroads in turn benefited from the canals because the financing schemes were more readily accepted and available. In some cases the cost of railroad construction was greatly reduced by using former canal right of ways.

   The American efforts in turn were modeled after the British experience. In 1800 England already had over 20,000 miles of turnpikes and highways, in addition to good water access to many of its cities. Even though cans turned out to be economic failures in their own right, their economic benefits outweighed their costs, and those benefits continue today as states promote the canals for their historical and eco-tourism uses. New York has spent over $170 million dollars in restoration and revitalization efforts related to its canals.

   Around 1820 the costs charged for freight carriage on the turnpikes was around 15 cents per ton mile, about twice what canals charged. By 1830 most of the turnpike enterprises were abandoned. When railroads exterminated the canals in turn, they had not only the advantage of better financing and government assistance, (which was based on the general economic success of canals) but unlike canals, railroads owned the rolling stock, so they were able to obtain a better cash flow model. Railroads, like the highway system that followed were less constrained by topography than the canals, and although their fright charges were much higher, customers were willing to pay on account of the speed involved. In addition they provided a one stop solution because shippers did not have to pay the canal and the boatmen separately.

   Today, shippers have the choice of using barge traffic on rivers, canals, and coastwise in addition to rail, or truck traffic on the interstates, each of which is supported and controlled by various forms of government. Shippers are free to use the mode or combination of modes which best promotes their, and ultimately our, interests. Choice of transportation modes is frequently noted as a reason for transit oriented development alongside the existing road network and combined with bike and pedestrian friendly transit plans. Yet the same argument is being used here against multimodal interstate commerce.

   “Simply stated, the Interstate Highway System cannot handle the intraregional travel demand that the existence of these roadways generated” “It should now be clear to all that the Interstate Highway System concept is, like the politics that spawned it, broken”

   To the contrary, if the existence of the highways generated excess demand, that is evidence of their success, not their failure. In addition, the highways, like the canals before them are now being asked to perform tasks which were not in existence previous to their construction: either our planning was incomplete or our foresight was short-sighted. We do not yet know what the effect will be on economic investments that preceded it or succeed it will be any more than we could have predicted the current status of canals in 1835.

   The interstate highway system is the biggest public works project ever, bar none. By itself it is a marvel of the modern world. It is based on a history and experience of economics and politics that dates back almost three hundred years: the idea that all of that was for naught strikes me as unsupported folly. Could we do without it? Sure, if we were willing to return to the economy of a hundred years ago. Can we learn from our mistakes? Of course: after all that is how we got where we are today.

   Ray Hyde
   Delaplane, VA

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2. 

   Anonymous

   March 3, 2005

   Stoplight Cameras and Transportation Technology.

   DC and Virginia have taken opposite tacks on the stoplight camera issue. Maybe both of them have missed the boat. I propose that the cameras be left in place but that fines be issued only when an accident results, and that those fines be very substantial. The cameras cannot capture the nuances of transiting an intersection, and they translate a gray area (Do I risk a go, or risk a stop?) into a binary decision made at a time scale humans can’t discern. We should make it clear that we are not out to get you in order to raise cash, but don’t screw up just the same.

   Recent stories document that TSA is now collecting names of travelers from the airlines, and some parents, rental agencies, insurance companies and trucking firms are using cameras and other technology to monitor and modify the behavior of drivers under their control. To see some frightening videos of actual driver situations go to npr.org.

   The electronic genie is out of the transportation bottle, although true smart highway technology is still years and billions away. The question is what does this buy us, what will it cost, and where does it all go? I’m going to leave aside privacy and “rights” issues here.

   Suppose your child has a behavior monitoring device in his car and is involved in an accident. Could the other driver subpoena the records of the device in order to prove your child was at fault? In turn, couldn’t this work both ways?

   With nothing more than a multidirectional recording accelerometer in each car police could accurately recreate the actions of both vehicles immediately prior to an accident. I suspect that we would find that many “accidents” are actually the unintended result of actions deliberately taken. The ability to easily and definitively find fault might revolutionize driving habits and insurance claims.

   Knowing that accident re-creation is guaranteed, police and emergency crews could more quickly photograph and remove vehicles from the scene – a major improvement over today’s procedures. Such a device would even record hit and run accidents involving pedestrians, although you would still have to find the vehicle involved.

   But why stop with retroactive monitoring? Toyota and Lexus will soon have lane “wandering” monitors available, and some cars already have automatic parallel parking systems. Trucks and some high-end cars are presently being fitted with tailgating preventers or detectors, and that technology is bound to spread to all cars. Australia is already pursuing a strategy to make such devices available for all cars.

   Traffic congestion is partly a result of our competitive nature winning our over our co-operative nature. We cause our own congestion partly by following too close, which increases uncertainty and reduces speed and traffic through put. We know that maximum traffic throughput occurs at lower speed and shorter following distances, but this trend halts abruptly in stop and go conditions and we turn merging into a turf battle. It turns out that the traffic calming methods being employed on route fifty will probably result in more cars transiting the area in the same amount of time.

   A tailgate preventer is a time and speed sensitive device that allows you to maintain a too-close, or unsafe too-close condition only briefly. The ability to accelerate quickly is not compromised on an instantaneous basis, but the device will not allow you to continuously maintain a too-close condition unless you are stopped. Likewise, lane changing is not prohibited by the device, but the advantage of doing so would be obviated.

   If every car was equipped with such a device it could reduce localized traffic delays by up to 25%. In effect they would act much like metered on ramps do, but in a more continuous and less binary mode. Cars leaving a merge zone would be allowed to accelerate more smoothly and quickly while maintaining a safe separation distance. This works because the device is speed sensitive. Cars in the merge zone would be prevented from bunching up, partly by accelerating sooner, partly by decelerating sooner, and partly by reducing uncertainty. Cars approaching the merge zone would be able to enter the zone seamlessly because space would always be available. Having entered the merge zone they would create a momentary rubber band effect on the cars already in lane, but this would be partly ameliorated by increased acceleration out of the zone. Cars approaching a congested merge area would be affected by the zone sooner, because the device is speed sensitive. Fast approaching highway cars would be slowed sooner, but they would transit the congested area faster and with fewer rear end collisions.

   It is going to be a hard sell for drivers to relinquish part of their control to a machine, but in the end it will become as natural as automatic headlight dimmers. A 25% reduction in localized congestion would mean that some congestion would go away entirely – at least until the demand overwhelms even the maximum highway throughput.

   Automatic location devices are already used as theft prevention and recovery. Combined with remote activating door and ignition locks they could assist in thief apprehension. Rental agents and insurance companies are already experimenting with using location sensors as rate setting devices, and they might be used n conjunction with Smart Passes to accurately charge for road usage. Television shows have already depicted crime investigation stories which turned on recreating events based on Smart Pass records.

   Head nodding devices are already in use to detect drowsy drivers, as are smart locks to detect impaired drivers. We can expect more advanced devices in the near future, such as built in breathalyzers – don’t plan on wearing strong perfume while driving.

   Furrow following devices are already used on farm tractors, as are location sensitive yield monitors and fertilizer applicators.

   At present we rely on stop warning signs to convey information about obscured stop signs, but information beamed from the stop sign could invoke the tailgate controller automatically. The same thing could be done with incipient light changes – thereby eliminating the need for, and revenue from, stop-light cameras. Devices are already in use that can control some stop lights, and unfortunately they are already appearing on the black market for unapproved use. This suggests that hacking highway information to improve personal advantage could become a problem. On the other hand, if signals can sense the speed and direction of all oncoming cars, eventually they will be able to control themselves automatically and cooperatively with all the vehicle tailgating sensors to supply the optimum intersection through put.

   The tailgate sensor might take away much of the need for excessive horsepower, since out of sight acceleration would no longer be useful, reduced crash incidence would in turn reduce the need for overly heavy protective vehicles.

   The tailgate preventer and recording accelerometer is simple devices already in use. All that is required is universal acceptance, which we have not yet accomplished even for seatbelts, let alone crash helmets. Considering the possible ramifications leads one to consider a result not too different from a total shared vehicle guideway system with central speed, location, and distance intelligence.

   The technology for a total system of cooperatively acting vehicles is presently being developed for the air traffic control system and plans are already in the works to expand it to include pilotless aircraft. How scary is that? On the other hand, it might be hard to hijack such a plane. Who knows where all this goes? The air traffic control system is small and co-operative compared with the highway system. Already the air traffic control system will be the largest piece
   of code ever written when it is finished, but the Ballistic Missile Defense code will necessarily be much larger. Total auto control is probably many, many years away, assuming we still have oil, but the seeds have already been planted.

   Ray Hyde
   Delaplane, VA.

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3. 

   Jim Bacon

   March 3, 2005

   Ray, I agree that technologies like those you describe may be part of the mix. Let’s say we could equip Virginia’s major thoroughfares with the kinds of smart technology you describe, plus others that you didn’t mention like traffic light sequencing, for a cost of (to pull figures out of a hat) $5 billion, and by doing so, we increased the traffic-carrying capacity of those thoroughfares by 25 percent. That makes a lot more sense than spending $5 billion on road-building projects that add to the capacity of the transportation by, say, 10 percent.

   Regardless, that’s only a partial solution. I continue to believe in the phenomenon of induced demand. If you could wave a wand and reduce traffic congestion along Interstate 95 by 25 percent, commuters would love it. They would love it so much that, over time, they would start making locational decisions (where to live, where to work) that took into account the (temporarily) improved driving times. Eventually, that extra capacity would be used up. In the long run, technological fixes must be accompanied by the development of balanced communities that make it possible for people to make fewer and shorter trips.

   There is no silver bullet for traffic congestion. We have to use every means at our disposal — all the time weighing the costs. The great thing about changing land use patterns — as opposed to building roads or even utilizing information technologies in the manner you described — is that it doesn’t cost the state or localities anything! Indeed, more compact, rational land use patterns make it possible to provide utilities and public services more efficiently, so it’s a big winner all the way around.

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4. 

   Anonymous

   March 3, 2005

   This was intended to provoke a discussion on the politics and economics of introducing technology, not a discussion of congestion reductions ideas. For example, consider the years of contention over seat belts, a technology we have yet to fully deploy. Seat belts are relatively uninvasive and inexpensive compared to what is coming next.

   I agree completely with what you say about congestion. There is not technology that will permanently reduce traffic congestion other than price increases, which are politically and economically unlikely. (Maybe population control will help, bird flu may be our best hope.)

   Any technology, whether it is new roads, new sensors, Metro, VRE or municipal sewers, whatever, has the same problem: if it works more people will use it until congestion results. Congestion is the nongovernment version of price increases. That does not mean that any technology choice is a failure, just that it is insufficient.

   However, there may be room for very substantial improvement. Consider a school of fish or a swarm of locusts. They move seamlessly in very crowded conditions.(I suppose you could argue that is not fair because they have, effectively, unlimited travel lanes, but it would hardly support your contention.)

   More than half of our existing roadways are in rural areas, and yet your proposed solution is that we use them less instead of more.

   The phenomenon of induced demand is only a theory, although it is one which appears to be borne out through both historical experience and observation. If it is a true phenomenon, then it will occur in densely populated, walking, and bicycling populations as well as in roadways. Therefore your proposed solution is no more effective than building more highways: it may or may not provide more benefits and less cost, but history suggests not.

   Your argument does not consider what the demand is for. It is not for more highways, it is for commerce and jobs. If they are overconcentrated in any area then congestion will result – whatever the means or technology of transport. It was even true in early American canals.

   We have to use every means at our disposal, all the while weighing costs and benefits. Those costs will be paid ultimately by travellers and shippers as well as by taxes, which ultimately depend on income, which depends on commerce.

   All of our history suggests that roads (lanes, sidewalks, railroads, canals, airways) generate commerce, and far more profits and benefits from commerce than they cost.

   Therefore the argument that building roads will not reduce congestion is insufficient. The purpose of building roads is not to reduce congestion, it is to improve commerce. When you build more capacity, you WANT the capacity to be used up, that is what indicates you made a sound decision.

   That in no way implies that there is a location decision to be made, although the location decision may be made by other forces. By introducing land use into the equation you do not eliminate any costs, but you add many more.

   If you are suggesting that changing land use doesn’t cost anything, well, I just don’t know what to say. That just seems preposterous to me. Talk about a magic solution, if someone says to me, FREE, NO COST, every red BS flag I’ve got goes immediately to the masthead.

   Also, the idea that government can provide services more efficiently in a compact area is fine in theory, but doesn’t seem to work in practice. Where are taxes higher, in the city, the near suburbs, the far suburbs, the exurbs, or the country? Its not a fair question of course because the country does not provide the services. We cannot fairly weigh the costs and benefits, and we can’t even agree over what timespan to measure them.

   Even when and where infrastructure exists it may be outmoded, insufficient, or lack other necessary requirements to attract commerce. Compact infrastructure is more complex and complexity is a bigger cost driver than size. The land where it exists may not be for sale. mposing a sale represents a cost to the owner, which the Supreme Court is now deliberating.

   Your argument that we must use every means at our disposal suggests that we cannot exclude the idea of making better use of rural infrastructure, or even of adding more rural infrastructure, provided we keep an eye on costs and benefits. If the demand that causes road congestion is a demand for commerce and jobs, and if half our roads are in the country, then we cannot exclude the idea of trying to move jobs to the country.

   That means that the entire argument boils down to one of costs and benefits: a place where we and nearly everbody else will probably disagree.

   Today’s papers suggest that one of the costs of compact development is going to wind up being subsidized housing in one form or another. That kind of infrastructure is not only hugely expensive, it’s demoralizing.

   If you draw an artificial urban growth boundary, you will incur the costs of enforcing it: the board that turns down zoning requests will grow faster than the population, and that means increased costs for no economic gain. Bad idea, it seems to me.

   Try telling the guy just outside the boundary there is no cost. Then look what happened in Loudoun and Oregon. You think there is no cost in whipsawing people around like in Loudoun or in the case of Disney?

   Is the increase in home prices a cost or a benefit to society? Every cost is a benefit to someone else, and yet overall it is not a zero sum game. The real question is can we compensate the losers and still have enough winners to make the game worthwhile.

   People who oppose increasing density will view your plan as a cost.

   Then there are costs we agree on but don’t know how to measure, same with benefits we agree on, but don’t know how to measure. Not to mention costs and benefits we haven’t even recognized yet. I don’t imagine the canal builders knew they were providing railroad rights of way or parks and bikepaths for future generations.

   ABS brakes were supposed to help prevent accidents, but that didn’t happen, because people reduced their following distance and increased congestion. Are ABS brakes a cost or a benefit?

   When Fauquier County eliminated 85% or more of development rights in 1986, they didn’t offer to pay for them, but now they are offering to pay. Does that mean they are a cost or a benefit? Is the delay of payment for 20 years a cost or a benefit?

   The current economic realities suggest that people want to move to less congested places, need to move to less congested spaces and every economic force except job location favors less congested places. Eventually even job location favors less congested places: just consider the quarry situation in Gainesville. Many people don’t value denser places because they are more expensive, some people are willing to pay the cost in order to receive benefits which are of no value to a different set of people: those who can’t afford to live in the city probably can’t afford the opera either.

   If we only consider the cost to state and locality coffers, we are guaranteed to make suboptimal choices on public benefit. We don’t have anywhere near enough information to make all those choices, so the best approximation is to let people make them as best they can.

   Consider a lot with infrastructure, that is not for sale and the “community” would like to see developed. For a high enough price the owner will sell unless it has benefits to him we don’t recognize. The community would have to weigh the costs of buying the property and reselling it with the benefits of the tax stream that would flow from the property, once it is developed. In other words they would now have the exact same problem as the previous owner. You would save money by staying out of it and letting him make the decision.

   Now consider a lot in the country with no infrastructur
   e that the “community” would like to not see developed. For enough money the owner can be induced to sell and the community can enjoy the benefits of not developing it and all the other revenue and benefits it produces. In other words they would then be faced with the exact same situation as the previous owner: how much of this can we afford?

   The only reason you can say there is no cost involved in your plan is not because there are no costs, but because you have artificially invented a way in which you are not responsible for the costs.

   For the time being.

   Ray Hyde
   Delaplane VA

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