Bacon's Rebellion

Here’s a Novel Idea: Fund Road Projects that Actually Alleviate Traffic Congestion

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by

James A. Bacon
in

One of the heretical notions advanced by the House of Delegates in the 2006 taxes-and-transportation debate is this: By funding pin-point projects that address specific transportation bottlenecks, Virginia can address traffic congestion more efficiently than by channeling new revenues through the traditional transportation funding formula, which spreads the money all around the state. Maybe, just maybe, Virginia really doesn’t need to raise an additional $108 billion over the next 20 years like the Axis of Taxes says it does.

Giving credence to this view is a report by David Hartgen, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, which reader Whitney Duff has brought to my attention. Hartgen argues that it would cost a mere $8.5 billion over the next 20 years to relieve “severe congestion” around the state.

The implication is that Virginia spends money on roads for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with relieving congestion, a fact that you’d never suspect given the way traffic congestion is cited to justify raising taxes by $1 billion a year. But, remarkably, as Hartgen observes, only two of Virginia’s Metropolitan Planning Organizations — Fredericksburg and Harrisonburg — mention congestion relief as a stated goal in their long-range transportation plans.

Hartgen argues that the General Assembly should make traffic congestion relief a major priority in the allocation of construction dollars, just as Atlanta and Texas recently have done. (Atlanta, famed for its sprawling road network, has raised the weight placed on congestion relief from 11 to 70 percent.) To read “talking points” based on Hartgen’s study, click here.

Given the fact that traffic congestion is the cause celebre for raising taxes, one would expect that someone, somewhere, would have conducted some analysis on exactly how Virginia prioritizes its spending for new construction projects. To what extent does Virginia fund congestion-relief projects as opposed to projects that, say, open up new land for development even if there is no immediate demand for those roads? (Does Richmond’s Route 288 ring a bell?) It’s a fundamental question, and it’s reckless to raise taxes without knowing the answer.

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16 responses to “Here’s a Novel Idea: Fund Road Projects that Actually Alleviate Traffic Congestion”

  1. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Very nice link.

    This says it all:

    “Overall, we found the Commonwealth lacks a statement of clear objectives regarding transportation
    planning. (Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts)

    “The transportation needs and demands of the Commonwealth have historically always exceeded
    available resources. This situation has created the need for the Board, Transportation management, and the
    General Assembly to find ways to invest the limited funds that are available for transportation construction
    projects.
    The General Assembly has clearly shown its intent, through legislation, that Transportation should
    prioritize projects by focusing on the needs of the state as a whole and has placed this responsibility for the
    development of the priority criteria with the Board. This chapter discusses how the Commonwealth’s
    transportation construction project priorities are developed. We also address the progress of several previous
    recommendations including:
    • establishing and implementing objective criteria for project selection and
    prioritization; and
    • prioritizing project lists for the Six-Year Improvement Program (SYIP).”

    http://www.apa.state.va.us/data/download/reports/audit_local/VDOTfollowup04.pdf

  2. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    I can’t find the reference now, but somewhere I saw a report that claimed some incredibly high proportion of traffic congestion nationwide could be fixed by improvements at just 33 interchanges. So yes, absolutely, curing traffic problems with political solutions for spreading the money around is bound to be suboptimal. I think this is the argument NOVA and HR have been making for years.

    Nationwide, traffic congestion costs $40 billion a year, and $8 billion a year just to the trucking industry. I’m not suggesting this is anywhere near accurate but if Virginia’s shhare is 2% then the cost to us is $0.8 billion a year, whether we spend money to fix the problems or not.

    FHWA has said that “teasing out each source from the whole of congestion has proven to be elusive, and we are only beginning to understand the complexities and interactions involved”. This supports the argument I have been making here: no one knows enough to say that “the only thing that will work is…….”.

    Certainly, statements such as “The idea that density causes congestion is a myth.” and “You can’t pave your way out of congestion” are unhelpful. Particualrly when we know that “Traffic in downtown Washington experienced the worst congestion, with 42 percent of major commuter routes congested during the evening rush.” We also know that thraffic flows on I-66 are consistently higher the closer to the center. It might be true that density does not CAUSE congestion, but the fact remains that the densest areas are the most congested.

    Moderate suggestions like Jim Bacon’s recognition that we need more cut throughs to prevent disconnectedness are a different matter entirely from mandating a totally grid-like system for all new developments.

    We are going to have to take a total systems approach and that is why statemenst such as “To simply, blindly expand capacity, whether road or rail, with no connection to change in design of communities and land use is a complete waste of money” are particularly unhelpful.

    We are going to need better intermodal connections, whether freight or passenger. This means that those that promote “Light Rail Now” may have a place, but overpromotion of a particular technology misses the point. Clearly, Vienna Metro Station provides a different service in intermodality than the the kind of thing the Ballston Corridor offers. That doesn’t mean that one is better than the other, or that either is unneccessary.

    We know that bottlenecks account for 50% of congestion, traffic incidents 25%, work zones 15%, Weather 10%, and poor signal timing 5%. It seems obvious that we should spend what resources we have accordingly. Likewise, we can make some additional capacity through the use of other modes such as walking, bicycling, and transit. But we should view this as additional capacity, not alternative capacity. We should realistically determine where it works and where it is helpful, and work on that.

    Jim Bacon’s observation about disconnected sidewalks is a good example of policy that is unhelpful. Rather than requiring developers to build sidewalks where they are not likely to be used, we could contribute to a fund, and trade credits like we do with pollution. A builder putting up homes in a truly walkable area could draw on those credits and thereby reduce his costs, helping to promote affordable housing in the best places. Instead, we are wasting resources with inflexible policies rammed down our throats by well meaning people.

    Sure, we can all see places where roads were built and later overwhelmed. But if we are honest, we can also see places where physical improvements really helped. With GPS and other technology, we now have better and more accurate ways of pinpointing where the trouble is caused. Because the queue can go to infinity so quickly it was not always easy to find the real problem. It might turn out to be as simple as shrubbery blocking the view.

    So, thank you Jim. Once again you have contributed are rare bit of sanity to viewing the problem(s) at hand.

  3. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    I’d also suggest the following link as an example of attacking all the problems without prejudice. It is important to work on all of them, not promoote a strategic stalemate until your pet peeve is placed first on the list. But as the link notes, none of them are cheap.

    http://www.iti.northwestern.edu/whatsnew/news/chicago/02jan24.pdf

  4. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    excellent observations!

    Now tell who is supposed to be doing these things not only in terms of research and analysis but implementation.

    VDOT? The General Assembly? The CTB? The Wash Metro MPO?

    re: density and building our way out of congestion.

    … Ray .. let’s go at this the way you seem to be advocating:

    suppose density is rejected as a solution and suppose we decide that low-density with jobs and homes completely disbursed across the region IS the correct solution – essentially continue the current trend.

    How would that affect the existing road network?

    How would that affect overall congestion?

    Wouldn’t there still be rush hour congestion?

    Is there an existing city that best follows the spread-out model that has reduced congestion as a result of being spread-out?

    🙂

  5. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Larry, thanks for pointing out the Auditor of Public Accounts study. I’d taken a quick look at it when the Coalition for Smarter Growth tried to bring peoples’ attention to it a couple of months ago, but I must confess, the significance of it eluded me (the report was pretty dry), so I never blogged it.

    Ray, if you ever see that national study regarding the 33 interchanges, please point it out to me. Obviously, there’s more to the idea of making pinpoint investments in transportation facilities than I had recognized.

  6. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Jim, I know it’s here somewhere, not sure of the numbers. If it turns out to be some nut case like Cox, I’ll be embarrassed.

    Larry, you misread what I advocate. I’m not opposed to more local density, and not opposed to preserving open space, or making it more accessible to where people live, either. Taken together I tend to think this has to mean higher local density and lower average density for some places and higher average density for other places, or as I have said, – more places. More on this later.

    I don’t have city data that anyone will believe. It gets into endless arguments on what constitutes the city, how much is suburbs, whether the city is sprawling or not, how much new raodway investment has been made, etc.

    But, look at the state data. The states with the lowest travel time to work are Montana, N & S Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa.

    Among the states with the highest travel times are Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. These are among the most densely populated states and they have the best local and statewide transit systems. States with many workers using transit for their journey to work also tend to have longer average travel times.

    I wouldn’t begin to suggest that other factors aren’t at work. probably a lot of people in North Dakota work at home on the farm and don’t go anywhere in winter, unless it’s Florida. But if you look at VMT per capita across the states they don’t vary as much as you might guess. The wide open states are in the 10-11 thousand range, Connecticut and Massacustts are in the 8-9 range, the national average is around 9.9.

    So, you could argue that more density leads to less driving, except it takes longer to get to work. And those states are small, wouldn’t you guess that New Mexico with its vast spaces and sprawling cities would be much higher? Utah, Texa, and Nebraska are just a little over 10, about the same as Virginia.

    The states that are off the map are Wyoming at 18+ and Alabama, Mississipi, Wyoming, and surprisingly Vermont at 13.

    Even the District of Columbia and Rhode Island are almost 8 thousand. Where is there to go?

    The evidence is that people in rural areas spend less on transportation than their urban counterparts. Suburban residents apparently travel more, but spend less time doing it. But, as I said there is a lot of argument over this.

    Then there is the question of VMT and value obtained. If you plot GNP and VMT they track almost exactly, including the traffic and fuel disruptions in the 1970’s.

    How do you measure quality of life, and who do you put in charge of analysis thereof?

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The new Route 288 did a wonderful job of relieving congestion on the Powhite Parkway and the Willey Bridge, Jim — you speak out of prejudice. The benefit was noticable the very first day (and then disrupted by Isabell or Gaston or some storm, which caused other problems which masked the benefit.) All that traffic heading for Short Pump and Innsbrook and points west got off both a short cut and relief from tolls. Of course, Route 288 should also have been tolled. I’m willing to bet 80 percent of the new houses going up along 288 would have come anyway, with or without the road. With the road it won’t be a traffic disaster.

  8. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Hi, Ray, you present some interesting numbers. But I think you’re confusing “density” and
    “size of the metropolitan area” as causal factors for long commute times.

    Take Montana. Yes, big state, low density. But the critical factor isn’t the density, it’s the small average size of the urban communities. Montana cities and towns are very small — Helena has a population of 68,000! Billings, 145,000. Because the cities are small, the distances that must be traversed are small.

    Now, let’s look at Connecticut. Yes, small state, high density — by state standards. But half of Connecticut is part of the New York metropolitan region. The problem isn’t the density — the problem is the vast distances people must travel to get from their suburban homes into Manhattan.

    So, what you need to do is compare travel times between metropolitan areas of comparable population size. My hypothesis — and you may dig up numbers to prove me wrong, but I’m sticking with it right now — is that in MSAs of comparable population, those that are more compact, or dense, will exhibit shorter commuting times on average.

  9. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Anonymous 5:19: You’re quite right, 288 did relieve congestion on alternate routes (at least in the short run — we’ll see what happens a decade out after the road alters regional land use patterns.) But that’s not the point. The project cost $400 million. How much congestion mitigation could have been purchased if that $400 million had been invested in other projects — pinpoint projects designed to relieve local bottlenecks? That’s the question that no one ever seems to ask.

  10. Jim Wamsley Avatar
    Jim Wamsley

    The normal source for congestion information is the 2005 Urban Mobility Report published by the Texas Transportation Institute. http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/report/

    It studies urban congestion. Rural congestion is an oxymoron. The data Ray Hyde is using confuses the conndition boundaries for studies. If you include differing regimes within one data set you only get confusion. The old mixing Apples with Oranges. Population density can not be studied based on states or even counties. You must get down to census tracks or blocks. Of course, if you want to prove something that isn’t so, you manipulate the data to fit your point.

  11. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    ya’ll won’t hear from me for a week. I’m off to a low-density week-long canoe trip on the Lower Roanoke River – and yes.. we have to drive there…and yes, we’ll be adding to the “congestion” but then of course, our cars will be off the roads for a week! 🙂

    A few thoughts:

    More population requires infrastructure. Kids needs schools. “new” people drive cars and, in our society, ARE not only MOBILE but utilize different modes.

    Some folks look down their noses at “mass transit” and point out that it “does not pay for itself” but let me point out that planes and airports are very similiar to rail and stations.

    So – perhaps if folks agree that air travel is a legitimate “mass transit” mode for some uses AND that comparing it in terms of subsidies to transit might be a useful comparison.

    Specifically the airport terminals and whether they are totally self-supporting or not.

    It would be very hard for me to believe that an airplane carrying 300 people would cost any less than say.. Metro carrying that many people perhaps on a people per mile cost basis.

    And the point I’m trying to make is that it’s clear that flying an airplane for say.. 35 miles is not going to be cost-effective compared to other modes.

    I would assert that somewhere in the mix – rail – metro and regional (like VRE or Amtrak) would be more efficient than – say air travel for certain distances.

    Folks argue that metro doesn’t go all of the places that folks need to go and that one must change modes.

    True enough.

    Now tell me the situation with air travel.

    First, the planes don’t go to all of the places you need to go and they certainly don’t go at the times you’d like.

    Then you have the problem of how to you get to the airport and how do you travel from the airport once you reach your destination?

    People accept air travel – with very similiar limitations compared to transit – without a hiccup – right?

    So why should we compare Metro to auto travel? Why not compare Metro to Dulles Air Travel where they would seem to have many more similarities than comparing either one to auto – and, in fact, BOTH would be not useful modes without autos.

  12. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: density

    Ray – it appears that you accept the legitimacy of density as a settlement pattern? Is this correct?

    Is it WHERE density settlemnt patterns are or are not “appropriate” the issue?

    Is it whether or not density occurs as a result of market forces (like redevelopment by a private concern that can make a profit)? or … where the government – as a policy – in Fairfax.. across Va. explicitly designates density for some purpose that they believe benefits them?

  13. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: house approach to the budget and “targetting” congestion.

    Let’s assume (perhaps wrongly) that this is, in essence, what the House is saying.

    i.e. – use annual surpluses to “target” the most congested bottlenecks.

    Nice Try.

    Let me know when you convince jurisdiction A that jurisdiction B has more urgent needs and therefore gets to be first in line and jurisdiction B must wait until their problem becomes worse than most other jurisdictions.

    I think the House is blowing HOT air – bluffing unless they have developed a process that objectively ranks and prioritizes projects – statewide AND there is consensus in the House AND Delegates are going to return home to tell their constituents that they are, in fact, jurisdiction B!

    The Auditor of Public Accounts in a (admittedly “dry” report) is scathing.. if you have the patience.

    It says that the state (VDOT) has NO objective process for prioritizing and ranking projects and has for years (due to political influence) put any/all projects on the “build” list when they KNEW they did not have the money.

    It was a state-authorized PONZI scheme.. that went belly up when they finally ran out of money and still had 100 billion dollars worth of projects on paper.

    But it’s worse than that.

    They didn’t have contigency funds so when prices went up – it delayed the project.. and because of the delay.. prices would go up again… a death spiral.. in terms of actually getting a project built.

    VDOT also did not factor in inflation! So they put a project on a list – project the build date to be some number of years away – and never adjusted the annual inflation on that project in the years before it would be built.

    So the House expects to reform VDOT with respect to “targetting” congestion – good luck and the Senate just wants to figure out how to refill VDOTs empty coffers apparently believing that VDOT will actually implement the Auditors recommendations.

    Who is in charge of VDOT – The Governor – the CEO for the Commonwealth.

    Now ask yourself if a CEO presided over a company with VDOT’s practices what would happen?

    Well.. I’ll answer. Either they go broke or the CEO is replaced.

    Did CEOs Allen and Gilmore fix VDOT? Did they take credit for reforming VDOT?
    Did CEO Mark Warner fix VDOT? partial credit… Schucet make major changes.. and had he stayed, he would have insured that the Auditor recommendations were implemented.

    Where is Kaine on this? Is he looking for another Schucet or will we see another “administrator”?

    Here’s the question?

    If VDOT .. or really, ANY govt agency is broke and the CEO/Gov is clueless (whether willing so or not is irrelevent)… what do you do?

    As long as there is a VDOT – how would we insure that they not only get “fixed” but stay “fixed”?

    Please note also a very unlikely alliance between the ‘no’ taxers and the environmental community with respect to taxes, roads and VDOT for similiar reasons.

    The no taxers have NO confidence that VDOT will become anything other than a huge money sinkhole.

    The environmentalists have been arguing – literally for decades that Va and VDOT have no sane and rational policy with respect to financial investments in mobility and accessibility. Give them credit for that but deduct points for not weighing in on what would be not only sane and rational BUT cost effective – performance based solutions.

  14. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Larry, have a fun trip. Don’t tip over your canoe! … We’ll miss your insights.

  15. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    When I was working on the Virginia short haul airline project we figured our costs for a small commuter plane at $0.28 seat mile and figured we could make a profit if we charged $0.50 per passenger mile, assuming we could sell enoug seats. It costs Jet Blue only 7.5 cents per mile to move a passenger.

    According to a 1990 study of 228 bus companies nd 30 rail companies the operating cost per passenger mile for buses was 44 cents per pm for trains it was 37 cents per passenger mile. At that time the direct operating cost for autos was 21 cents per mile. If you take into account capital costs, external costs, parking space costs, accident costs, etc. etc. etc. cars turn out to be slightly more expensive than trains or buses, but they offer better, more flexible, and more extensive service.

    Here is the real killer. For buses the number of passenger miles per mile of revenue operation is only 9. For trains it is only 21. And that doesn’t count all the miles operated when they are out of service. Clearly, there are a lot of buses and trains running around mostly empty and we would be better off to operate them only where they actually pay.

    What is the difference between 9 passengers on a 40 passenger bus and one passenger in a four passenger car? (Hint, the lumbering bus causes more noise, and more congestion.)

    Airlines at least are for profit enterprises, even if they don’t achieve it.

    If Metro came anywhere near that 7.5 cents per mile, I’d stop complaining. How much Jet Blue doesn’t pay, in air traffic services etc. I couldn’t say, but it is reasonable to assume there issome government accomodation there somewhere.

    I don’t think it is clear that density is either a necessary or a sufficient criteria for sttlement patterns. What we should be looking for is what the people want, what works economically, and what works environmentally, and then figure out how to pay for the result equitably.

    I tend to believe we need more polycentricity. That way we can use the roads and rails in two directions, and we eliminate or reduce the mass crush trying to go to one place.

    If we are going to talk about density, we have to consider the number of settlements, their size, their local density, and the amount of open space between them. If they are too many, too small and not dense enough, we have sprawl and no open space. To increase or preserve open space we have to increase local density, which may or may not increase average density. In any case it is a lot different from saying we should only build inside of R-20.

    I don’t have any problem with density as a fact of life. If someone wants to live in a $400,000 800 square foot condo in downtown St Louis, like I saw on TV this week, go for it. If they are willing to pay their full locational costs, it’s OK with me.

    Where I start to fall off the wagon is density as a policy. In the first place, it is too ill-defined, as noted above. In the second place it is not clear to me that there is either a cost or a societal benefit. If we decide thare are benefits and we wish to raise money to promote or subsidise density, that’s OK too. We will have mad a conscious decision to spend money to achieve some benefit going forward.

    Where I have a problem is suddenly classifying everyone who doesn’t live in the newly PC way a miscreant who needs to be punished into submission. Where I have a problem is when we invent new subsidies as a way to argue against things we don’t like, while ignoring a similar analysis of things we do like.

    We can’t just argue that density is good. If we do that then how far out in the country do you go before it is not good: Arlington, Fairfax, Eastern Loudoun, Western Loudoun? We haven’t solved that yet, let alone how to pay for it.

    And then, how much farther into the poverty stricken areas of the countryside before it suddenly is OK again?

    We are going to need a lot better definition and a lot more knowlege before I sign on blindly.Larry said it best, as usual “Give them credit for that but deduct points for not weighing in on what would be not only sane and rational BUT cost effective – performance based solutions.”

    Homilies and platitudes don’t cut it. Show me something that works and prove it. Maybe metro west will turn out to be OK, and maybe it will produce 44% less traffic than some other plan. That is still more traffic than before, and where is the plan to handle the increase?

  16. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Jim: maybe the numbers I posted are correct, but for a reason neither of us suspected.

    “Odd as it may seem, density is the rule, not an exception, in the wide-open spaces of the West. Salt Lake City is more tightly packed than Philadelphia. So is Las Vegas in comparison with Chicago, and Denver compared with Detroit. Ten of the country’s 15 most densely populated metro areas are in the West, where residents move to newly developed land at triple the per-acre density of any other part of the country.”

    http://why.michaelpatrick.org/2005/08/san-jose-converse-of-boston-or.html

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