Click on map for more legible image of freight bottlenecks in Virginia.
by James A. Bacon
If Virginia finishes funding a slate of highway, railroad and port mega-projects designed to eliminate transportation bottlenecks and shift freight from highways to rail, some of which are already completed and all of which are underway, the state could reduce truck Vehicle Miles Traveled in congested conditions by 30%, creating more than $20 billion direct and indirect savings to the economy through 2035. So says Cambridge Systematics in a report presented to the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CBT) Wednesday.
The report identifies the following benefits:
- Avoidance of potential future transportation and environmental impacts: pavement damage, safety, emissions ($4.7 billion)
- Travel time savings due to reduced highway congestion ($6.6 billion)
- Direct shipper cost savings from reduced highway congestion and increased use of lower-cost transportation modes ($6.4 billion in direct savings, $5.4 billion in indirect and induced savings, accruing inside and outside VA)
Unfortunately, the report does not list the cost of the improvements, much less a Return on Investment. Until the commonwealth begins ranking transportation projects by ROI — and makes transparent the method for calculating ROI — there is no way to rationally allocate public transportation funds.
I did have a chance to speak briefly to David Tyeryar, deputy secretary of transportation, who told the CTB that the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment does perform ROI calculations on proposed projects. While OIPI can rank ROI for projects within each transportation mode — roads, ports, aviation, rail, mass transit, etc. — it does not maintain a master list ranking all projects.
