Tolls and other traffic management ideas are coming back
The federal stimulus package shortchanges transit, but the Washington Transportation Commission is thinking ahead: taxes, tolls, and demand management.
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 page 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 would 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 scary 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 component, already taking shape, would be 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. Even more importantly, they help control peak hour use by solo drivers while transit and ride-share vehicles go free. If you're still skeptical, look at the New York Times' "Freakonomics" blog, where 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 for the nation, which rewards greener vehicles. Some of their policy priorities, in their words:
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Jan 28, 7:46 a.m. inappropriate
Perhaps, if our Government "Leaders" would stop "solving" our transportation problems by coming up with and supporting the MOST EXPENSIVE solutions, we could reduce the regressive kind of taxation that you are supporting.
Everyone needs to wake up and look around and see that our lifestyle and mobility choices combined with the massive impact telecomunications is having on the way we live and work, and the rapidly growing incentivizing of alternative fuel innovations, that this backwards system of taxation is going in the opposite direction of our choices to be flexible and adaptable in todays world.
It's easy to create more ways to tax(and discriminate against the poor). It's hard to be realistic and creative when you have people at the top who are anything but.
We are going through a human settlement revolution that is not representative of 19th century ideals that have and are guiding us in our planning.
The future is here! Once Leaders understand this, they will see that they are recommending obsolete and backwards policies.
Where are the incentives as opposed to the regressive policies being contemplated? Not yet on our LEADERS table!
Art
Posted Wed, Jan 28, 9:23 a.m. inappropriate
We already have a "vehicle miles traveled" tax. It's the gas tax. It automatically penalizes low-mileage vehicles, and it collects revenue without giving the State the power to snoop on the comings and goings of the people it is supposed to be serving. We are becoming a police state, one step at a time. If the State can monitor your movements and tax you based upon them, it can prohibit your movement just as easily. Internal passports, anyone? "Ihr Papieren, bitte!"
Posted Wed, Jan 28, 11:05 a.m. inappropriate
Living on the east coast now, I'm amazed by the absence of tolls on Northwest highways (as well as the absence of decent commuter rail and high-speed rail options). On the occasions when I drive to New York and have to pay repeated tolls to get there, I wonder why the Northwest doesn't just accept that the future is tolls, tolls, tolls. You get what you pay for.
Posted Wed, Jan 28, 12:32 p.m. inappropriate
The trend toward transportation infrastructure becoming a public utility ala water and electricity is a good one. Charging users for what we build and maintain makes intuitive sense. The technology will eventually be there to make this all happen, albeit with privacy concerns. The alternative is transportation via political concensus, which is the obvious disaster we have now. For those concerned about various constituencies that may be hurt by tolling, there will always be special discounts and subsidies made available, just as for bus fares. Note that competitive pricing and tolling of various infrastructure options will allow us to make apples vs oranges (i.e., roads vs light rail) decisions that are now distorted by the hidden subsidy of most roads, and the government pork & earmark approach to infrastructure projects (Sound Transit being Porcine Beast #1). I look forward to the day, probably a couple of decades away, in which ALL transportation spending is based on the revenues from tolls and fare boxes. Then a $75 trip to the airport on Sound Transit may not seem like such a good idea.
Right now, government does a very poor job of mediating the claims of property owners, environmental groups, labor unions, and government workers. To get anything done, it essentially pays off all the complaining and whining greedholders. Only then, is the first priority looked at -- building effective transportation systems at a reasonable price. By then it is too late. The small print language that no one knew about in the bond covenants guarantees a revenue stream for incompetence and sloth forever and ever. So long as transportation departments everywhere look to politicians to design their transportation systems, we'll have the pigs-at-a-trough splendor of Sound Transit sucking up all the oats, and cobbled together Ferry, Viaduct, and Monorail solutions that cannot pay their own way.
Make the users pay, and use those revenues and information about that usage to determine what to build and maintain. Don't ask a politician. They say yes to everyone, then go "find" money. It's a hopeless system that is really not a system at all. It's legalized corruption. Legal and immoral. IMHO. This is not to condemn politicians as immoral or corrupt. They are elected and dumped into our government pig sty. They become "stewards" of our resources -- i.e., wards of the sty.
Moving to a toll-based system will in essence be throwing away the current pig sty and replacing it with a human cafeteria model in which citizen decide what they want to eat and government runs the cafeteria. This is a big step up in government evolution, roughly equivalent to the evolution of the cerebral cortex in the human species. Alas, that voluminous cortex is no guarantee of good -- tolling can be easily abused -- but I prefer the good man or woman to the good boar or sow.
Posted Wed, Jan 28, 12:47 p.m. inappropriate
Tolls I understand. License and excise taxes based on vehicle value and/or weight I understand. Gas tax I understand.
"Variable-miles-travelled" tax? Incredibly stupid, not to mention regressive, hard to implement, and redundant with the gas tax.
It is not hard to imagine that the VMT would be just as hard to calculate as income tax:
- Where we you going?
- What time of day?
- What route did you take? Freeway, state highway, county road, dirt road.
- Purpose of travel? Business, pleasure, emergency, job interview, agricultural, research & development, etc.
- How many people in the vehicle? Were they employees, family members, or associates? Were any of them disabled?
- Curb weight of vehicle? Loaded weight of vehicle? Number of axles?
- Contents of cargo? Personal effects, business materials, medical supplies?
- What was your AGI during tax year 2010?
- What fuel were you burning? Ethanol, CNG, biodiesel (from what source? Palm oil, algae, restaurant waste), hydrogen, battery power, gasoline
- What percentage of your trip was battery powered? Please provide the receipt printed out from the dashboard.
- What is the emissions rating of your vehicle? LEV, ULEV, other?
Lord help us.
Posted Wed, Jan 28, 1:58 p.m. inappropriate
How about mosquito fleet ferries back on Lake Washington? Cheaper and faster than building a bridge. A great way to spend a Saturday afternoon with your kids. Who will be grown, and living in North Carolina, before 520 is built.
The Soundgarden Express to Kirkland. I like it.
You know, you could have done this whole 'toll' thing ten years ago. Such is the Process Driven Life.
Posted Fri, Jan 30, 9:20 a.m. inappropriate
User fees are absolutely the way to go, but taxes on miles traveled seem inordinately hard to design and implement and wouldn't accomplish any behavior modifications that existing taxes don't. But Stuka, if you tax people for using their cars, you have to give them an alternative, and you have to subsidize it as a social good. Transit (esp. HCT) reduces carbon emissions and promotes more concentrated land use patterns that support sustainable lifestyles. It takes up way less space than the equivalent amount of road capacity and has a fraction of the carbon footprint. But there's no transit system anywhere that's supported by farebox revenues. You just have to choose what to subsidize... and U.S. policy in the last 100 years has opted to subsidize pollution, pavement and sprawl. Time for a change.