Posted on 02/26/2003 2:39:12 PM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — Traffic planners released a plan today that they say will guarantee commuters in eight large cities speedy drives or bus rides to work. Their vision of congestion-free lanes is familiar, but this time, the experts have an ambitious national plan and at least some influential allies.
The planners propose to keep traffic flowing by charging tolls, an idea that has traditionally been as unpopular with drivers and politicians as it is beloved by economists and engineers. This proposal, which would use part of the toll revenue to pay for bus service on the lanes, is supported by some moderate Democrats, as well as by free-market Republicans, by some environmentalists and, perhaps most significantly, by some officials of the AAA, a powerful enemy of tolls in the past.
The proposal would convert car pool lanes and build new lanes so that most freeways in each city had at least one H.O.T. lane, as engineers call it, a high-occupancy toll lane open free to buses and commuter vans and, at a price, to individual drivers.
In H.O.T. lanes, which operate successfully in Southern California, tolls are collected electronically at freeway speeds, and they increase at peak times so that the lanes do not become congested.
The co-authors of the proposal, Robert W. Poole Jr. and C. Kenneth Orski, estimate that the new lanes and interchanges would cost $44 billion, with tolls covering two-thirds of the costs and the remainder coming from local governments and federal highway and mass-transit programs.
The regions would be Atlanta, Dallas-Forth Worth, Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.
"We see this as a realistic legislative proposal for Congress," said Mr. Orski, a former associate administrator of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration. He noted that a change in federal policy allowed mass-transit money once reserved for rail projects to be given to bus projects. But any suggestion to impose tolls on voters makes politicians uneasy.
"It's too early to weigh the prospects for this proposal," said Steve Hansen, a spokesman for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "Toll lanes tend to draw a lot of red flags. But with today's congestion problems and the lack of adequate funds for highway and transit projects, perhaps this could be a potential part of the solution."
The idea is gaining bipartisan support among policy experts. The proposal, published by the Reason Public Policy Institute, a libertarian group, has also been endorsed by the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic group, as well as by Environmental Defense.
Michael Repogle, transportation director for the environmental group, said H.O.T. lanes would cut urban air pollution by reducing emissions from cars stuck in traffic jams and by encouraging drivers to switch to high-speed buses.
In the past, politicians have called high-speed toll lanes "Lexus lanes" that unfairly benefit the affluent, and AAA officials have fiercely opposed the lanes.
Former critics, including Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, are offering favorable reviews. Mr. Anderson said tolls might be the only way to pay for the one or two new lanes needed on the congested Beltway around Washington.
"I've criticized Lexus lanes in the past," he said. "But we have to consider tolls because the federal and state coffers can't pay for the new highway lanes and subway lines we'd like. We're not going to relax our opposition to tolling existing highways. But using tolls to pay for new lanes seems reasonable, especially since the tolls would also pay for new buses in these lanes."
Shane Ham, an expert with the Progressive Policy Institute, also pointed to the buses as a selling point.
"This proposal has great political potential," Mr. Ham said, "because you're not just building new lanes for drivers. You'd also get a high-speed transit system that covers an entire metropolitan region, and that could be built quickly and affordably."
What a dismal proposal.
Have them come over and visit New Jersey.
Sure they work. Because the government ensures that any other road is jammed. No one in their right mind will pay toll money to go the same place as a free road, unless the free road is all screwed up.
To see an example of how toll roads destroy (or at least don't promote) a good economy, look at I44 where it crosses from Oklahoma into Missouri (or Arkansas, I forget). On the Oklahoma side, a toll road, there are no businesses for miles and miles. On the other side, where it becomes free, there has been an economic boom along the road over the last 40 years.
Just like the rivers in the 18th century were where the cities and economy developed. They now develop along free roads.
Look at the night picture of the Earth from space. You can see the routes of major highways in the lights. But they're not headlights you're seeing. They're the economic sucesses along the roadways with the lights.
Great, then let the free market work. Quit taxing for concrete. If they spent the money on concrete and asphalt that we have been taxed, there would be no need for this crap. The problem isn't too much traffic, or too little money, or not enough tolls, the problem is too little concrete that we have paid for. Time for some pork killin'.
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