Opinion: A Congestion-Free Alternative for Metropolitan-Area Trucking
By Patrick DeCorla-Souza
I>Team Leader, Office of Transportation Policy Studies
ederal Highway Administration
Value pricing typically entails tolls assessed electronically, but the tolls vary. Relatively higher tolls are charged for travel during peak periods. This is like the demand through pricing management in other sectors — airlines that offer discounts for off-peak travel or hotels that charge more during the peak tourist seasons.
Many people think adding additional travel lanes is the answer to congestion. But, the average price for adding lanes in urban areas is almost $10 million per lane mile. As it stands now, most of the funding for these transportation improvements comes from the taxes paid on fuel. However, this brings in only about $120,000 per year on each added lane if the lane is used by 20,000 vehicles per day.
Obviously, this is grossly insufficient to pay for lane additions. And, more lanes bring more traffic so congestion returns soon after new lanes are added.
On the other hand, introducing value pricing on the added lanes brings transportation supply and demand into balance and keeps the lanes congestion free. It ensures the free flow of high-value travel by trucks and transit vehicles, and it provides an option for premium service that other motorists can use to avoid delays.
Toll charges are set high enough to make certain the express lanes will be congestion-free. These tolls generate revenues that can be used to pay for new highway capacity and to accelerate the completion of projects that would otherwise have to wait for years to receive funding.
Value pricing projects have been successfully implemented on highway facilities in California and Texas.
On new express lanes on State Route 91 in Orange County, Calif., which were built with private funds and completed years ahead of schedule, tolls that vary by time of day have been successfully used to manage demand while at the same time provide premium service for motorists willing to pay to avoid delays.
Tolls also help finance the investment in new capacity. In San Diego on Interstate 15 and in Houston on Interstate 10 and U.S. 290, peak period tolls are charged to drivers of low-occupancy vehicles who choose to use the High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes but do not meet the occupancy requirements. Those lanes are called High-Occupancy Toll lanes.
In the summer and fall of 2001, a telephone survey of 800 motorists who used I-15 in San Diego found support for the HOT lanes was high. Ninety-one percent of those surveyed thought it was a good idea to have a time-saving option on I-15.
Although equity concerns have been raised in states without value pricing, more than 80% of the lowest-income users of I-15 agreed with the statement: “People who drive alone should be able to use the I-15 express lanes for a fee.” Actually, the low-income users were more likely to support the statement than the highest-income users.
Finally, 89% of respondents supported extending the HOT lanes.
Two important findings from the operation of the early pilot projects are: drivers do alter their behavior in response to value pricing and motorists are receptive to value pricing if it can be shown to provide them with improved transportation services.
Among the motorists who use the toll lanes are delivery vehicle drivers trying to complete their routes on time, service personnel trying to squeeze an extra service call into their workday, parents rushing to the day care center to pick up their kids, sales personnel trying to get to an appointment or meeting on time and parents who need to get home in time for evening activities with their families.
A new value pricing concept called Fast and Intertwined Regular lanes was developed to overcome equity concerns that sometimes surround efforts to implement value-priced lanes. These concerns have primarily risen in areas where pricing has not yet been implemented. Some feel that it is not fair to provide the wealthy with a higher level of mobility than those less well off can afford.
FAIR lanes involve separating congested freeway lanes into two sections, fast lanes and regular lanes. The fast lanes would be electronically tolled. Vehicles in the regular lanes would face congested conditions, but would receive credits if their vehicles have electronic toll tags. The credits could be used as toll payments on days when the motorist or truck driver chooses to use the fast lanes, or they can be used as payments for transit or shuttle bus services.
Since credits are offered to regular-lane vehicles, it may be publicly acceptable to take existing lanes for use as fast lanes when right-of-way for new lanes is unavailable.
Providing new, priced-express lanes on about 200 miles of severely congested freeways in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area would generate as much as $600 million in toll revenues annually to pay for the much-needed transportation improvements.
And, in comparison to providing free service on added lanes, $2 billion to $4 billion in net additional economic benefits would be obtained from reduced travel delays and fuel consumption, as well as environmental and parking cost savings.
In metropolitan areas such as Washington, a network of HOT lanes or FAIR lanes could be introduced in conjunction with freeway capacity additions.
Will such networks be built and provide commercial vehicles a choice in metropolitan areas? The answer, to a great extent, depends on the decisions your local elected officials make when they develop metropolitan transportation plans. You can participate in that process by contacting your metropolitan planning organization.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Department of Transportation or the Federal Highway Administration.
This editorial appeared in the July 15 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
