High above the Seattle early evening skyline on Thursday, at the Harbor Club on Second Ave., a group of citizens and leaders concerned about the future of Seattle's waterfront gathered to hear about lessons in waterfront revivalism and sustainability from their City of Brotherly Love brethren. The discussion, organized by Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center, focused on what Seattle can learn (and potentially apply) from a process that the historic city of Philadelphia went through over the last several years to reclaim its waterfront along its equally historic Delaware River.
Seattle's waterfront, with its magnificent vistas of mountains, islands and the Puget Sound, is arguably the grandest in all of the United States. It is home to marinas, the port, restaurants and shops. Amidst discussion of replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the seawall, however, a uniting geographical coordinate on the map has sometimes become a divisive point of debate. Underlying that debate, of course, is concern -- ultimately it is concern about the best steps the Emerald City can take to maintain and improve this most valuable of natural assets in a way that embraces the future while also respecting the past.
This set of circumstances -- uniting a city behind a collective civic vision for the long term sustainability of a waterfront -- is one that is most certainly not unique to Seattle. And in the case of Philadelphia, after several ill-fated attempts over the years to tackle its waterfront challenge, success only came through a civic-driven process, characterized by openness, transparency and integrity.
"HOW DO YOU CONNECT THE WATERFRONT BACK TO THE CITY?"
In the Fall of 2006, then-mayor of Philadelphia, John Street, authorized via executive order PennPraxis to develop and lead a publicly focused planning process for the city's central Delaware riverfront.
"The central Delaware (in Philadelphia) had become a landscape of big box stores and gated communities," Harris Steinberg, executive director of PennPraxis, told the assembled crowd at the Harbor Club discussion on Thursday. "It wasn't living up to its promise."
PennPraxis is headquartered out of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, and according to its Web site, is a "vehicle for carrying out practical or applied projects for external clients." It is difficult to get more practical and applied than confronting a major project that is at the center of a city's soul.
"The question we had before us was, 'How do you connect the waterfront back to the city?'" said Steinberg. He said it was a grim situation, as the central waterfront was "disconnected, under threat and under seige."
In a paper he wrote about the project, he describes the waterfront in question as "an 1146-acre post-industrial landscape that had been undergoing slow and unplanned change over the past 50-years...a federal highway built in the 1970s and 1980s severed the area from the dense residential neighborhoods adjacent to the river, creating difficult public access to the waterfront." The city "began calling for a plan that would guide development for the central Delaware," Steinberg wrote, and "PennPraxis, with the support of the William Penn Foundation, was invited to lead the effort." PennPraxis, he told the Seattle gathering, was approached in part because "no one really trusted the planning commission."
Listening to Steinberg, who comes across as sincere, informed and likable, it seems like he was made for the job. Indeed, to hear him describe the mood of distrust that permeated the very idea of revitalizing the seven-mile area, and the context of the city's earlier failed attempts, you'd be excused if you chalked his success up to the great man theory. But Steinberg -- and the facts -- would disagree with you.
Ultimately, as described to the group assembled in Seattle and in his paper, the successful 13-month process (Oct. 2006-Nov. 2007) "engaged more than 4000 Philadelphians in the creation of A Civic Vision for the Central Delaware." He describes it as "one of the largest public planning processes in Philadelphia's history with respect to the extent of citizen involvement." Critical, too, he says was the role of the press in engaging the process and ensuring a transparency to it. PennPraxis worked closely with local media (especially the editorial board of The Philadelphia Daily News). Additionally, PennPraxis created a news site -- PlanPhilly -- to cover the entire visioning process including public meetings and events. PlanPhilly, he says, essentially created a reporting beat (in the form of a news site) exclusively devoted to covering the issue.
"TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY AND INTEGRITY"
The lessons articulated in the Civic Vision for the Central Delaware are founded on an open, civic-driven process characterized by transparency and integrity.
The first set of lessons begins with having a respected, unbiased team with responsibility for the project. In the case of Philadelphia, for example, PennPraxis and the William Penn Foundation wouldn't take the project unless it met these criteria: citizen-driven; open and transparent; having involvement of the press; and, that recommendations created by the process and the implementation of those "would be accountable to the public voice that created the plan." The second set of lessons revolves around creating values and principles deriving from the citizens involved in the process. For Philadelphia, agreed-to values revolved around safety, culture, the environment, the economy and history. The principles established included: reconnecting with the water, honoring the river, designing with nature in mind, and protecting the public good.
"At the central section of the project area, cover, sink or remove the interstate in order to reconnect the city with the river."
Another important lesson is that design ideas were tethered to values and principles. Only after values and principles were created, for example, did the process in Philadelphia move to the design-recommendation stage. And even once there, the five design teams were "to respect the civic planning principles." According to Steinberg, that level of consistency and commitment eventually yielded several concrete ideas for the central Delaware, including integration of the "industrial past into the public open space system," designing the waterfront to allow for "a wide mix of uses," and "at the central section of the project area, cover, sink or remove the interstate in order to reconnect the city with the river."
Seattle isn't Philadelphia, and a river isn't a bay. But as was clear in listening to Steinberg and his colleagues, despite the two cities' differences, both benefit from a fundamental strength: an ingrained civic-mindedness. So, even though Seattle isn't done with its process, there are many lessons that PennPraxis and Philadelphia have to teach. Maybe the most important one? None of this has to take forever: Once the momentum was there, it only took Philadelphia 13 months to create, organize and implement a plan for its valued, historic waterfront.
Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute's Bruce Agnew recently became the chair a NAFTA-chartered commission focused on the issue of sustainable freight transportation.
The Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has embarked on new study to evaluate opportunities making freight transportation more sustainable in North America. Bruce Agnew, Executive Director of the Cascadia Trade Corridor, discusses the role of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation in evaluating opportunities for making freight transportation more sustainable in North America.
The commission is nearing the completion of a report that will be shared with Trade and Environmental Ministers prior to the G-20 session in the summer. Agnew recently attended a working session for the group in Mexico. (Above, in his own words.)
Deb Hubsmith and Andy Peri, both of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition.
The Cascadia Center for Regional Development (Discovery Institute's transportation center) yesterday hosted two events -- a corridor tour and a dinner policy discussion -- focused on the future of the rail and trail corridor on Seattle's Eastside.
As 2009 closed, the Port of Seattle and BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) reached an agreement that allows the 42-mile corridor running from Renton, Wash., in the south to Snohomish, Wash., in the north to remain intact. Under the end-of-year agreement, King County, Sound Transit, the City of Redmond, Puget Sound Energy, and the Cascade Water Alliance will purchase segments of the corridor.
It has long been Cascadia Center's view that the Eastside corridor can accommodate a trail and commuter rail. The purchase agreement represents an unprecedented opportunity for the future development of transportation in the corridor -- a corridor that once operational could serve as an example of smart and sustainable growth with opportunities for transit oriented development at station sites.
This issue -- and especially lessons that Seattle's Eastside can learn from those in Sonoma-Marin (Calif.) who navigated a similar opportunity in their backyard -- was the focus of discussion for most of the day on Wednesday for a group of local leaders and concerned citizens attending two Cascadia Center-sponsored events. From 3:00-6:00 p.m., a group of 45 people packed a tour bus to examine first-hand the corridor, going as far north as Woodinville and making stops along the way to see what the corridor looks like and envisioning what the future could hold for sustainable growth along a fully functioning rail and trail corridor.
After the corridor tour, from 6:00-9:00 p.m., in a dinner program held at the Bellevue Club in downtown Bellevue, Wash., a packed room heard from Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl, and absorbed critical "lessons learned" presentations from Andy Peri and Deb Hubsmith of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition. Both Mr. Peri and Ms. Hubsmith were for years intricately involved with the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) train and pathway process in California. (SMART will bring passenger train service to Marin and Sonoma Counties plus a 70-mile bicycle and pedestrian pathway/route that will run from Larkspur to Cloverdale.) Mr. Peri had a leadership role in running the grassroots election campaigns in 2006 and 2008, which was victorious in Nov. 2008. Ms. Hubsmith worked for more than a decade on the development and campaign for the SMART train and pathway, which was approved by 69.5 percent of voters as Measure Q in Nov. 2008; $91 million was included in Measure Q for a 70 mile bikeway parallel to the train.
The day closed with a community response panel, on which Chuck Ayres of the Cascade Bicycle Club, seemed to sum up the mood of cooperation that everyone -- despite ongoing, legitimate differences in viewpoint and approach -- is seeking when he indicated that although there are many, many details to continue to be weighed, ultimately he is in favor of rail with trail. It's a worthy goal, and the one that Cascadia Center, and many others, hopes gets one notch closer to reality as all of the diverse groups involved in making the decision continue to reach for a consensus.
The idea of better high-speed rail in the Northwest's Cascadia Corridor came out of the ether and into the realm of reality last night in the nation's capital and today in Florida with President Obama's announcement of $590 million for the region's high-speed rail development. Amidst the applause and subtle guffaws so typical at all State of the Union addresses, Washingtonians -- especially those who have so long worked on the issue in this part of the U.S. -- cheered.
As the Seattle Times' reported this morning, "The money represents the Northwest's piece of an $8 billion stimulus package for high-speed rail, to be announced Thursday in Florida by President Obama."
“These funds will offer great returns: We will put people to work and improve a transit service on which more and more Washingtonians rely,” Gregoire said. “Thanks to these investments, we will move more people, move them more efficiently and move them more reliably.”
The funding will be used for everything from upgrading tracks to increasing the frequency and speed of service along the Cascadia Corridor.
The annual meetings of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) have always been a reliable barometer of the key transportation issues of the day as seen by the transportation community. This year’s meeting—which attracted 10,100 participants and featured over 500 technical sessions and workshops—was no exception. What follows are some impressions from the conference, after listening to some 60 presentations and holding informal conversations with a number of conference speakers and other participants during the 4-day meeting, January 10-13.
The overall impression was one of a pervasive climate of uncertainty about the future. Conference sessions and informal conversations were full of speculations concerning the status of the surface transportation reauthorization, the potential solutions to the funding dilemma, the fate of the climate change legislation, the future direction of the federal high-speed rail program and the impact of the upcoming midterm elections on pending legislation, notably the surface transportation reauthorization and the climate change bill. The outcome of the second job stimulus bill was also a subject of much speculation. The bill, which already has been approved by the House and now awaits action in the Senate, would inject substantial interim funds into the surface transportation program and extend the surface transportation authorization through Sept. 30, 2010. The $154 billion measure would allocate $36.7 billion for highways, transit and Amtrak, credit the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) with $19.5 billion in foregone interest payments and allow the Trust Fund to accrue interest in the future. But, as one congressional source attending the TRB Conference told us, the Senate prospects for the deficit-funded jobs bill appear uncertain.
Senate opponents claim there is plenty of stimulus money still in the pipeline and the bill’s requirement to spend the money within 90 days imposes an unrealistic deadline given the lengthy contracting process involved in infrastructure procurement. Additionally, Senate opponents may be expected to argue that the law establishing TARP requires unspent and repaid funds to be used to pay down the soaring national debt. The prospect of another vote to raise the debt ceiling might further discourage the Senate from redirecting the TARP money.
Secretary LaHood’s address at the TRB Annual Luncheon, announcing revised criteria for New Starts funding, received a generally positive reception from the TRB audience. Under the new policy, proposals for new rail transit projects will be judged by a broader range of factors than in the past. In addition to cost-effectiveness, the criteria will include economic and environmental benefits, land use impact and "livability." One beneficial effect of the revamped policy should be a wider consideration of streetcars. This was first made possible several years ago when the Bush Administration made streetcars eligible for federal funding under its "Very Small Starts" category (Interim Guidance on Small Starts, July 26, 2006.) As many as 40 U.S. cities are in various stages of considering or planning streetcar projects according to a survey conducted by the Community Streetcar Coalition. As we observed in an earlier NewsBrief, "just as 30 years ago a less costly light rail transit LRT technology began to replace expensive heavy rail systems, so today, streetcars are offering to medium-size cities a more affordable fixed-guideway alternative to light rail systems." (The Streetcar Makes a Comeback, Innovation NewsBriefs, September 2006.)
Policy shifts are often so nuanced and subtle that they're almost not recognizable. Sometimes, however, as with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's announcement about new funding guidelines for transit projects, they are stark enough to warrant the laudatory adjectives found in the press releases describing the policy change. The latter is true for the announcement that the U.S. transportation chief made at yesterday's Transportation Research Board's annual meeting.
“Our new policy for selecting major transit projects will work to promote livability rather than hinder it,” said Secretary LaHood. “We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities and how it makes our communities better places to live.”
The Obama administration is indeed proposing a "dramatic change" that adds two more criteria for major transit projects to receive funding: economic development and benefits to the environment. The current policy only focused, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, "primarily on how much a project shortened commute times in comparison to its cost."
Among the type of projects that might benefit from the change in policy would be projects such as streetcars--ones that The New York Times reported Secretary LaHood as saying would make it possible to "...make the case for investing in popular streetcar projects and other transit systems that people want..."
As we enter the new year--and celebrate the 21st year of publication of our newsletter--one thing is certain: the federal surface transportation program, as indeed the nation's transportation future, remains in a state of flux.
What follows is a brief analysis that has led us to this conclusion. Shortly before the scheduled December 18 expiration of the third temporary extension of the federal surface transportation program, the House and the Senate passed yet another short-term extension, this time through the end of February 2010. Their action underscored once again the continued inability of the Congress to address the long-term transportation needs of the nation. Before adjourning for the holidays, the House also passed by a vote of 217 to 212 a second job stimulus bill (H.R. 2847). The $154 billion measure, endorsed by Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee, allocates $36.7 billion in additional funds for highways, transit and Amtrak, extends the surface transportation authorization through Sept. 30, 2010, credits the Highway Trust Fund with $19.5 billion in foregone interest payments and allows the HTF to accrue interest in the future. But because the new stimulus program and its infrastructure component are to be funded with dollars from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), the bill will face an uncertain future when it reaches the Senate early this year. Opponents may be expected to argue that the law establishing TARP requires unspent and repaid funds to be used to pay down the soaring national debt. The prospect of an impending vote to raise the debt ceiling might further discourage the Senate from redirecting the TARP money. The measure also faces possible White House opposition, given President Obama's strong desire to limit further deficit spending and embark on a more sustainable fiscal policy.
Environmental advocacy groups, while supportive of the House measure, expressed disappointment that it failed to focus on long-term transportation reform or include a National Infrastructure Bank. Even Rep. John Mica (R-FL), ranking member of the House T&I Committee, who generally supports Chairman Oberstar, was moved to criticize the House bill. The "Son of Stimulus," Mica wrote in Roll Call, will be no more successful in creating permanent new jobs in the transportation sector than was the first stimulus bill, since the dollars are being spent on short-term transportation enhancement and road repaving projects that provide jobs only for a few weeks or months. Our own impression, based on local evidence, tends to confirm Rep. Mica's conclusions: the stimulus money has merely allowed local and state highway agencies and their contractors to avoid layoffs and enabled them to keep existing road crews working at full strength. This would be the likely effect of the second stimulus as well. Its effect on job creation (as opposed to job preservation) would be negligible according to many observers. In short, the latest House action is seen by the transportation community as another example of Congressional equivocation, extemporization and inability to come to grips with the nation’s long-range transportation needs in a fundamental way.
We're not sure what outgoing Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has on his holiday wish list, but continuing the progress being made to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep-bored tunnel is likely on there. Mayor Nickels, along with former King County Executive Ron Sims and Washington Governor Christine Gregoire, came together earlier this year in a decision that commits the State of Washington to tearing down the viaduct and replacing it with a deep-bored tunnel.
The West Seattle Herald has an informative report about progress being made to prepare for the actual viaduct replacement work.
Within the next few weeks, crews will finish relocating electrical lines from the viaduct to underground locations east of the structure between S. Massachusetts Street and Railroad Way S. This project, which began in September 2008, prepares us for replacing the viaduct south of S. King Street and also helps protect downtown’s power supply in the event of an earthquake.
Members of the program team met with the north portal and south portal working groups this month to discuss new design options for the proposed bored tunnel alternative. The working groups, which include neighborhood, freight, pedestrian and bicycle organizations, and business representatives, help inform the design and environmental review process for the viaduct's central replacement.
And in other news that things appear to be moving along, last week The Seattle Timesreported that the Washington State Department of Transportation has named several design-build teams that have the qualifications to "submit proposals for the Alaskan Way Viaduct bored-tunnel project."
Washington State's transportation secretary, Paula Hammond, is quoted in the article saying, "'We are very pleased with the quality of the contractor teams vying for this project.... Their world-class expertise will be invaluable as we identify innovative ways to deliver the tunnel on time, within budget and with the highest level of quality.'" All four teams will be eligible to submit their proposals in Fall 2010. The proposals will detail how each team would go about "completing the tunnel design, constructing a tunnel boring machine and building the tunnel, including the interior roadway, tunnel systems, ventilation buildings and portal connections." Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute's Bruce Agnew, when interviewed last week on KUOW's Ross Reynolds show about the region's "Most Overlooked News of 2009," talked about the deep-bored tunnel and how such a big story was "under-reported" vis-a-vis cost comparisons and related issues.
The debate about how to best replace the aging, earthquake prone Alaskan Way Viaduct has been going on for years, and for good reason, reaching a solution hasn't been easy. Another thing that couldn't have been easy was -- after considerable study and examination -- making the decision to take a stance on a tough regional issue. Although it is Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute's view that the deep-bored tunnel is the wise choice for the region's future, reasonable people can (and do) certainly disagree on the best course of action for replacing the viaduct. It's a complex issue for sure, and it's best for the region that it has been examined from all angles. For his part, however, as he prepares to leave the city's leadership scene, Mayor Nickles might take pride in the fact that it looks like the viaduct replacement work is continuing on schedule. That might be the only gift he needs this year.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood was recently on the "Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. His appearance focused on the future of high-speed passenger rail in the United States and what areas are possibly on deck for the first set of investments from the Obama administration.
Secretary LaHood didn't mention the Cascadia Corridor in his "Daily Show" interview. But Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute, like many in the region from British Columbia down through Oregon, believes strongly that the Cascadia Corridor should be among the first to receive high-speed rail investments. The arguments in favor of this corridor are plentiful. The Washington State Department of Transportation's grant request outlines how some investments could be allocated.
The Cascadia Corridor, of course, is bi-national, requiring investment and cooperation on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. Earlier this month, as part of Cascadia's effort to help push the issue of securing Canadian investment in the corridor for additional passenger rail service, our organization sponsored a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia. Washington State Senator Mary Margaret Haugen led a delegation of 60 people -- private sector and government leaders -- to engage in discussion about some of the ways to assure future success of passenger rail in the corridor.
For the Cascadia Corridor, the 2010 Winter Olympics and the need to transport tourists along the corridor is the most immediate impetus for increased service. But long-term, long after the last athlete has left the Olympic village, a robust and healthy passenger rail system in the Northwest could very well play an important role in the region's vitality.
Last week, KUOW's Ross Reynolds show focused on the "Most Overlooked News of 2009." Cascadia Center's Bruce Agnew was asked to weigh in:
I’m not sure there was a bigger news story this year than the (Alaskan Way) Viaduct (replacement) deep-bore tunnel. Certainly, it was the biggest issue in the mayor’s race. Yet there seemed to be precious little media attention to the difference between the deep-bore tunnel and the infamous Boston Big Dig, which was a much, much bigger, more complicated, multiple tunnel and bridge project. And later, there was no real media comparison to the tunnels completed here in Seattle, like the recently-completed Sound Transit Beacon Hill light rail tunnel, which came in on time and on budget. Certainly now, the media would do us all a favor comparing the difference between the Brightwater King County project (and the Viaduct replacement tunnel) in terms of (cost overrun) risk.”
You can link to and listen to the full "Most Overlooked News of 2009" show here. Bruce Agnew's interview is near the end of the show.
Over at Discovery News, my colleague (and Discovery Institute founder and president Bruce Chapman), has a good post about how deep-bore tunneling projects are making a run for the Outstanding Civil Engineering Award of 2009.
An innovative deep-bore tunneling operation devised for Sound Transit in Seattle is one of five projects in competition for the Outstanding Civil Engineering Award of 2009, a contest conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers. One of the Seattle project's competitors is another tunnel in California. All in all, tunnel technology is being revolutionized these days, with extensive implications for urban design as well as transportation.
You can read the original post here. It is also re-posted below.
Engineering Contest Sees Tunnels in Urban Future
By Bruce Chapman Discovery News
An innovative deep-bore tunneling operation devised for Sound Transit in Seattle is one of five projects in competition for the Outstanding Civil Engineering Award of 2009, a contest conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers. One of the Seattle project's competitors is another tunnel in California. All in all, tunnel technology is being revolutionized these days, with extensive implications for urban design as well as transportation.
All five nominated 2009 civil engineering projects are impressive and tend to renew one's confidence that technology can provide breakthroughs in human life comparable to the great feats of the past century. The successful Sound Transit project is also significant for the next deep-bore program in Seattle, a tunnel under the downtown to replace the Alaska Way Viaduct, a 60 year old elevated freeway alongside the harbor. Eventually, the waterfront tunnel project may offer a national model for cities that wish to recover surface land in high density urban areas for multiple uses--land now used for the single purpose of motor traffic. Tunnel technologies like those in Seattle also could help remove the reputation for waste acquired by the "Big Dig" project in Boston.
Here is what Erik Sofge of Popular Mechanics says about the already completed Sound Transit tunnel:
"Whether or not you're a believer in the universal benefits of public transit, this project deserves respect. To build a passenger rail station in the Beacon Hill area, south of downtown Seattle, contractors had to create the largest and deepest soft-ground sequential excavation method (SEM) tunnels in North America. SEM refers to the practice of digging a tunnel in sections, supporting each segment as you go. The pair of mile-long tunnels—part of a 14-mile light-rail project—were nearly twice the depth and diameter of previous such projects, running under a 352-feet-high hill. When initial test shafts found a surprisingly large amount of fine sand, engineers quickly rearranged the design and path of the tunnels, pioneering new construction techniques that should benefit future SEM projects in soft soils. The final result is inherently unassuming—the Beacon Hill station is 160 feet underground, accessible in 20 seconds by elevator—so the 642-ton, 330-feet-long earth-pressure-balancing tunnel-boring machine that dug the tunnels will have to stand testament to this nimble and literally ground-breaking project."
The Seattle Times' Keith Ervin reports this morning about the myriad public and private sector parties that are coming together around different elements (and sections) of the 42-mile Eastside rails and trails corridor. This month -- and perhaps as early as next Tuesday -- the "...Port's purchase of the rail corridor is scheduled to close...."
King County, Redmond and a utility consortium are prepared to pay more than $43 million to buy land or easements along an abandoned Eastside rail line they hope to give new life as a rail and trail route in the future.
The corridor is unique in the opportunity that it potentially offers citizens and businesses on Seattle's Eastside -- a point that Cascadia Center has voiced repeatedly in the last several years. Read the full article here.
A small but influential group of individuals gathered recently at the downtown Washington office of University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs at the invitation of its Director, former Gov.Gerald Baliles. The bipartisan group included two former U.S. Transportation Secretaries and some 30 key players and opinion leaders who constitute what could be loosely described as Washington's unofficial permanent transportation policy establishment.
The purpose of the meeting was to solicit advice on a set of recommendations stemming from the Miller Center's fall transportation conference. The central challenge was posed succinctly by Gov. Baliles at the outset of the meeting. The transportation sector, he suggested, is being neglected despite the evidence of a mounting crisis - aging infrastructure, growing traffic congestion, strained freight and logistical facilities. Both the Congress and the Administration are extemporizing rather than taking bold steps to avert the looming crisis.
Where is the outrage, Baliles asked. Why is there no popular outcry? And what can we do to overcome this inertia? How can we create a sense of urgency and develop a narrative that will reverberate with the public, capture the media's attention and goad Congress and the Administration into action? The Governor's conclusion: we must involve "the three Ps": the Public, the Press and the Politicians.
In case you missed it, the Bellevue Reporter newspaper, which covers the city of Bellevue on Seattle's Eastside, had a good article recently about an innovative proposal -- supported by Cascadia Center -- to make use of the BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) corridor in a way that protects homes and businesses in Bellevue's booming downtown core.
The proposal, "Vision Line," is the brainchild of Bellevue Council member Kevin Wallace. According to the article, he says it will match the ridership numbers projected by other ideas and do so "at a much lower cost."
The Vision Line aims to protect residential homes and downtown businesses. But it adds another option to a growing list of alternatives for Sound Transit's East Link light rail project.
Council member Wallace's "Vision Line" includes an artist's rendering (above) showing what a downtown Bellevue station that brings light rail along the abandoned BNSF line might look like. Cascadia Center, long an advocate of keeping the 42-mile BNSF corridor in public ownership, co-funded the "Vision Line" drawing, created by locally based and nationally known rail artist Craig Thorpe.
Here’s a one way to market light rail: highlighting the ethnic eats along the route. The new Gold Line in L.A. has mad culinary appeal. In Seattle, Sound Transit’s new “Link” light rail line might also benefit from a promotional campaign highlighting adjacent dining and other neighborhood attractions. Just one of many points of interest: In between the Othello and Edmunds stops, and right across from the Link tracks at Graham Street, is Joy Palace, one of the region's best restaurants for Hong Kong style Chinese entrees, and the bite-sized savories and sweets known as dim sum. Take it from me, or Yelp fans of the place. In the same urban mall is a wondrous Asian supermarket, Viet Wah. Go there to buy shredded green papaya, Asian greens and fresh herbs, Asian fruits, fresh egg and rice noodles, fresh meats, fish and seafood, Chinese barbeque, Tibetan beer, and condiments galore. The mall also features Tony's Vietnamese deli, with tasty, budget-friendly hot take-out, and a traditional Chinese apothecary.
And you thought there was no such thing as a sexy bus. Launching in full Nov. 30 is Washington state’s first "bus rapid transit" line, from Community Transit in Snohomish County. It’ll ply the SR 99 corridor, going as far south as the Aurora Village Transit Center in north Seattle, where King County Metro buses continue on to other points in the city. No corridor length bus-only dedicated lanes, but many other BRT features. How about on board WiFi one day?
Another piece of the puzzle begins falling into place. New partners announce their intent to join with the Port of Seattle to buy and preserve for public use a strategic commuter rail and recreational trail corridor in high-growth Eastside suburban cities.
Across Puget Sound in Kitsap County, the Port of Kingston has pulled together $3.65 million, just $350K short of their estimated full nut, for four years of fast passenger-only ferry service to and from Seattle. Commissioners may opt for a used vessel.
An old bridge across Lake Champlain between upstate New York and Vermont has been closed. It is considered too dangerous for traffic and beyond renovation. There is no money available at present to pay for replacement. There are 110 more bridges in New York state classified similarly, but yet to be closed, and many more moving toward that status. New York’s plight is emblematic of deteriorating surface transportation infrastructure nationwide. Federal money alone won’t be nearly enough. To repair, operate and maintain key roads and bridges; and to help fund carefully-vetted road extensions and widenings, plus transit system improvements, states and regions need RFID tolling of highway corridors now, public-private partnerships, and eventually charging for all miles driven by time, distance and place, as the gas tax is phased out. No more rowboats, OK?
A Brussels-based satellite navigation expert tells a Portsmouth, U.K. transportation technology symposium that taxing drivers by miles traveled rather than fuel purchased would have a major green upside. Developed nations should explore the policy further at Copenhagen talks.
The Dutch are aiming to implement wide area pricing, also known as a “vehicle mileage tax," by 2012. This approach typically includes on-board units in vehicles, and is likely coming to U.S. within 10-15 years. Washington state and Oregon have already completed key field tests. The University of Iowa is conducting a 12-region, federally-funded field test. Major funding for more R&D, and advanced testing of the concept is likely in the next federal surface transportation bill. If, as is possible, the long term approach adopted by U.S. policymakers is to package wide area pricing with the phase-out of the ineffective per gallon gas tax and the phase in of mileage based consumer incentives such as pay-per-mile car insurance, then the controversial strategy could be a somewhat easier sell.
An international conference on road pricing was held last week in Toronto, on the heels of an OECD report that the region loses $2.7 billion a year in productivity and consumers pay an extra $3.3 billion annualy due to traffic gridlock. The regional transportation board will closely consider expanding electronic (variable-rate) express lane tolling on the region's highways to help pay for $40 billion in transit and road improvements needed over next 25 years.
China's Electric Vehicle Challenge
"China Confronts Global Warming Dilemma,” the Christian Science Monitor reports. If China is not a full partner, global action on greenhouse gas emissions will be ineffective. It's already the world's largest emitter and per-capita rates will grow with increasing urbanization. The state-owned power sector is reliant on cheap coal, and projections are for an increase in vehicles from 65 million now to 300 million by 2030. A carbon tax to drive faster adoption of renewable energy sources would help, as would ramp-up for widespread electric vehicle infrastructure.
Auto sales are already hitting a record pace in China as the huge nation’s economy continues to grow. Some key players in China are trying to help gear up for electric vehicles. The source of electricity matters, but even with coal, there are significant emission reductions on a per-vehicle basis when electrics replace fossil-fuel-powered. Air pollution and public health are additional reasons for developed and developing nations to move beyond oil and coal. The worst form of air pollution, particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5), is at heinous daily levels in urban China; 750,000 people there die prematurely each year from fouled air. James Fallows, in The Atlantic.
It’s a familiar Washington scenario: a major new federal grant program is launched and soon a brand new constituency is born with an army of supplicants and lobbyists eager to secure a piece of the action. The Administration’s high speed rail initiative has been no exception. It has spawned a large and enthusiastic following. Two regional coalitions — the Midwest High Speed Rail Coalition (IL, WI, IO, MN, MS, MI,IN, OH) and the Western High-Speed Rail Alliance (AZ, CO, NV, UT)— have entered the competition, supported by the umbrella States for Passenger Rail Coalition headed by Frank Busalacchi, Secretary of Wisconsin DOT. Also in the running are several statewide rail corridors including California, the sole state with a tangible high-speed rail project, having secured voters' approval for a $10 billion bond measure. Cheering on the sidelines is the newly formed One Rail Coalition which includes many of the established rail-oriented lobbies such as the Associations of American Railroads (AAR), the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP), the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and the Railway Supply Institute.
Other members of the new constituency include foreign high-speed rail operators and equipment manufacturers; the domestic engineering and construction industries which are eyeing the program as a potential source of hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts; the green lobby; and just plain old railroad enthusiasts. They were all in evidence at the September 22-23 conference of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association— a new membership organization established specifically to "advocate, educate and support the development of a state-of-the-art national high speed rail network across America."
What brought these disparate interests together was the lure of big money.
Clean Cities program manager Stephanie Meyn looks on as U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (Wash.) presents a $15 million grant award to the Puget Sound Clean Cities Coalition.Photos by Mike Wussow/Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute
Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute's sixth annual "Beyond Oil" conference concluded on Saturday, Oct. 24. Once again, thanks to a strong group of co-sponsors, policy, business and civic leaders were able to gather at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Wash., for smart, forward-looking discussions and presentations about the next stage of electrifying transportation and how the Northwest is poised to help lead that transition.
On Saturday, with a signed memorandum of agreement between Governor Christine Gregoire and Mayor Greg Nickels, Washington and Seattle formalized their partnership for removing the Alaskan Way Viaduct. As described by the Washington State Department of Transportation, the seven-page agreement "outlines the city and state's construction and funding responsibilities to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with the proposed bored tunnel." Last week, Seattle's City Council voted unanimously on a measure to endorse the tunnel and, according to WSDOT, which "authorized the execution of the agreement."
The Alaskan Way Viaduct was damaged by an earthquake in 2001. WSDOT recently released a video (see below) that "simulates what would happen to the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall if another seismic event more intense than the 2001 Nisqually earthquake were to shake the Puget Sound region."
(Left to right) Standing in front of the first all-electric Ford Focus in the Northwest, Ford's Mike Tinskey and John Viera talk to U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (Wash.). All three were conference speakers.Mike Wussow/Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute
The second (and final) day of Cascadia Center's sixth annual "Beyond Oil" conference is now in full swing. Conference attendees just finished listening to Spyros Sakellariadis, director of Microsoft's Enterprise Strategy Team, and Kush Parikh, vice president at Inrix. They opened today's first session -- "Making Transportation Smart: Software, Connections and Information." Attendees are now hearing from Set America Free's Anne Korin, who is discussing the public policy imperatives for moving beyond oil in transportation -- especially from a national security perspective.
Yesterday's sessions were very well attended and covered a lot of ground: policy, technological developments and grant awards for the integration of technologies that'll electrify transportation. As those of you who were there will attest, there wasn't an empty seat in the house at Microsoft's Executive Conference Center on Friday. If you haven't had the chance to attend this year's session (and even if you have), Seattle's King 5 story about the conference gives a good snapshot of some of the issues at stake.
Some of the many electric vehicles on display at "Beyond Oil." From left to right, the Ford Focus, RAV 4 and Tesla Roadster.Mike Wussow/Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute
Cascadia Center's TransTech Energy conference began this morning at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash. Co-sponsors include Microsoft, Clean Cities, Ford, Idaho National Laboratory and the University of Washington. This is the sixth conference focusing on the combination of transportation, technology and energy. Three years ago, Cascadia Center hosted a pioneering session to examine the potential of plug-in electric vehicles, and the conferences have continued to grow in scope and influence.
This morning, Clean Cities is hosting panels with biofuel and electricity experts to discuss the future of local, sustainable alternative fuel in our region in the context of a “100 Mile Fuel Diet." Before noon, there will be a certification presentation for the Evergreen Fleets Certification and the announcement of a $15 million petroleum reduction grant. Sessions later today and tomorrow morning will cover upcoming legislation and the potential impact to fleets in Washington State, a discussion of the Sustainable Communities Initiative, and a look at the future of mobility hubs.
Click here to see the release announcing the conference.
Using a robustly-researched, fine-tuned "telework savings calculator" developed by the Telework Research Network, Seattle Times workplace blogger Michelle Goodman highlighted what this region's employers and workers could save in various costs and gain in improved productivity if the 40 percent of regular, salaried non-government office workers who could work from home, but don't, did -- just half the time.
The upshot: There are billions of dollars in potential benefits from telework being left on the table in the Seattle region alone.
Kate Lister (pictured at right), co-author of "Undress For Success - The Naked Truth About Making Money At Home" and principal researcher of Telework Research Network, shared with me today her latest data about the robust national impact of 40 percent of the regular, full-time, non-government, in-office workforce working at home half the time. Maybe your company would like a piece of this action.
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation under George W. Bush, Mary Peters recently told the Austin-San Antonio Corridor Growth Summit that the country needs to move toward a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax to replace the failing gas tax. At the same time, a new survey conducted by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University shows drivers warming to a mileage tax if lower emission vehicles get discounted rates. At issue is how to pay for maintenance and expansion of roads and transit systems after 40 years of vast growth in system use, and looking toward a tricky double-whammy. More population and jobs in coming decades will strain metro-region surface transportation systems, while flattening per-capita miles driven and greater fuel efficiency are curtailing growth in the per-gallon gas tax revenues that have traditionally been the prime source for surface transportation funding.
Broad implementation of the mileage tax is at least 10 years off, maybe 15. In the nearer term, variable-rate, electronically tolled express lanes are needed aside free lanes on major metro region highways, along with expanded opportunities for public private partnerships and other local and regional funding tools. Eventually, the mileage tax could be levied for travel on arterial and feeder roads, plus highways, with discounts for less congested routes, and possibly, lower emission vehicles. Incentives such as pay-per mile car insurance and meter-less, ticket-less parking could help compensate for privacy concerns. With a slew of VMT pilot projects, technical studies and surveys completed and more underway or coming, this bold policy initiative continues to gain momentum. Here's the San Antonio Express-News on Peter's remarks:
In Crosscut this morning, Knute Berger channels the spirit of famed urban planner, writer and neighborhood preservationist Jane Jacobs - and sits down with Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess to talk tunnel.
They're mulling Seattle mayoral candidate Mike McGinn's call for ditching the planned deep-bore tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 in downtown Seattle. Berger's hook is two-fold. First, Seattle is having its own Jane Jacobs moment in the candidacy of tunnel opponent McGinn, who favors a "surface street" option instead. Second, there's a new book out by Anthony Flint titled, "Wresting With Moses," on Jacobs' battles against the epic, 20th Century infrastructure builder of New York, Robert Moses (pictured, right).
Cast as the genius-villain writ large in Robert Caro's landmark, 1974 Pulitzer-winning biography "The Power Broker," Moses is just the kind of guy who like Seattle leaders in 1950 would have supported a noisy, fume-spewing, shadow-casting elevated highway such as our viaduct, and who if transported to 2009, probably would have been all for building the world's largest diameter single-deep-bored tunnel to replace it. Or a grand bridge across Elliott Bay, instead. The stage set thusly, Berger in his interview draws some astute observations from Council Member Burgess, himself a great fan of Jacobs' neighborhoods-first activism and scholarship.
...Burgess...says that reading the (Flint) book made him more certain that the deep-bore tunnel was the better option for the waterfront. That seems counter-intuitive, because Jacobs fought against highways. Doesn't a multi-billion-dollar road project seem more like a Moses boondoggle? Doesn't the surface option, which would limit vehicle traffic, sound like more like a Jacobs kind of solution?
But Burgess worries that the surface option will be destructive at the street level, especially to the businesses that rely on Highway 99 and waterfront access.
At a meeting in Seattle last week, lawmakers heard that the funding gap for replacing the storm- and seismically-vulnerable, crowded four-lane SR 520 bridge across Lake Washington can be shaved from $2.6 billion to $2.38 billion through a sales tax deferral of $220 million. They also had a look at the current menu of gap-closers. It includes more borrowing against electronic tolling revenues, plus higher toll rates on the 520 bridge, and especially, tolling of the parallel I-90 bridge. As ever, tolling's a flash point, but it needn't be ugly. It can equitable, and farsighted. Metro Puget Sound needs a comprehensive regional highway corridor electronic tolling plan, typically with express "HOT" lanes aside free lanes, and higher rates at peak hours.
Corridor-length Approach Is Favored; I-405/SR 167 Seen As Model
Reporter Newspapers covers East and South King County, and has produced a lengthy special section - also available online - delving into the region's surface transportation challenges. In an in interview for "Navigate King County's Future," Washington Department of Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond talks about funding, with an emphasis on beginning to to add variable-rate express toll lanes for the full length of major highway corridors such as I-405/SR 167. She also alludes to the next-generation approach of charging vehicles for all miles driven, with on-board units.
In the future, you could be paying for your right to use roads the same way you pay your utilities — a bill based on exactly how much you use. According to Paula Hammond, secretary of transportation, and the state’s highest transportation official, the technology to do that isn’t that far down the road. “It’s 10 to 15 years out,” she said, noting that kind of direct-user fee could be part of the equation for future transportation funding.
But in the meantime, there is a complex – not to mention expensive – series of transportation needs that the Puget Sound area has to resolve, or at least come to terms with. Traffic congestion; freight issues; super-efficient hybrid vehicles slowing the state’s gas tax to more of a trickle: all of these elements are adding up to a Gordian’s Knot of worries on which the state is working to get a handle.
...Hammond called attention to one of DOT’s latest projects: high-occupancy tolling lanes, or HOT Lanes. It’s a concept allowing non-carpooling drivers to use the HOV lanes, by charging them for the privilege. For more than a year DOT has been operating a test segment of State Route 167 in South King County.
And it’s working...Given the promise of HOT lanes have shown, DOT is working to expand HOT lanes on more of Puget Sound’s clogged roadways – starting with I-405, where road-expansion work is ongoing, and HOV lanes are already present....“But we’re looking at the entire (405) corridor. And as it comes through the 167 interchange and carries down there as well.”...The concept of paying as you go, to fund specific projects like the HOT lanes, is gaining serious momentum as a payment solution for transportation issues...Hammond said drivers investing directly in the roads they use is a critical part of the equation...
Yesterday in Crosscut, the Northwest online daily journal of politics and public policy, I published a piece titled "Time to Go 'All In' On Tolls." It starts this way:
The four-lane Evergreen Point Floating Bridge across Lake Washington on State Route 520 is a relic of a bygone era, congested and disaster prone. How urgent is the need for a planned six-lane replacement? The Washington State Department of Transportation has gone so far as to graphically model on YouTube how the bridge might buckle under duress, threatening lives and paralyzing the region's highway network.
And is the region stepping up to the challenge? Less than half the funding is secured. The Seattle-side configuration is still being debated. More broadly, the project begs a more comprehensive regional tolling strategy because our bridges and highways are all connected. We can't keep doing transportation mega-projects on a disjointed, one-off basis.
A key to any solution is tolling, and soon. Here and nationwide, 40 years of sizzling growth in vehicle miles traveled has left too many sections of highways, arterial roads, and bridges overburdened, in disrepair, and obsolete in the face of seismic and other hazards. Those ballyhooed federal stimulus funds were a mere drop in the bucket, amounting to less than one-quarter of what a landmark Congressional commission report says is needed annually. The per-gallon gas tax is badly failing at the federal and state levels. The federal gas tax trust fund is bankrupt, and living on bailouts. Even tripling state gas tax contributions to pending mega-projects in Washington state would do little to close wide funding gaps, state data show. A big new federal transportation bill — which may well include the first hike in the U.S. gas tax since 1993 — will help some, but not that much.
"Getting people out of their cars?" Ain't really gonna happen here in the four counties of metro Puget Sound. Not to any appreciable degree. Consider the eye-opening figures released in late May for the Puget Sound Regional Council's "Transportation 2040" Draft Environmental Impact Statement. A five percent mode share for transit in 2040, versus more than 80 percent for the evil auto, even in the rosiest scenario modeled.
There has been little or no discussion of this data in the region's media or blogosphere, puzzling because our many Greens profess to care so deeply about increasing transit usage to fight greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. What emerges instead from the data is that the policy response should lead with incentives for cleaner cars and road pricing, the two of which can be coupled. Let's drill down, starting with a summary of the key data.
Blogging from Kabul, Seattle Times reporter Hal Bernton is struck by how the post-Taliban proliferation of private vehicles has boosted smog and air pollution, threatening public health. Now picture the possibilities in places such as China and India, where rapidly multiplying populations are enjoying new opportunities and car ownership is seen as an important step on the economic ladder. The small, affordable, fuel-sipping Tata Nano is a success story in India, yet The New Delhi-based Center for Science and the Environment recently warned of carbon emission risks posed by a growing percentage of bigger vehicles in the nation's fleet, combined with a failure to set fuel economy standards. (Open Microsoft Word doc. after clicking here). The Times of India confirms the sport utility vehicle market there is heating up. In addition to the tiny Nano, Tata Motors, India's largest auto manufacturer, makes many types of mid-sized and larger rides, including SUVs such as the Safari Dicor, the Sumo Victa, the Sumo Grande and the Xenon XT pick-up (pictured, right). Plus commercial trucks, now enjoying a sales boom in India. The "50 By 50 Global Fuel Economy Initiative" report highlights a projected tripling of the world's light vehicle fleet by 2050, with 80 percent of that growth occurring in rapidly developing countries.
The report concludes that improving the average fuel economy of the global car fleet 50 percent by that year will "mainly involve incremental change to conventional internal combustion engines and drive systems, along with weight reduction and better aerodynamics." Important aims to be sure, but "50 By 50" unfortunately consigns the eventual wide adoption of green vehicles such as plug-in hybrids and all-electrics to "icing on the cake" status, and largely sidesteps environmentally beneficial congestion reduction measures. In contrast, The Economist's approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions from a growing global fleet of light vehicles starts with a strong call for a carbon tax calibrated to vehicle type, and includes other economic incentives and electrification.
Among the pressing legislative priorities facing Congress this autumn – besides the headline-grabbing health care and climate change bills – is an extension of the federal surface transportation program. The program authority expires on September 30 and its renewal is essential to keep federal transportation money flowing. The House and Senate have been on divergent paths in their approach toward renewing the program. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, under the leadership of Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN), has been intent on passing a six-year $500 billion surface transportation measure ($450 billion for highways and transit, $50 billion for high-speed rail) during this session of Congress. In late July, a bill to this effect was reported out by the House Highways and Transit subcommittee. Chairman Oberstar announced at the time that he would hold a full committee mark-up soon after the House returns from its summer recess.
The Senate, on the other hand, has been working toward an 18-month extension of the existing surface transportation program. Its rationale for doing so was succinctly stated by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking minority member. There simply is no way, the two senate transportation leaders concluded, that Congress could pass a multi-year authorization of the surface transportation program before the program’s expiration at the end of September. "There are just too many big questions left unanswered, not the least of which is a lack of a consensus on how to pay for it," Boxer and Inhofe stated. A better approach, they said, would be to pass an 18-month extension as recommended by the Obama Administration.
Left unsaid were probably two other motives for wanting to postpone enactment of a long-term legislation.
In a significant return to a controversial topic - the positive mention of which once earned him a sharp public rebuke from President Barack Obama's press secretary - U.S. Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood today in Chicago reiterated the possibility of vehicle mileage fees to help pay for mounting U.S. surface transportation needs. His remarks indicate a softening of Obama's official position against the idea. Underscoring evolving bipartisan support, Republican U.S. Rep. John Mica, the ranking minority member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, explains to a Florida paper today why the mileage tax makes sense, long-term. No such policy will be enacted anytime very soon, but could begin to move more seriously toward eventual mainstream adoption as part of a broader surface transportation bill reauthorization with which Congress will grapple after the 2010 mid-term elections. LaHood today also reiterated earlier conceptual support he expressed on the administration's behalf for several other next-generation funding tools, including expanded electronic, time-variable tolling and public-private partnerships, as Dow Jones Newswires was first to report.
The U.S. administration is still considering a higher gas tax or mileage fees to upgrade the road network, though there would be no move until the economy improves, transportation secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday.....LaHood, speaking at a transport conference in Chicago, said state and federal officials had to look at 'other creative ways' beyond the (troubled Highway Trust) fund to maintain and expand roads. President Barack Obama has ruled out any increase in the gas tax that funds the HTF until the economy improves, noted LaHood. Other possibilities include tolled 'HOT lanes' running alongside existing roads, as well as more public-private partnerships and even imposing tolls on existing roads. "That's going to be a wildly debated topic," LaHood said of any scheme to toll existing roads. He said it would be 'hard' to persuade taxpayers to pay again to use something funded from general taxation.
The trick there is to offer them a tangible improvement in the form of guaranteed faster travel times and ramped-up express bus service, in express toll lanes that whenever possible are carved out from the existing highway's footprint, with free passage for vehicles carrying three or more passengers, plus toll rates determined by real-time congestion levels, and parallel lanes free to all drivers. In any case, after Congress works through health care and climate change, and the transportation "revenue enhancement" window opens wide after the 2010 mid-terms, look for a rollicking debate on transportation. Funding tools, land use and greenhouse gas emissions, and systems-focused performance measures to guide spending decisions are all likely to be part of the commotion. Whatever's decided in D.C. will set the stage for heavy lifting by states and regions.
Jarred into action by the tragic I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007, the Minnesota legislature in early 2008 proudly passed a $6.6 billion surface transportation funding bill including the state's first gas tax hike in 20 years, plus optional sales tax hikes, a major bonding program and other measures. But 18 months later, according to its new transportation policy plan, the North Star State faces a $50 billion gap in paying for surface transportation projects over the next 20 years. Of $65 billion in needed work, only $15 billion is currently expected to be available, with three-quarters of that targeted for preserving existing roads and bridges. Officials say safety won't be compromised. But mobility and pavement condition will. The executive summary from the report reveals (pp. 14-15) the full battery of envisioned projects are to meet system performance targets as the population grows, mainly by improving mobility in inter-regional corridors and mitigating congestion in the Twin Cities, Rochester and St. Cloud areas.
Chapter 4's discussion of state trends affecting transportation provides more detail. Population is projected to rise 25 percent from current levels by 2035, which would be 50 percent since 1990. Congestion in the metro regions is expected to grow due to more population, a high rate of solo driving on all trips, greater commuting distances and high use of inter-regional corridors. (State highway map here). Needed projects are detailed in the accompanying statewide highway investment plan (full report here; Twin Cities district here). Given the wide funding gap between needs and resources, leaders want to encourage new ways of maintaining roads, pricing limited peak-hour highway capacity, deploying in-vehicle technology, and funding system improvements. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:
Former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton addresses the audience gathered at the Arctic Club Hotel in Seattle this morning.
Nearly 200 people packed downtown Seattle's Arctic Club Hotel today for the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center's first national "field" forum to unveil its recommendations calling for dramatic shifts in transportation policy. The report, “Performance Driven: A New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy,” was unveiled in Washington, D.C., on June 9, 2009, and the BPC is now conducting a set of forums around the country.
As a precursor to today's event, Senator Gorton published an op-ed in The Seattle Times this morning. In the op-ed, "Transportation dollars should be allocated to maximize larger society goals," he argued that Washington, D.C., "does not measure how well its transportation investments improve traffic, safety, energy or the environment" which leads to an ineffective system that ultimately negatively impacts America's "global competitiveness."
Even though they are the economic engines of the nation, large metropolitan regions like ours bear the brunt of misallocated investments. Unfortunately, the current federal program restricts funds from being used in ways that can best advance regional and national goals.
Inside the Arctic Club's Northern Lights Dome Room this morning, experts from the BPC and local leaders tried to get their heads around how to best bring the recommendations in the landmark "Performance Driven" report from idea to implementation. Senator Gorton was joined by the BPC's director of transportation research Joshua Schank and senior advisor JayEtta Hecker. Seattle area leaders on the dais included Bryan Mistele (NTPP member and president and CEO of INRIX), Washington Secretary of Transportation Paula Hammond, and Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute senior fellow Steve Marshall. (A full agenda with participants can be found here.)
When Congress passes a new $450 billion six-year surface transportation reauthorization sometime in the next 18 months or so, it would directly yield $90 billion per annum, split nationwide over its term. That probably sounds like a lot of money, but it's not. As the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's blueprint for the reauthorization bill notes on p. 7, needed U.S. road and transit projects require $225 billion to $340 billion per year in public and private investment over each of the next 50 years - this according to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. Even scaled-down needs identified by the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure and Finance Commission - also cited in the committee's reauthorization blueprint - are sizable: $200 billion per year in public investment to maintain and improve the most essential components of the nation's highway and transit systems.
The expected $48 billion in 2009 ARRA stimulus bill spending on transportation makes only a minor dent in either amount. Despite the possibility of some additional leveraged funding via an envisioned infrastructure bank that could be rolled into the reauthorization bill, it's increasingly clear that manna from Washington - though important - isn't a stand-alone solution.
That's because of deepening maintenance and construction needs resulting from four decades of robust growth in passenger and freight vehicle miles traveled, plus simultaneous under-investment in infrastructure, and continuing population growth. And so across the U.S., more and more states and regions are grappling with difficult political choices to pay for fixing eroded transportation infrastructure, and for building new capacity and instituting other strategies to ease traffic congestion as the economic recovery unfolds in the next several years.
The first step is realizing you have a problem. There's a fair amount of that going around.
On Oregon Public Broadcasting this morning Tom Banse reported about the long-awaited second daily train between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., which begins service today.
Tom Banse: ...(It) makes its inaugural run Wednesday evening, starting from Portland. The president of the Clipper Vacations company, Darrell Bryan, books many customers on the route. He plans to board the run in Seattle. Bryan says the additional train to British Columbia will give travelers more flexibility.
Darrell Bryan: “It's a much needed service. As you know, the congestion on I-5 is terrible; the issues at the border with long waits. With this, (comes) the ease and convenience of crossing the border and clearing once you arrive in Vancouver.”
Tom Banse: Amtrak was ready to start the second cross-border train a year ago. The service expansion was held up until the Canadian government relented on a demand for an expensive border-crossing inspection fee. The Canadians have waived the fee until after the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The cross-border Amtrak service will be reevaluated by both countries after that.
The service expansion also means that Portland will now for the first time enjoy same day Amtrak service to Vancouver, B.C., as The Oregonian reports. Our Cascadia Center - particularly our Director Bruce Agnew - and corridor allies have championed expanded Northwest corridor passenger rail travel, including the second daily train to Vancouver. Northwest passenger rail expansion garnered the spotlight from Vancouver B.C., to Portland during Cascadia Rail Week, in May. Cascadia Center is organizing a delegation of train supporters to take Amtrak Cascades to Vancouver, B.C. this evening. Other participants include representatives of Amtrak, WSDOT and tourism representatives from Washington state and the province of British Columbia. The inaugural ride will depart Seattle's King Street Station on the Amtrak Cascades #516 at 6:50pm. This train departs Everett at 7:42 pm, Bellingham at 8:45 and arrives in Vancouver, BC at 10:45 pm.
Tomorrow, August 20, Cascadia and The Pacific Northwest Economic Region will convene a special meeting of regional business, political and non-profit leaders in Vancouver to discuss policy and marketing issues related to the expanded Seattle-Vancouver passenger rail service. The meeting will focus on marketing of the new train service, border and rail policy, and a special event with the Honourable (Federal) Minister of Public Safety, Peter van Loan. His ministry's duties include Canada-U.S. cross border security. This meeting will be held at the Vancouver Convention Center from 10AM to 2:30PM.
UPDATE - 8/21/09: Libby Tucker of The Columbian reports Washington State transportation officials will keep a close eye on ridership, and that to offset operating costs and keep the second daily train running they will need to see an average of 100 daily passengers on each leg of the trip.
As part of its Eastside Corridor Tolling study of I-405 and SR 167, WashDOT will hold public meetings next week on Aug. 18, 19 and 20 in Auburn, Bellevue and Renton. Due to increased population and employment over recent decades, the north-south highway corridor of I-405 and SR 167 serving suburban cities south and east of Seattle already suffers major peak hour congestion which would worsen without intervention as growth continues. Up to two (electronic, variably-priced) express toll lanes in each direction are being contemplated for I-405 along with the addition of another lane in each direction to SR 167, each of those likely to be similarly managed.
If you haven't heard, Cascadia Center Senior Fellow Steve Marshall is one of several contributors to a recently published Brookings Institution book, "Plug-In Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington?" The book, which is available at Amazon.com and at Brookings Institution, brings together the contributions of many leading experts to evaluate "what can and should be done to advance the role of plug-in electric vehicles." David Sandalow is the editor of the book.
Steve Marshall wrote the chapter titled, "Electric Utility Issues in Replacing Oil with Electricity in Transportation." In the book, Steve concludes: "We need a national program to jump-start a clean, secure energy future. And we need an enduring system of utility regulation that provides the right incentives to turn utilities into what can be thought of as the gas stations of the future."
We encourage you to pick up this timely and critically important contribution to the debate about how to help solve our dependence on oil.
Congress has adjourned for the summer recess with neither house taking action to extend the federal surface transportation program. Hope for a timely enactment of a long term transportation bill this year all but vanished when Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, acknowledged that he does not favor raising the gas tax at this time to pay for the $500 billion transportation authorization ($450 billion for highways and transit, $50 billion for high-speed rail). He made this admission in testimony before a hearing of a House Ways and Means Subcommittee on July 23. "Although increasing and indexing the gasoline and diesel user fee is a viable financing mechanism,...I do not believe that the user fee should be increased during the current recession," Oberstar stated, echoing the posture previously taken by the White House.
Instead, the T&I Committee chairman and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, suggested several potential sources of additional revenue to supplement the gas tax and close the funding gap.
On Wednesday, President Obama announced a $2.4 billion grant program "for manufacturing advanced batteries and other components for electric cars," according to the New York Times.
The money comes from the economic stimulus package and is intended to further several goals: cutting dependence on petroleum, reducing carbon emissions, creating jobs and giving the United States a better start on what is likely to be a competitive global industry as companies start bringing electric cars to market.
In the Cascadia Corridor, Seattle as well as Eugene, Corvallis, Salem and Portland, Ore., will benefit from a grant of just under $100 million and which was awarded to Phoenix-based eTec (Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation). Some of that grant will be used to facilitate the "installation of 2,250 charging systems for electric vehicles in the Seattle area, and about 10,000 more in other metropolitan areas," according to industry publication Sustainable Industries.
In Seattle, eTec expects to install charging stations—which will work with any EV that uses an industry-standard connection—in the homes of EV owners at no cost and in office buildings and other public areas. eTec will also install 50 “fast-charge” systems around Seattle which can deliver a “meaningful charge” in about 15 minutes, according to Colin Read, vice president of corporate development for Ecotality, eTec’s parent company. Each charging station could cost between $1,500 and $2,500 to install, according to Fryer.
High-Speed Rail: An Idea Whose Time Has Come BY Ray Chambers, Cascadia Center
Washington, D.C.--As big campaign ideas cross the Potomac River and seep into the halls of power, all that is sometimes left is a faint memory -- promises unkept (often unintentionally) that the political opposition can use in the next election. But sometimes, as is happening with the development of high-speed rail, the political stars align on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, making true progress possible.
The unfolding high-speed rail network looks like the real deal for several important reasons. First there is direct presidential involvement. The Interstate Highway Act of the 1950s was President Eisenhower’s personal initiative and his highest transportation priority. Similarly, the High-Speed Rail (HSR) Corridor program is President Obama’s personal initiative and his highest transportation priority. Never underestimate the momentum of a program personally sponsored by a president.
Second, there is strong bi-partisan support in Congress. In fact the single champion for building high-speed rail corridors by mixing a huge infusion of public finance with “European style” private partnerships and entrepreneurship is U.S. Congressman John Mica (R-Fla.), Ranking Republican on the U.S. House of Representative’s Transportation Committee. Committee Chair Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) is the leading across-the-board promoter of bringing true high-speed rail to America. Representatives Oberstar and Mica have formed an alliance. With leadership by President Obama, I believe HSR will dominate the transportation agenda for the next decade. Third, there are no real alternatives. With growing traffic and congestion, the capacity of the highway system cannot be reasonably expanded. Through a variety of measures such as positive train control and infrastructure projects, the capacity on America’s existing railroad grid can be expanded to an enormous degree. It will be expensive, but not compared to the alternative. In fact, there is no alternative.
Finally, the proof of the HSR pudding is to follow the money. I began to believe this last February when the U.S. House of Representatives provided no money for HSR and the U.S. Senate provided $2 billion in the stimulus package. The Conference made an unusual compromise to fund the program at $8 billion. That was the result of President Obama’s personal intervention in the House-Senate Conference. Then the Obama budget proposed that the HSR Corridor program receive another $1 billion a year for the next five years—upping the kitty to $13 billion, as well as establishing a National Infrastructure Bank. All of this has made me a believer in the HSR initiative.
West Coast major metro regions face growing population, plus projected increases in total vehicle miles traveled and freight volume. Traffic congestion already exacts a high toll, and without serious intervention will worsen many-fold, harming economic growth and quality of life in coming decades. That means ameliorative strategies and cross-boundary collaboration between the states are more important than ever. So, top transportation advisory panels for California, Oregon and Washington will this week hold their first-ever joint meetings, in Portland and Seattle. In a Washington State Transportation Commission press release, chair Carol Moser (below, right) says:
“These joint meetings are the first ever to occur between the West Coast commissions. These types of engagements are important for building relationships and alliances between the West Coast states. They provide the opportunity for us to partner and identify our shared transportation priorities, which we...intend to continue using as leverage in influencing our collective Congressional delegations in securing federal transportation funding for the tri-state area.”
When all three commissions meet Wednesday, July 22 in Portland, one focus will be the Columbia River Crossing bridge project planned on I-5 to replace the old, dangerous and often congested twin spans connecting Clark County, Washington and Portland. The new structure will include a light rail extension, bike and pedestrian paths, and will be electronically tolled with higher rates at peak hours. The CRC project could lead to a deeper discussion of regional highway corridor tolling in metro Portland, according to some Oregon lawmakers and Portland-area planners. That approach is making inroads in metro Puget Sound, with several related state studies underway. At the Portland meeting the three commissions will also discuss the looming federal surface transportation funding re-authorization bill. The big six-year package will likely be delayed as long as 18 months from its expiration this fall, as the Obama administration and key Congressional members slog through the difficult and politically risky work of figuring out how to replace the failing federal gas tax.
For the second year running, a stopgap infusion will be required to keep solvent the federal Highway Trust Fund, which relies on the federal gas tax. A hike in the by-the-gallon tax is possible when the bill is finally re-drawn, but there is broad consensus its primacy is ending. The gas tax's ineffectiveness has been revealed after system maintenance and expansion badly lagged during four-and-a-half decades of robust traffic growth, plus related wear-and-tear. Other more recent constraints on gas tax revenues include continually improving vehicle mileage, a trend expected to accelerate with growing production of alternative-fueled vehicles.
Many innovations are likely in the new bill, including greater funding and policy emphases on transit, biking, urban density, tolling, vehicle mileage taxes, private investment, and - the West Coast state transportation commissions hope - freight mobility.
Also on the Portland agenda: federal funding for improved inter-city and high-speed rail; and a presentation on electronic tolling projects in the state of Washington. The meeting will be preceded by an informal discussion session among commission members, also open to the public.
The Thursday, July 23 meeting in Seattle between the Washington and California commissions will highlight several surface transportation priorities the two states share.
Thanks to $7.6 million more in federal monies for car and passenger ferries that was secured yesterday by U.S. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, Kitsap Transit will be fully funded for a six month trial run of a high speed, low wake passenger-only ferry to serve the Bremerton-Seattle route. The 118-seat passenger ferry is being manufactured by All American Marine in Bellingham, following authorization in April by the Kitsap Transit board of a $5.3 million construction contract. It's expected to be built by next March and in operation as soon as next June. Funds to pay for the boat's manufacture included proceeds from a special bonding arrangement between Kitsap Transit and the county's housing authority, plus earlier federal grants. Also on the horizon is a passenger-only ferry run between Seattle and Kingston - on the Kitsap Peninsula's northern tip. The Port of Kingston has $3.5 million in federal money to help launch the service with a new boat but must find funding for a back-up vessel. Here's a business plan the port presented to the Puget Sound Regional Council (pdf).
This latest federal infusion for ferries in Washington state includes $1.3 million for operations of the new Kitsap Transit foot ferry in the planned six-month trial run, to evaluate how well wake impacts are reduced; and another $1.3 million to prepare the dock to accommodate the vessel, the Kitsap Sun reports today. The $7.6 million also includes $2 million for King County's passenger ferry district to buy a replacement for the old, slow tour boat used on its popular West Seattle Water Taxi, and $3 million for Washington State Ferries toward upgrading its car ferry terminal in Anacortes, the gateway to the San Juan Islands.
Cascadia Center has consistently championed expanded foot ferries as part of a forward-looking multi-modal transit system for metro Puget Sound. Key touchpoints in this effort include a May, 2008 conference on the Seattle waterfront where another low-wake high-speed foot ferry built by All American Marine was demo'd. Cascadia also organized a July, 2007 foot ferry symposium at Salty's in West Seattle and in 2003 organized a special trip for policy-makers and opinion leaders to the San Francisco Bay Area to see their extensive foot ferry system in operation.
The completion of funding for the fast foot ferry trial in Bremerton is the latest and most upbeat chapter in a long and drawn-out saga.
How America moves its people and goods in an efficient, effective, and in a secure and environmentally friendly way, will have at least as great of an effect as any other major policy decisions that the current Administration and Congress make. But, woefully, transportation isn’t really the stuff of eye-catching headlines and cocktail party chatter. That might be why, except among a small group of policy wonks, one of the most comprehensive calls for a new way of doing transportation business went largely unnoticed when it was released one month ago in Washington, D.C.
Added roadway and transit capacity, plus more toll lanes, telecommuting and flexible work hours are among the traffic congestion solutions recommended by researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) in their 26th annual Urban Mobility Report, just released. Other recommendations include getting more efficiency out of existing surface transportation systems, and influencing development patterns to make walking, bicycling and transit more convenient. TTI, founded in 1950, is an internationally-recognized transportation research center based at Texas A & M University. The 2009 report is based on newly-analyzed 2007 data for 439 U.S. urban regions. In a summary of their findings, researchers noted that although travelers on average spent one less hour stuck in traffic in 2007 versus 2006 and wasted one less gallon of gas due to a slight downturn in traffic, the costs of congestion were still pronounced. The overall cost of U.S. traffic congestion in 2007, according to the report, totaled $87.2 billion in wasted fuel and lost productivity. There were 2.8 billion gallons of wasted fuel and 4.2 billion wasted hours.
TTI researchers warned that the historical trend of worsening congestion will return as the economy recovers. For the Seattle region however, the report shows that the price of traffic congestion continued to grow.
Data for Puget Sound in the new report show that the annual cost of jammed roadways here in 2007 was $1.59 billion, the highest ever since TTI's first Urban Mobility Report was issued, using data for 1982, when regional congestion costs for Puget Sound totaled $96 million.
According to the new report, annual congestion costs per Puget Sound peak traveler reached a new high in 2007 of $938, versus $127 in 1982. Total traffic delay for the Seattle region totaled 73.6 million person hours in 2007, up by a factor of more than six since 1982. Daily vehicle miles traveled on highways and arterial streets combined have more than doubled in the region since 1982, according to the report.
PSRC's "Transportation 2040" Findings
The urgency of the TTI's congestion-busting recommendations for the nation's major metro regions - and Puget Sound - is underscored by data in another report, the draft environmental impact statement of the Puget Sound Regional Council's "Transportation 2040" plan. The Executive Summary shows the region's four-county population is expected to reach 4.9 million by 2040, or 42 percent higher the 2006 baseline figure of 3.5 million. Jobs in the region are projected to grow to 3.1 million by 2040, up 1.1 million or 60 percent from the 2006 figure of 1.94 million. Housing units will increase from 1.48 million in 2006 to 2.3 million in 2040, and 63 percent of those will be single-family.
According to the PSRC’s modeling (and depending which policies are implemented by decision-makers) from 2006 to 2040 the number of average daily vehicle trips will rise between 37 to 42 percent; and total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 18 to 39 percent, while per-capita VMT will decline from 1 to 16 percent. For all passenger trips in our region (this excludes freight), transit’s mode share will rise from 2.9 percent in 2006 to between 4.2 and 5.2 percent in 2040. Walking and biking combined will rise from 10.4 percent of daily trips in 2006 to between 11.5 and 13.3 percent in 2040. Single- and multiple-occupant passenger vehicles, combined, will decline from 86.7 percent of daily trips in 2006 to between 81.5 and 84.3 percent in 2040. In other words, barring some sort of game-changing development such as a catastrophic disruption of the fuel supply, more than four out of five daily passenger trips in the region 30 years from now, will still be in vehicles.
Part Of The Solution: Highway Corridor Tolling
Well aware of the mobility challenges we face, the state legislature recently authorized a series of new studies which could lead to electronic variable-rate corridor tolling on several major Puget Sound highways to add missing links and help beat congestion. Variable rates are based on real-time congestion levels (preferably) or time of day; they are higher during peak periods and lower off-peak. These lanes would be free to transit and the tolls could be made either free or discounted to carpoolers with either two, or three or more passengers per vehicle. With implementation of more express toll lanes based on the new studies, prospects would be boosted for completion of a seamless system of express tolled lanes on all the region's major highways, and increased express bus service using those lanes.
Over time, it is possible the region could move to the next level of road user fees. This would entail a vehicle mileage charge on all highways and arterial streets, facilitated by on-board GPS technology in every vehicle, with discounts for off-peak travel and use of less-congested routes.
UPDATE: The Washington State Department of Transportation offers its own reaction to the new Urban Mobility Report.
The Seattle Times reports that the Canadian government has dropped its insistence Amtrak pay $1,500 per day for immigration and customs inspections for passengers on a planned second daily train between Seattle and Vancouver. As a result, service will expand next month, and continue on at least through the 2010 Winter Olympics and paralympics in Vancouver. Over-time, cross-border trade and tourism supporters have previously said, up to four daily Seattle-Vancouver trains would be feasible. The second daily train will allow same day round-trips on Amtrak between Seattle and Vancouver's Pacific Central Station (pictured above) and will speed travel times on the Portland to Vancouver route, as well. Vancouver Sun columnist Miro Cernetig reported earlier on studies showing an additional $1.87 million (C$) in additional annual tax revenues north of the border from the second daily passenger train and an additional $16-33 million in annual economic activity. The Times:
Bruce Agnew, policy director at the Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center, a think tank that studies transportation issues...said that Canadian officials are viewing the second daily route as a pilot project that Public Safety Canada will reevaluate after the Olympics to determine whether it is popular enough to be continued. Agnew is confident that the second daily service, which is to run later in the day, will have high ridership numbers because the route offers service from Portland and Seattle to Vancouver.
Cascadia Center has worked closely with the Washington State Department of Transportation, the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, The Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and other allies to win approval of the increased frequency.
In March, 2007, the British Columbia government agreed to share in the costs of building a second rail siding near Surrey, south of Vancouver, to facilitate the second daily trip. Cascadia Center in this Vancouver Sun op-ed applauded that decision to proceed, and continued its behind-the-scenes networking on the initiative. The siding work was completed in the summer of 2008. But until the Friday July 3, 2009 announcement, the Canadian Border Services Agency had insisted Amtrak foot the daily cost of immigration and customs inspections, though no such arrangement exists for the current Seattle-Vancouver service. A cross-border coalition of political, non-profit and business leaders urged a broader view in a letter on the matter in late April to Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter van Loan, who announced the approval last week.
Increased daily trips are one piece of the puzzle. Further improvements to inter-city rail in Cascadia - paid for with U.S. federal stimulus dollars, additional U.S. funds in subsequent years, and money from Ottawa, the state of Washington and the province of British Columbia - could boost passenger train average speeds and reduce travel times in the corridor. A long-term goal is totally separate tracks for freight rail and passenger rail, so that both can function more smoothly.
After stressing funding shortfalls facing King County Metro's bus service and declining gas tax revenues for road projects, Carlyle explores several important macro-level policy options for funding improved mobility.
...the long-term, big picture is important and we can’t let the battles over the tunnel, 520 bridge and other mega projects be a conversation killer about our broader structural challenges. Several ideas are on the front burner. Tolling is making a comeback, as evidenced by the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and soon on the 520 bridge. It makes sense for the people who use facilities the most to pay a greater share of the construction and maintenance costs for a specific facility or geographic area....comprehensive regional tolling - with e-tags and other solutions to help make it easy logistically - makes good economic sense so long as we have a real action plan....
Another, if controversial, idea is charging according to vehicle miles traveled (VMT), tracked by a transponder. This would take into account actual road usage, whether or not a vehicle uses gasoline, electricity or something else. It also opens up some interesting new policy ideas such as integrating car insurance, parking (no more parking meters!), tolls, etc., into one system that is able to charge drivers accordingly and accurately. Obviously, a concern about privacy is one major obstacle to this idea, so we’ll have to continue looking at innovative ways to address this very legitimate concern.....
A third option is the car-tab fee model and using the funds for direct transportation services so the money doesn’t disappear into the institutional bureaucracy of government but rather goes for real services on the ground.
Kudos to Rep. Carlyle for highlighting in a community forum the need to develop long-term surface transportation funding strategies. Regional (electronic, time-variable) tolling and further consideration of a vehicle mileage tax - along with a local-option motor vehicle excise tax applied at annual license renewal time - are all important options that our Cascadia Center and others have advocated.
More than that, Carlyle's commentary is especially timely.
The bill...proposes a market-based "carbon trading" plan that mirrors a European system initiated in 2005. This plan requires polluters to obtain government-issued "carbon credits," which then allow them to pollute above the agreed-on limit....the Waxman-Markey plan...gives 85% of the pollution credits to the biggest polluters for free....
In Europe, the distribution of free pollution credits to industries failed to establish a strong carbon market. In turn, the weak market in carbon credits failed to generate the money needed to fund new technology. And because there was a glut of free credits, polluters that went over the emissions limit could buy the necessary credits cheaply. So important states, such as Britain, continue to exceed the pollution limits.
Faced with disappointing results, Europe began auctioning off more of the credits in 2006. But the damage was done....The complex European trading scheme, started with free pollution credits, has not produced dramatic cuts in pollution or dramatic developments in technology or a robust market in carbon credits. The Financial Times of London was blunt: "Carbon markets leave much room for unverifiable manipulation. [Carbon] taxes are better, partly because they are less vulnerable to such improprieties."
For those who follow transportation policy closely, last week was an eventful one.
The week started with a June 22 release by the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee of its 775-page draft surface transportation bill, a "blueprint" of which had been released the previous week. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s decision (also released the previous week) to seek an 18-month extension of the existing surface transportation law was met with approval by some, regret and resignation by others, and incredulity and defiance by still others. In seeking a delay, Secretary LaHood joined a growing body of doubters that the crowded legislative calendar - controversial climate legislation, contentious health care reform, a Supreme Court confirmation, among others - would permit the House and the Senate to reach agreement on a new bill before the current law expires at the end of September. Our first priority, the Secretary said, must be to fix the Highway Trust Fund shortfall so that money continues to flow to the states without interruption.
The urgency of acting promptly, i.e. before the Highway Trust Fund runs dry in mid-August, was reinforced by a June 22 letter from Governors Ed Rendell (PA) and James Douglas (VT), to the congressional leadership. Writing in their capacity as chairman and vice-chairman respectively of the National Governors Association, they urged the lawmakers to pass an extension to eliminate the impending shortfall "as soon as possible" so that states can continue planning for and funding critical highway programs. The letter left a clear implication that the governors considered ensuring the continuity of funding offered by Sec. LaHood’s proposal to take precedence over a long-term reform of the program - especially given the uncertainty of finding the money to pay for the long-term program.
Further support for the Administration’s proposal came from the Senate side.
Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee unveiled a blueprint for the next surface transportation authorization bill on June 18 to generally positive reviews (long version of blueprint here). However he left two key questions unanswered: Can the bill be enacted this year? and, Where will the money to fund the ambitious $500 billion program come from?
Today in Washington, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood unveiled the long-awaited guidelines that states and regions will use to compete for economic recovery funds for high-speed rail.
"The time has finally come for the United States to get serious about building a national network of high-speed rail corridors we can all be proud of,” Secretary Ray LaHood said. “High-speed rail can reduce traffic congestion and link up with light rail, subways and buses to make travel more convenient and our communities more livable.”
According to the LaHood's statement, the "guidelines...require rigorous financial and environmental planning to make sure projects are worthy of investment and likely to be successful."
It's common enough to hear that we need more tolling in urban regions to help fund maintenance, repair and extension of highways (not to mention the time-saving benefits of tolled express lanes). But tolling in Wyoming, a.k.a. "Big Wyoming" and "the Cowboy State," population 493,782? What gives?
Here's what: Interstate 80 across Wyoming is wearing down, traffic is expected to more than double by 2037, and money is scarce. As the Interstate Atlas shows, I-80 is an important route to our Cascadia region, via a short spur to I-84, which then runs through Boise to Portland and I-5 just south of the border with Washington; in Sacramento, it also connects directly with I-5, the major artery defining the West Coast Corridor from the U.S.-Mexico border to the U.S.-Canada border. I-80 runs the length of the country, east to west. Trucks will comprise 57 percent of the I-80 load in Wyoming in 2037, up from about half now. Forty percent of the highway in the state is in poor to moderate condition, and 50 percent will need major rehabilitation by 2013. So, as the Laramie Boomerang reports, the state is already in the second phase of an I-80 tolling study that's looking at several options to fund current and future road maintenance needs. Tolling would be electronic, with vehicle and license plate cameras and radar detectors mounted above the highway. The main options are:
tolling I-80 in Wyoming at 30 cents per mile for heavy trucks and 3 cents per mile for passenger vehicles (two possible configurations);
employ tolling to help pay for construction of a third lane in each direction for heavy trucks only on I-80 in Wyoming.
Operators could stand to pay up to $116 per truck in tolls to cross the state, according to the Wyoming Department of Transportation. Any more and they would tend to divert to other routes. Permission is required from the Federal Highway Administration to toll interstate highways, but this would likely pose no obstacle because the federal government simply lacks the resources its gas tax once provided for highway upkeep and construction, after four decades of steep growth in highway usage and ever-mounting maintenance and expansion needs. Tolling has already been allowed and implemented on a number of other interstates. And Wyoming's own gas tax, for better or worse, is a scant 14 cents per gallon and unlikely to be hiked by any significant degree. That Mustang won't ride.
Unlike more urbanized locales, the issue is upkeep, not that plus congestion. Wyoming's prescient attempt to figure out how to keep I-80 in good repair is a useful reminder that highways we may take for granted aren't free to maintain. The story also underscores the crucial role of freight in the economy. It's great to buy local when we can, but that's often simply not possible. All lofty rhetoric aside, we want what we want when we want it, and price matters. So, there are lots of trucks rumbling down I-80 through Wyoming, and many more to come. Take the same reality and multiply the traffic volumes exponentially, and you begin to get the scope, nationally. Moving more freight via rails is a good idea - and should be pursued energetically. But that too will take many billions of dollars, in this case for new infrastructure, and serve only a portion of growing freight volume.
In addition to evaluating specific in-state revenue scenarios, the study consultants - Parsons Brinkerhoff - will also produce a stand-alone memo reporting on outreach to neighboring states along I-80 (Nebraska and Utah) on a joint approach to tolling the corridor, and the possibility of pursuing a public-private partnership to help assure the highway's continued viability.
As for the main menu options right now, a first-phase feasibility study completed last October by Parsons seems to all but rule out the new, tolled truck-only lanes as too expensive, at $7 billion, leaving two other "all lanes tolled" possibilities. One - the so-called "baseline" alternative - would entail no expansion of the highway and raise $3.01 billion between 2009 and 2037, with the lowest annual maintenance and operations costs. The other would add a lane in each direction, with each inside (left) lane for cars only, and trucks keeping to the right except to use the center lane for passing. This would cost $2.8 billion, with tolling raising $3.21 billion by 2037. The feasibility study also indicates additional funds could be generated if a politically-problematic attempt to raise the state's exceptionally low fuel taxes succeeded.
Although the feasibility study is only a first-phase product and more detailed analysis including community input is occurring now, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the baseline alternative - with its $3 billion in revenues and lowest costs by far - will be the final choice. Maintenance and operations needs include work already forestalled, ongoing work with annual price tag of at least $25 million, and an every-15-years major rehabilitation and repair program that actually unfolds over the course of several years. According the feasibility study, that latter effort alone would cost about $1.1 billion in the cycle pegged to 2024.
Results of the current, second phase of the I-80 tolling study will be presented September 1 to the Wyoming legislature.
As part of our recent Cascadia Rail Week, Cascadia Center hosted a gathering at Novelty Hill Winery In Redmond, where officials from the Sonoma-Marin commuter rail line recently approved by voters discussed their plans with supporters of Puget Sound's Eastside commuter rail initiative, which would use parts, and eventually all, of the BNSF's underutilized Snohomish-to-Renton corridor. In today's Seattle Times, editorial page columnist Lance Dickie, who attended the session, writes:
Connections between where people live and work are the essence of public transit. The 42-mile Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail corridor between the cities of Snohomish and Renton — including a spur from Woodinville to Redmond — is ripe with potential. Or so it seemed in 2007, when the Port of Seattle said it would buy the line for $107 million and issue bonds to raise the cash. In March, the Port announced the sale was postponed because the nation's credit markets were frozen. In the absence of a financial thaw, the Port has not said what comes next. The lingering question of who will buy and preserve the right of way along the corridor splashes cold water on the excitement about a rail-and-trail combination between growing Eastside population centers.
In late May, the Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center hosted state and federal lawmakers, mayors, and state and local transportation officials at meetings in Portland and Seattle to learn more about high-speed rail from Oregon's Willamette Valley to the Canadian border. They were also looking at how freight lines have been converted to multiple-use corridors that accommodate walkers, cyclists, commuter rail and freight. Portland's metropolitan transportation agency, Tri-Met, recently opened the Westside Express Service, 14.7 miles of rail and five stations.
Cascadia's template for the Eastside rail corridor might well be the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District, which is installing passenger rail service and a 12-foot-wide path for pedestrians and cyclists along 70 miles of Northwestern Pacific Railroad right of way. John Nemeth, SMART's rail planning manager, spoke to a dinner gathering at Novelty Hill Winery in Woodinville. The setting was convivial, but the tourism potential of regional rail service is not lost on the local wine industry or the mayors from Bellingham, Leavenworth and Woodinville.
In California, from Cloverdale on the north to Larkspur on the south, the emphasis might appear to be on getting to a ferry connection to San Francisco. Instead, Nemeth said, commute patterns are changing to focus on population and job centers within the two counties. SMART is fueled by a quarter-cent sales tax passed in 2008 with 70-percent approval. Service begins in 2014.
According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, SMART does face some financial challenges resulting from a downturn in expected sales tax revenues and changes in the bond market. The line's opening may be delayed slightly, or perhaps built to slightly less than the full 70-mile length at the outset. Many public transit systems, current and planned, face similar challenges at present. The solutions will lie jointly in an upturn in the economy, finding new ways to economize, and in some cases, developing ancillary funding tools.
It will still be a few years - at least - before plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with much lighter, more reliable and less costly battery packs come to market, at truly consumer-friendly prices and in large numbers. Why should we care if and when that happens? Because: It gets very problematic very fast when we get much our current fuel for passenger vehicles, bus transit, air travel, surface freight, and operation of construction equipment from foreign regimes hostile to our nation and our very way of life; regimes which not coincidentally may also happen to fund terrorism directed at us. Then there are gas prices, now creeping back toward three dollars a gallon - not good. Add in the effects of fossil fuel emissions on air quality and greenhouse gas levels, and stir.
Hence the search for more secure and green sources of fuel, from renewables-powered electricity, and - one day hopefully not to far off - widely available, second-generation net-green biofuels (algae, biomass, cellulosic methanol, anyone?).
As the Natural Resources Defense Council points out, today's popular hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius are able to run on electricity only when the battery is charged by the onboard gas engine or regenerative braking; in contrast, plug-in hybrids charge up, first, directly from household (or other similar) outlets, and when that electricity runs out then they run as conventional hybrids. They use less fuel than conventional hybrids, and won't let you get stranded when the charge runs out, as can occur with purely electric vehicles. Although to be fair, reasonable trip planning can obviate that problem with EVs, and efforts are underway to develop a public charging infrastructure for EVs and PHEVs - one important example being Washington State Rep. Deb Eddy's HB 1481, passed into law recently. Then too, some of the world's top engineers, including those at U.S. national laboratories in the Northwest, are continuing vital research into how peak-period demand on the electrical grid can be managed in the future, when many, many fleet and personal PHEVs might be charging, during after-work hours. At the same time, engineers are also looking at how charging durations can be sped up - particularly in public locations along urban region arteries and interstate highway corridors.
Despite the promise of both PHEVs and EVs, informed skepticism isn't hard to find these days, especially with respect to the plug-ins. Even from the quarters of our nation's highest-profile advocate of green transportation, the White House. Earlier this year, prior to you and I becoming majority owners of ailing automaker General Motors, President Barack Obama's advisors issued a "Viability Determination" that included this warning on GM's new PHEV model, the Chevrolet Volt:
GM is at least one generation behind Toyota on advanced, “green” powertrain development. In an attempt to leapfrog Toyota, GM has devoted significant resources to the Chevy Volt. While the Volt holds promise, it is currently projected to be much more expensive than its gasoline-fueled peers and will likely need substantial reductions in manufacturing cost in order to become commercially viable.
While the Volt might not be the perfect solution to reducing petroleum consumption--for one thing, at a rumored $40,000 apiece, it will be too expensive to sell in very large numbers--it seems at the least to be a step in the right direction. Indeed, it represents an overall direction that the administration supports, as seen by its emphasis on plug-in hybrids....GM will likely sell all of its first run of Volts, even at their high cost (more than 48,000 people have indicated that they want to buy the Volt). And economies of scale and advances in battery technology could bring costs down, allowing more people to buy the car. The wait would be worth it. Eventually, plug-in hybrids could allow most people to commute without using any gasoline.
Even with "dirty"-powered electricity there's a net green gain at the tailpipe, versus an engine burning traditional gasoline. And if the electricity comes from renewables, as policy-makers and the private sector will increasingly seek to ensure, that's even better. Meanwhile, GM has opened a new advanced battery laboratory. Call it a sign of the times. But what about PHEV mileage? Some pilot program tests drew skepticism when miles per gallon turned out to be less than hyped. Turns out there's a fairly simple answer, report experts interviewed by National Public Radio's "Market Watch" in a segment aired just two days ago: achieving top-range PHEV mileage depends on driver education, and sometimes, making sure to plug in your plug-in when it's resting.
James Francfort tracks plug-in hybrids for the Department of Energy:
JAMES FRANCFORT: We've demonstrated the potential to get 100, 200, 300, up to 400 miles-per-gallon depending on how the vehicles are driven.
Trouble is in early tests, Francfort found plug-ins hybrids weren't necessarily getting much better gas mileage than conventional hybrids.
Paul Scott of Plug in America says it's all about teaching consumers how to drive the cars.
PAUL SCOTT: You have to obviously charge the batteries.
Some test drivers weren't, and that meant the cars relied more on gas. And gunning the engine does the same thing. So if the cars are sold without any thought to consumer training:
SCOTT: Well, in that case then people might not buy them.
But if consumers are properly educated, Ed Kjaer (of Southern California Edison) says drivers could change their priorities.
The first thing you need to know about KIRO-FM 97.3 News Talk host Dori Monson is that when he says he's "filled full of Diet Coke, caffeine and righteous rage," he's not kidding. Okay, maybe he's exaggerating a bit, showman that he is. Let's just say he's a high-energy guy and a strenuous advocate of fiscal accountability and limited taxes, as I was reminded yesterday in an hour-long session with Dori and some of his many listeners. We were discussing a proposal for a seamless system of tolled express lanes on the Puget Sound region's highways and major state routes, that I outlined in a piece recently published at Crosscut, titled, "Flexible Tolling: The Key To Solving Our Congestion." It was then highlighted again, the day before yesterday, in a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article by their transportation reporter Aubrey Cohen. (Note the comments from State Treasurer Jim McIntyre, among other things, in Cohen's piece.)
On the show I outlined why we at Cascadia Center believe a connected system of tolled express lanes on major highways and state routes is one key part a of a future-facing strategy to help ensure regional mobility, transportation choices and economic security, as Central Puget Sound's population continues to grow - by about 40 percent over the next 30 years.
Here's the MP3 file of the hour; and here's the full transcript. For now, I'll leave you with my closing thoughts to Dori after what diplomats would call "a frank exchange of views." This has to do with the distinction between tolling only a few specific facilities, such as bridges and tunnels, versus a more comprehensive approach based on highway corridors.
Are bits and pieces better? Or is the seamless approach better? Remember the old HOV lanes? They'd end, and you'd be frustrated. Well, if we're going to have tolled express lanes, it should be in a continuous, seamless system. We'll get more bang for our buck, and better service.
Will more Washington roads take their toll on drivers? That's the question posed in the headline of an article written by Aubrey Cohen of the seattlepi.com today, and which quotes my colleague, Cascadia Center Senior Fellow Matt Rosenberg extensively.
The country needs a general upgrade of infrastructure. Billions are now available through the stimulus bill, but still not enough. The emphasis on "shovel-ready" projects in the stimulus package, though understandable as a recession-fighter, is unhelpful when the need is for serious long term planning.
As most of our regular readers know, this week as part of Cascadia Rail Week, Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute (along with a host of industry and community co-sponsors listed at the end of this post) has been rekindling the debate about national high-speed passenger rail and especially the development of service in the Northwest's "Cascadia Corridor." With the strongest commitment to rail in generations (President Obama’s budget request is $8 billion to upgrade and expand rail lines), one of Cascadia’s longest running concerns is getting new life.
"Rail Week" began Tuesday evening at the Columbia Tower Club in downtown Seattle with a welcoming dinner honoring Vancouver, B.C.'s Mayor Gregor Robertson. It ends tonight with a closing dinner and discussion at Novelty Hill Winery in Woodinville, Wash., one of several of the cities on Seattle's "Eastside" that would be served by a 42-mile Eastside commuter "rails and trails" corridor from Snohomish in the north to Renton in the South. (View the week's agenda here.)
The Tuesday and Friday evening bookends are emblematic of the breadth of the rail week sessions as well as the issue as a whole. On the one hand, Cascadia is seeking solutions to national and regional passenger rail challenges, exemplified in part by Mayor Robertson's participation; the mayor is a strong advocate of high-speed passenger rail between his city and points south along the West Coast. On the other hand, Cascadia recognizes that the success and development of shorter commuter rail corridors such as Seattle's Eastside will be just as critical to the eventual overall health of a future passenger rail system in the Northwest and the country. "Rail Week," which has so far included a train excursion, policy-focused luncheon sessions, and a well-attended public lecture at Seattle's City Hall, has been designed to bring attention to both ends of the spectrum and everything in between.
Andrew Bary's recent piece "The Long and Binding Road," in Barron's has been widely noticed. "The credit market collapse and political opposition have all but killed the U.S. highway privatization trend," the respected commentator opined in his article. What is more, Bary wrote, the Indiana Toll Road deal "was one of the most illogical prices paid for any major piece of transportation infrastructure during the bubble period of 2005 to 2007," suggesting that Macquarie made a huge miscalculation. Gov. Mitch Daniel's comment ("It was the best deal since Manhattan was sold for beads...") did not help, implying that the State got the better of the naive Macquarie. The article concluded, "for toll road investors, what had promised to be a pleasant ride has turned into a painful trip," citing Macquarie's shares tumbling 50% in the past year.
It seems simple enough. Trains carry passengers between locations such as, say, Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Wash. When those passengers disembark, whether for business or pleasure, they spend money. When money is spent, those receiving it benefit.
So, it would also seem then, if all the stars were aligned to have Amtrak begin running a second daily train between Vancouver and Seattle, that officials would do what they could to make it happen -- that bureaucratic hiccups could be managed, addressed and not hold things up. But as in life, in governance and regulation oftentimes the simple becomes unnecessarily complex.
Population in the four counties of Central Puget Sound will have grown from the 2008 total of 3.6 million by another 1.4 million in 2040. Jobs will increase by 1.1 million, and - based on the region's collective proclivities to date - total vehicle miles travelled (VMT) by more than 40 percent. Barring some big paradigm shift, the percentage of daily "passenger" work trips (freight vehicles not included) which occur on transit will grow from 8 percent of the current (2006) total to only 9 percent in 2040. For far more numerous non-work passenger trips, the transit market share stays at a scant 2 percent between 2006 and 2040, according to recent modeling. The vast majority of daily passenger trips occur in cars now and then. For work it's more than four of five, for non-work, about nine of ten. (The rest are split between transit, walking and biking.) On the upside, there's a lot more ride-sharing for non-work trips; plus, per-capita VMT will continue to stay flat; and we can shave a bit off the expected growth in total VMT by meeting (elusive) regional growth strategy targets.
These are some of the conclusions in a March 2009 background paper that's part of the Puget Sound Regional Council's "Transportation 2040" planning effort. Future projections may change slightly under new computer modeling in a draft environmental impact statement due out at month's end. But you get the idea. The PSRC's 2040 picture begs a huge question: what to do about it all. And, as we'll see in a moment, it turns out that, away from the big transportation headlines it made last session, the state legislature has some ideas of its own.
My own take: A comprehensive approach to managing peak-hour highway capacity in Central Puget Sound should be launched by bravely establishing - and soon - a seamless regional system of variably-priced, automated and ultimately, corridor-length tolling on highways and major state routes. This must be folded into a broader plan to develop stable long-term funding for the region's surface transportation network.
SEATTLE-Most days it’s the marine life that causes the most stir at the Seattle Aquarium. But on this sunny afternoon, an attraction of a different sort was the center of attention. As cars and trucks drove by outside the aquarium on the earthquake-prone Alaskan Way Viaduct, inside the fate of the aging structure was being sealed. Surrounded by supporters, Washington’s Governor Christine Gregoire signed into law the bill that commits the State of Washington to tearing down the viaduct and replacing it with a deep-bored tunnel.
“This wasn’t an easy process,” said Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels as he welcomed a crowd of several hundred to the bill signing ceremony, “but it is done, it is done, it is done!” Truer words have rarely been spoken.
In a letter delivered to Canada's Minister of Public Safety Peter van Loan, a cross-border coalition made up of think tanks, business executives and elected officials encouraged the Canadian government to relax customs fees for train travel between Washington State and British Columbia. Cascadia Center's Bruce Agnew, who also serves as the co-chair of the PNWER Transportation Working Group is among the signatories of the letter.
"...we urge you to expand the fee waiver period from June 1, 2009 to June 1, 2010 to allow commencement of service as proposed by Amtrak and Washington State Department of Transportation."
As the commencement date for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver approaches, at issue in the immediate short term is the ability of "Amtrak to test and market the service (a second Amtrak Cascades train) during the busy summer tourism and cruise ship season."
The letter cites a study by the Border Policy Research Institute that found that "implementation of the service over a year would allow the federal, provincial and municipal governments in Canada to collect $1.87 million in GST, PST and room taxes combined as a result of increased passenger travel."
Click below to read the extended post and the coalition's letter.
U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rep. James Oberstar (D.-Minn.) says, enough already with studies and pilot projects. Why not just phase in over the next two years the controversial vehicle mileage tax, in order to supplement and eventually replace the flailing gas tax? More from Associated Press:
..Oberstar...(pictured, right) said he believes the technology exists to implement a mileage tax. He said he sees no point in waiting years for the results of pilot programs since such a tax system is inevitable as federal gasoline tax revenues decline. "Why do we need a pilot program? Why don't we just phase it in?" said Oberstar, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman. Oberstar is drafting a six-year transportation bill to fund highway and transit programs that is expected to total around a half trillion dollars.
A congressionally mandated commission on transportation financing alternatives recommended switching to a vehicle-miles traveled tax, but estimated it would take a decade to put a national system in place. "I think it can be done in far less than that, maybe two years," Oberstar said at a House hearing. He was responding to testimony by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who recommended...pilot programs in every state to test the viability of a mileage-based tax. Blumenauer said public acceptance, not technology, is the main obstacle to a mileage-based tax. Pilot programs "would be able to increase public awareness and comfort and it would hasten the day we could make the transition," Blumenauer said.
Oberstar shrugged off that concern. "I'm at a point of impatience with more studies," Oberstar said. He suggested that Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the highways and transit subcommittee, set up a meeting of transportation experts and members of Congress to figure out how it could be done. The tax would entail equipping vehicles with GPS technology to determine how many miles a car has been driven and whether on interstate highways or secondary roads. The devices would also calculate the amount of tax owed.
Oberstar's comments may be based in part on savvy bargaining tactics. It's unlikely a nationwide plan for VMTs would be implemented in just a few years. But when it comes time for his committee and the House to sign off on the reauthorized surface transportation funding bill later this year, he can always justify a large appropriation for further (and important) investigations - and new state and multi-state pilot projects - by noting he's backing down from an earlier proposal of his to go much faster. In any case, the idea of the VMT isn't just to enrage taxpayers, though that's certainly a near-term downside. More from AP:
Gas tax revenues — the primary source of federal funding for highway programs — have dropped dramatically in the last two years, first because gas prices were high and later because of the economic downturn. They are forecast to continue going down as drivers switch to fuel efficient and alternative fuel vehicles.
...the challenges in continuing to provide a safe and free-flowing transportation network have never been greater. One of the biggest...is addressing the decline of revenues coming into the Highway Trust Fund, the main source of funds that pay for construction and maintenance on our expansive network of highways and bridges. Today, the highway trust fund is primarily supported by taxing fuel by the gallon (18.4 cents for gasoline and a 24.4 cents for diesel). Unfortunately, due to the sluggish economy, high gas prices and an increase in fuel efficiency, we are experiencing substantial declines in tax receipts into the trust fund. This method of using federal fuel taxes to fund our nation's highways and bridges is no longer adequate to support the growing infrastructure needs in the country. In fact, simply maintaining current levels of highway spending would result in a Highway Trust Fund deficit of about $70 billion by the end of the next highway bill.
In the short term, we are exploring numerous alternative financing mechanisms to increase revenues into the highway trust fund, because no single option will provide a complete solution. We must be willing to explore new options, including expanded use of public-private partnerships; and requiring all users, not just motorists, to contribute to the Highway Trust Fund. In the long term, to ensure that all those who use the system pay their fair share, transportation experts are discussing a user-funded fee for actual miles driven, known as a Vehicles Miles Tax. It is important to note that this system would not raise taxes, but replace the gas tax with a new more accurate collection mechanism.
Hmmnn. Anything that can unite James Inhofe and the deep green advocates at Grist magazine in Seattle, probably has legs. The University of Iowa's Public Policy Center is currently running a six-region VMT pilot project called The Road User Study. Participants will test the concept on the byways of Austin, Baltimore, the Research Triangle of North Carolina, Eastern Iowa, San Diego, and - this is interesting - Boise. They're using volunteers with on-board GPS devices in their cars, who will be billed by the miles they travel and which roads they use. They will not actually pay, but will report valuable information on how the system worked for them and under what circumstances they'd be willing to actually pay a VMT in the future. Results will include simulated revenue distribution to jurisdictions, and the thoughts of participants on travel information privacy. A major pilot project in Oregon found this concern could be addressed satisfactorily and that overall, test users would welcome implementation of a VMT system.
Many questions still remain, such as how VMT rates would be fitted to drivers of lower-weight, lower emission vehicles, and to rural area drivers. It's already clear that in populous metro regions, there must be some degree of discounts for avoiding crowded roads and highways during peak hours, as well as for ride-share and transit vehicles. Another issue is whether the system users will see more robust benefits from federal or state management of a VMT system. Gabriel Roth of the Independent Institute argues strongly here for the latter.
Chairman Obertar's "do it, already" view reflects some gamesmanship, or heartfelt impatience with the "study, study, study" ethic - or some of both. But his voice is an important one. Oberstar's strong support for the VMT concept is likely to accelerate the pace of adoption. Because it is already a question not of whether, but when, and exactly how.
With good cause, many people thought it might never happen. But on Friday, after seemingly endless debate and consideration, the Washington State legislature put its final stamp of approval on the decision to replace the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep-bored tunnel.
There's a lot to this story, politically and logistically. Ultimately, however, the success of the deep-bored tunnel alternative (agreed to by Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, and King County Executive Ron Sims), is a story of persistence, thoughtful analysis tethered to an understanding of advances in tunneling technology, and the triumph of consensus and cautious deliberation amongst a constellation of constituencies.
Cascadia Center was there every step of the way -- especially when the going got tough. Bruce Chapman, President and Founder of Cascadia Center's parent organization, Discovery Institute, wraps up the story nicely in this post.
Without Cascadia, as Friday's article from The Daily Journal of Commerce shows below, it wouldn't have been possible for tunneling experts to be assembled last fall to challenge the pessimistic numbers presented by the Department of Transportation that made a tunnel option seem unfeasible.
When I was nine I liked to poke a stick into ant nests I’d find in sidewalk cracks. Ants scattered in every conceivable direction. They ran in circles, they ran over and through each other. They screamed without logic. I was fascinated.
The state of professional transportation opinion in the US today is pretty much the same. The stick poked at the nest in this case was the report released by the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Finance Commission this February. The opening ant-scream was the spanking Obama’s Press Secretary Gibbs gave to Transportation Secretary Lahood. We professionals cringed in unison. Gibbs was in turn spanked next day by Congressman Oberstar, chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. We cheered. Of course the press went in every ant-direction imaginable for that and for the release of the NSTIFC’s Paying Our Way report 5 days later. Joe Motorist will have gleaned no real insight, and after fears were supplanted by next days’ tedious economic headlines will have simply forgotten, secure in the fact that opinion was sufficiently variable that no leader could possibly find a coherent position.
It seemed to me that in the weeks following the release of the report, US transportation professionals were – among friends – largely in favor of the key message in the report: “The gas-tax is a clever and simple idea whose time has run out and paying-for-use is the tax-shift to fix it.” We mocked Gibbs, commiserated with LaHood, and delighted in Oberstar’s defense – which had just vindicated all of us. On the whole we nodded in unison at the work of Rob Atkinson’s Congressional commission. Of course we would not all recommend spending the revenue the same way, but we all seemed aligned with the principles: meter all road use and pay according to number of miles traveled weighted by when and where the driving happened and of course by type of vehicle used.
With that in mind, I attended the April 14-15 Symposium on Mileage-Based User Fees (updated web page here) hosted in Austin by the Texas Transportation Institute’s University Transportation Center for Mobility, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, and Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota. This would be about my 20th symposium dealing with Road Use Charging in five years.
Slight decreases in traffic congestion due to the economic downturn are no reason to curtail aggressive transportation planning for looming population and employment growth in major metro regions. Despite the most fervent wishes of some planners, metro region growth in coming years will continue to be more away from, than to, high-density urban neighborhoods. This is due to due to several factors. For one, first- and second-ring suburbs have become regional employment centers, and cities in their own right. They are where people increasingly work, shop, play - and if finances permit, live. Examples in Central Puget Sound include Bellevue and Redmond to the east of Seattle, and (more affordable) Kent and Federal Way to the city's south. Second, there are still better housing values in mid- and outer-ring suburbs that lie beyond these locales. Value for money in housing has always been a big factor - even more so now. Third, suburban public schools are in a number of important ways less problematic compared to their urban counterparts.
For these and other reasons, central cities are no longer economically and culturally dominant. They will become even less so as population continues to move outward. One result is that daily travel patterns for the majority of a region's residents are - if not already a complex mosaic, or multi-stop "trip chain" - at least a far cry from the old school "hub and spoke" commuter routes going from suburbs to central city and back five days a week.
Advanced forms of ride-sharing aided by networked information systems are gradually coming into play, and telecommuting, one hopes, will become more widespread. But the future of highways and arterial roads in growing metro regions looks very busy. It could be said that ultimately the question is how best to modify behavior enough at the margins to stretch finite road capacity further. Because it is ultimately impossible, not to mention unthinkable, to enforce old-regime Soviet-style authority directing where people will live and work, and how and when and by what means they will travel, we are left instead with free-market incentives.
For signs of an enlightened modern approach beginning to emerge, look no further than the San Francisco Bay Area. It seems to get that while road capacity is not an unlimited resource, the region still must robustly address increased pressure on highway systems in years to come.
A related, and sweeping legislative proposal has been introduced in the current session of the California General Assembly. It stems from the earlier adoption by a regional agency of principles for a wide network of booth-less, cash-less electronically tolled express highway lanes. These would be free to transit and ride-share vehicles and available to solo drivers for an account-billed variable fee, based on real-time congestion levels.
An important marker on the pathway to implementing this system of "High Occupancy (and) Toll" lanes (HOT lanes) was adoption by The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the nine-county Bay Area regional transportation planning organization, in July 2008 of its HOT network principles. (See p. 3 for map).
The principles answer the question of why a region would consider such a plan, which involves converting existing carpool/transit-only or "HOV" lanes to more flexible HOT lanes, plus building new HOT lanes, while drawing upon the revenue raised by time-variable tolling of solo drivers. The MTC's stated principles are:
More effectively manage the region’s freeways in order to provide higher vehicle and passenger throughput and reduce delays for those traveling within each travel corridor;
Provide an efficient, effective, consistent, and seamless system for users of the network;
Provide benefits to travelers within each corridor commensurate with the revenues collected in that corridor, including expanded travel options and funding to support non-highway options that enhance effectiveness and throughput;
Implement the Express/HOT Lane Network in the Bay Area...using a rapid delivery approach that takes advantage of the existing highway right of way to deliver the network in an expedited time frame;
Toll revenue collected from the HOT network will be used to operate the HOT network, maintain HOT system equipment and software, provide transit services and improvements in the corridors, finance and construct the HOT network, and provide other corridor improvements.
Those principles gave rise to legislation, now pending. The MTC provides this important analysis of AB 744 to "authorize a Bay Area express lane network to deliver congestion relief and public transit funding with no new taxes," introduced by Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont (pictured, right). The bill would authorize the MTC's corollary agency, the Bay Area Toll Authority, to finance, construct and operate a complete, seamless regionally-managed express lane networks on major highways. The system would:
convert 500 miles of existing or fully-funded HOV lanes to express HOT lanes;
build 300 miles of new express HOT lanes (180 miles to fill gaps, 120 miles to extend the system outward);
maintain free-flowing traffic for carpoolers, buses and toll-payers by adjusting tolls as congestion fluctuates;
yield $13.7 billion in revenues over 25 years, fully paying for its $7.6 billion cost, including construction, operations, maintenance, and enforcement, and providing an additional $6 billion for further transportation improvements in the highway corridors, including public transit;
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 10 million metric tons, versus the traditional HOV lanes approach;
boost the value of worker productivity by $100 billion by reducing highway delays.
According to the MTC analysis, AB 744 has some additional safeguards. It requires that 95 percent of the net revenue raised in each corridor be spent in that corridor for transit or emission reduction projects, and that the decisions about what such projects to implement be based on a bottom-up planning process giving ample voice to local input.
The MTC analysis also takes aim at a common canard that priced express lanes are "Lexus Lanes" mainly for the well-off. Nationally, the MTC reports, only 25 percent of priced express lane users are classified as high-income; and a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo study of SR 91 express lane users in Orange County found usage more closely tied to travel conditions and trip needs than income.
Bay Area transit planners have relatively limited options in trying to keep traffic moving in a region where growth continues to outpace the ability to build freeways or expand mass transit. Their challenge is to find ways to make better use of the transit and roadways we have. One such alternative is to create a seamless regional network of lanes for buses, carpoolers - and drivers willing to pay a toll.
We can certainly understand the instinctive groans at the concept of what transit planners call "high-occupancy toll" (or HOT) lanes - and critics deride as "Lexus lanes" that allow drivers with the means to pay a fee to glide past traffic. However, on closer review, the congestion relief produced by an enhanced network of express lanes would offer benefits to bus riders as well as drivers in the free lanes.
Cascadia Center does not endorse or oppose this bill. Our interest is in identifying surface transportation best practices, and ventilating related issues. Generally speaking, regional express lane systems are in our view a smart way forward. Especially considering the cost of failing to implement this approach.
UPDATE, 4/23/09: It should be noted that although the regional HOT lane plan is a major step in the right direction, some healthy debate is warranted over the spending priorities in the MTC's larger, $218 billion, 25-year "Transportation 2035" plan, approved yesterday by the planning body. It's reported that of the $218 billion in anticipated revenues, some $142 billion would be spent on expansion, operations and maintenance of transit; $66 billion for street, road and highway maintenance; and just $11 billion for expansion of roadways. The "Transportation 2035" plan, including amendments approved yesterday, can be found here. Further analysis of this broader 2035 plan will need to be of the gimlet-eyed variety. It should include comprehensive review of costs and benefits of the transit versus roadway expenditures, plus scrutiny of fiscal assumptions and strategies, versus fiscal best practices.
Editor's Note: Cascadia Prospectus is pleased to welcome as a contributor Bern Grush, chief scientist and founder of SkyMeter Corp., who in periodic posts will share insights on road user charging technology and other aspects of surface transportation and system pricing.
Worldwide, the need to toll roads is increasing, whether for sustainable funding, transportation demand management, or emissions management. While this includes the usual toll by segment approach using radio frequency identification (RFID) or dedicated short-wave radio communication (DSRC) many transportation planners are looking to wide-area methods such as Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) in the United States and Time, Distance and Place (TDP) in the EU. This trend will almost inevitably continue, with the end result approaching universal tolling and presumably the abandonment of fuel taxes.
The technology to provide "one road-use meter/one bill" is ready now, and tax policy is now being considered by many transport thought leaders. But methods to migrate from fuel tax with free access to "pay for use" over wide jurisdictions such as states, provinces or countries are less well understood.
This paper will look at the new enabling technology and propose a four-stage approach that can help us migrate from fuel tax plus segment tolling, to uniform network-wide pricing.
Read full paper here. (First presented as "Moving From Road Road Pricing To Network Pricing," at ITS Asia 2009.)
In an op-ed in the Sunday Yakima Herald Republic, the Yakima Valley Fruit Growers-Shippers Association explains why it supports the recommendation by Governor Chris Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King County to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 with an inland deep-bored tunnel. The state senate has already passed a bill securing $2.4 billion in funding for the project, and the state house last week passed a transportation budget bill providing some of that amount for the tunnel. A house bill specific to the tunnel must still be passed and may be voted on as soon as this week. (The tunnel itself is estimated by the Washington Department of Transportation to cost between $1.2 and $2.2 billion, with about $1.9 billion the most likely amount - see last page here. On top of the $2.4 billion being sought from the state, Seattle, King County and Port of Seattle are to provide the balance for related mobility projects, which coupled with the state funds would bring total project cost to $4.2 billion).
As it happens, the central Seattle waterfront, where the seismically vulnerable Viaduct now stands, is our state's gateway to the world. Association Executive Director Keith Mathews explains why apple growers in Central Washington care about the tunnel proposal.
Consistent, efficient and uninterrupted access to the Port of Seattle (not only for export markets, but other, coastal domestic markets) is absolutely critical to our industry as well as others located on this side of the Cascade Mountains. And SR 99 is a critical link to the port. Since 1959, the Alaskan Way Viaduct has served traffic going to and from the port. In 2001, the 6.8-magnitude Nisqually earthquake shook it and severely damaged it. Though temporary repairs have allowed the viaduct to be reopened, state leaders are now seeking a way to replace it.
Several proposals have been considered, including the use of surface streets and transit only (surface option), replacement with another elevated structure, and the deep-bore tunnel and transit option now under consideration by the Legislature. There are several significant flaws to both the surface-only and elevated options. The surface-only option would eliminate one of only three north-south transportation corridors in the Puget Sound area (i.e. the gateway to the port), thus paving the way for gridlock on those streets, as well as Interstate 5 and I-405. The elevated option would involve tearing down the Alaskan Way Viaduct and gridlock for up to six years while the replacement structure is built.
On the other hand, the deep-bore tunnel could be built while the reinforced Alaskan Way Viaduct continues to function. This will keep our truckers going to the port and the economic benefits flowing to Central and Eastern Washington. For these reasons, our association believes that the proposed Seattle deep-bore tunnel is the optimal solution in providing a clear access to and from the port via Interstate 90 and other routes. This proposal provides a reconstruction plan that minimizes traffic congestion during construction and provides an efficient travel path to and across SR 99 for years to come.
The association's primary membership is composed of 42 packer-growers who supply half the apples consumed in the United States each year, pumping nearly $2 billlion annually into the state economy and $15 million a week in paychecks for Central Washington workers.
Reuters reports that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a senate committee the administration of President Barack Obama will not sign off on any hike in the increasingly ineffective federal gas tax, though Congress may propose that.
LaHood's declaration signaled that the Obama administration will take the same stance as former President George W. Bush. Revenue generated by the tax of 18.4 cents on each gallon of gas sold in the country goes into the Highway Trust Fund to fix U.S. roads and public transit. That fund has already been depleted once and Congress had to pass emergency measures last summer to replenish it. The tax has not been raised since the early 1990s...
The Bush administration also opposed a tax hike and last summer suggested looking beyond taxes to privately run electronic tolling systems and tax incentives for transportation investments. LaHood told the hearing that there are "a number of other things that will help us raise the revenue to satisfy the needs that we want to meet here."
True, the Obama administration's current position on the gas tax does not rule out a modest hike when the economy recovers, but even then and even if indexed to inflation, by-the-gallon fuel levies by the federal government and the states will provide only marginal cash compared to growing system needs fueled by dramatic increases in road usage over the past 50 years, and ongoing U.S. population growth. Additionally, today’s vehicles are much more fuel-efficient, depressing revenue growth, and the “price signal” sent by the gas tax is weak.
Even if the federal gas tax were raised another 10 cents a gallon (about the limit politically), and a state's gas tax raised another five cents or so, what conclusions would the average motorist draw given that pump prices fluctuated more than two dollars per gallon in recent years and are headed toward settling at far higher levels than in decades past? The motorist's obvious quick take is correct: there are a number of factors more influential than how often and how far they drive - including geo-politics, oil supply and demand, and oil company prerogatives - that influence price at the gas pump.
If what we're looking for is to is allocate scarce roadway capacity, use it more efficiently, and broaden adoption of alternatives to peak-hour solo driving, the connection between choices and costs must be far more direct. We need something which unites the choice of driving on roads and highways and bridges, with the hefty costs of operating, maintaining and in some cases, replacing them.
An alternative set of options includes politically-charged strategies such as raising state gas taxes, county sales taxes, or regional vehicle excise taxes. Another, better type of approach is sometimes called “the user pays,” and it's more direct than a fuel tax can ever be. This menu includes:
electronic tolling of new highway express lanes in major metro regions, with higher charges at peak hours and lower charges off-peak (transit and ride-share vehicles go free);
creating a network of such electronic, variably-tolled express lanes on all major highways in populous regions, which would exist side-by-side with more congested free lanes;
Electronic time-variable tolling of all lanes of all major highways in a metro region;
The latter would likely involve mandatory GPS tracking devices on all vehicles by a year certain (either built-in or retrofitted), though other technologies are also being discussed. Strict privacy protections are understood to be crucial.
Lanes managed under electronic time-variable tolling are already in use in a variety of locales, with some eyeing full-on regional systems of these "managed lanes" encompassing a number of major highways and state routes. They typically involve overhead gantries and windshield transponders keyed to prepaid or billed user accounts, although currently, automated cameras snapping pictures of license plates can replace or augment that approach.
Then there is the conversation about so-called "public-private partnerships" in surface transportation, which will surely continue to advance in the U.S. as atomic rhetoric is supplanted by calm and accurate analysis, of their variety and applicability.
In its final, February 2009 report "Paying Our Way," the congressionally-created National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission concluded motor fuel taxes won't get us from here to there. (End of Chapter 4, "Paying By The Gallon: Motor Fuel Taxes".)
...a variety of factors are converging to challenge the preeminence of (motor fuel taxes) as the primary source of surface transportation funding. Due to a combination of travel growth, system deterioration, increasing construction costs, and lack of indexing, fuel tax revenues are becoming increasingly inadequate to meet investment needs. This inadequacy will likely be exacerbated as improved fuel efficiency and alternative fuel vehicles reduce fuel consumption. Moreover, the public's willingness to pay for the required investments through an increase in motor fuel taxes appears to be weak and may be declining...In urban congested areas, it is possible that charging users of the system more directly will not only raise revenues, but also influence driver behavior and lead to reductions in both congestion levels and the investment that is needed.
The real take-away from the nation’s capital is not that we should start laying odds on when the federal gas tax will finally be raised, and by how much, but that “user pays” is the road map to the future.
The National Journal's transportation blog asks what's the proper role, if any, for public-private partnerships? Among the replies from their expert panel, two stand out. Steve Heminger, executive director of the nine-county (Bay Area) Metropolitan Transportation Commission, writes:
The debate about the wisdom of greater private investment in our surface transportation system is almost always contested on theoretical or ideological grounds, and that may be enjoyable for the debaters but it is completely unenlightening for the rest of us. I suggest instead that we try to answer the following practical question: what part of our investment shortfall are PPPs most likely to address? It is probably not deferred maintenance (about 50% of our total shortfall), because there's not much money to be made in that unglamorous activity. It is also probably not many public transit extensions, which tend to require operating subsidy, not generate operating profit. Nor is it new road capacity that may be needed for overall national system connectivity, but may be located in areas with slower population growth (and less income potential).
So, that probably leaves the sweet spot for "greenfield" PPP's in extremely congested, high growth areas, where new highway or freight capacity can not only pay for itself but generate additional income through tolls or other fees to pay back investors. This category of investments is critical to the nation's future economic well-being, but it probably represents less than 20% of our total investment shortfall.
We do not face an "either/or" choice between PPP's and traditional forms of public funding such as gas taxes and municipal debt. We need both of these tools (plus others) if we are to climb out of the huge investment hole we've dug for ourselves. And we need to deploy these funding tools in the right proportions to address the functional and modal investment needs we face.
Another noteworthy response comes from Robert Poole, Director of Transportation Studies for The Reason Foundation. Poole is a leading advocate of transportation P3s, and automated variable-rate tolling to control metro-region traffic congestion. Poole rebuts a new study by the Public Interest Research Group critical of transportation P3s, to make a few essential points about how P3s should be structured to protect the public interest and draw participation from private investors so important metro-region projects that states and regions cannot fully fund on their own can actually get built.
....their report blurs the distinction between leasing existing toll roads (“brownfields”) and creating new toll roads via PPP mechanisms (“greenfields”). Reporting the total amount committed to various PPP projects (including relatively uncontroversial design-build projects), the report says that $21 billion was “paid for 43 highway facilities” between 1994 and 2006. The context and the wording make it appear that 43 existing highways have been long-term leased during this period. In fact, a grand total of four toll roads have been leased in the United States. All the rest of the PPP activity has involved the financing of much-needed new capacity.
PIRG’s report also makes it sound as if most of these projects involved 75 to 99-year leases, such as those involved in the four brownfield projects. In fact, most new PPP toll roads are being developed under 35 to 50-year concessions. And large up-front payments, another PIRG target, are relatively uncommon on the growing number of greenfield projects. Why? Because these projects are challenging to finance solely based on their projected toll revenues. In the event that traffic and revenues turn out to be more than originally forecast, the trend now is to include revenue-sharing provisions in the concession agreements.
....the public-interest recommendations of the PIRG report are either platitudes (“the public should retain control over decisions about transportation planning and management”) or unrealistic. Two examples of the latter: 1) No deal should last longer than 30 years. 2) The legislature must approve each negotiated PPP agreement.
The first would rule out many projects that would pencil out at 40 or 50 years, thereby reducing the scope for the private sector to help close the funding gap. And the second is a proven deal-killer. The few states that have included such a provision in their enabling legislation have received exactly zero proposals. Why? Because the cost and time involved in winning a competition for a billion-dollar project and then negotiating a 300-page concession agreement are too large to be risked on the whim of a legislative vote. The workable approach, which both California and Florida figured out after trying the PIRG way, is to enact legislation spelling out the parameters within which deals can be negotiated, and leaving the details to their state DOT or transportation commission.
When California recently resolved its mammoth budget deficit, it presciently moved to ease restrictions on transportation public-private partnerships, which over the long run could help control costs to taxpayers of improving overloaded roads, rails and freight facilities. P3s, as the arrangements are called, draw from among construction, engineering, highway management firms - plus infrastructure investment groups often funded partly by public employee and building trades union pension funds - to form consortiums that get important transportation projects built more efficiently, and sooner versus later or never. A P3 consortium may provide consolidated services such as designing and building a toll bridge or highway section, and can also provide upfront capital if public funds are constricted, as is so often the case now.
The private consortiums may not only design, build, and help finance these variably-tolled facilities, they may operate and maintain them too, for several decades under a lease agreement with their public partner, such as a state department of transportation. (The latter can retain ownership, control toll rates and enforce contractual performance standards). Over the long haul, the private partners make back their investment and a profit, while the savings to taxpayers over a project's full life cycle accrue, versus going it solely on the public's dime, and solely under public-sector management. P3s can also target transit, and crucial port and rail infrastructure. (Various types of P3 are described here by the Canadian Council For Public-Private Partnerships.)
Many of the P3 projects have a genuine green hue: such as "managed" lanes on highway sections, bridges and tunnels where booth-less electronic tolls are set higher during peak hours and lower off-peak to maintain a steady traffic flow at speeds of 45 to 50 miles per hour while ride-share vehicles and transit go free. Increased telework at home, as well as off-site meetings, remote work centers and para-transit offer additional ways around the higher peak-hour tolls.
The P3 approach is a hot topic, and a tool increasingly being considered by elected officials. In a new report, the Pew Center On The States paints the backdrop:
In 2008, the federal Highway Trust Fund - one of the nation's primary sources of funding for highway renovation and construction - almost went broke. States, hurting from falling revenues of all kinds, including gas tax proceeds, lack the money to meet their own infrastructure needs. These funding problems have turned into a crisis. Every year the numbers worsen. Much-needed highway repairs are being neglected...The current trend is unsustainable. Congestion and pollution will continue to increase, public safety will be compromised, and states' economic growth and ability to attract and retain strong businesses will falter if the nation's transportation system fails to receive the investments it needs. Federal funding - through the stimulus package, a proposed infrastructure bank or both - will help. But the gap remains large, and as a result, state leaders are looking to partner with the private sector.
Burgeoning global population has huge market implications for infrastructure finance. In a new working paper, the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation estimates (p. 5) that through 2030, annual infrastructure requirements for electric transmission and distribution, road and rail transportation, telecommunications and water are likely to average about 3.5 percent of global gross domestic product, or about $2 trillion per year, higher if other kinds of infrastructure are added in. Small wonder new consultancies fluent in P3s are forming. States and nations are coming to the dance, and matchmakers are in demand.
Senate Bill 4 is the game changer in California, signed into law in late February. Under restrictive 2005 pilot project legislation, California had allowed the state transportation department and regional transportation agencies to enter into only four P3 arrangements, total, up until January 1, 2012, two in southern California, two in northern California. Under SB 4, unlimited transportation P3s are allowed between now and January 1, 2017. Jim Christie of Reuters explains:
Billions of dollars of private capital for infrastructure may pile into California with the state, the world's eighth-largest economy, opened to public-private partnerships....Hopes for busy construction sites meeting infrastructure needs across California have been thwarted by increasing strains on traditional financial sources for public works -- taxes, user fees and the municipal debt market.
...Officials responded by clamping down on spending, including for public works. They hope to open the infrastructure spigot when the state resumes market sales of its debt and expect federal stimulus money to help bring projects on line sooner. But California's needs are so vast it could use even more infrastructure dollars -- most obviously for congested roads, a reason for the bill aimed at highway P3s. "The clearest cases for public-private partnerships have always been made for transportation," said (Gov. Arnold) Schwarzenegger adviser David Crane.
Up the road a piece, Washington has unfunded transportation needs of $38 billion (in 2005 dollars) over the next 20 years, according to the state's transportation plan update issued in 2007; that amount is exclusive of local transit needs, says the Washington State Transportation Commission (p. 5, here). The transportation commission in a 2007 report noted that:
A series of key state assessments have urged the P3 approach be more closely considered for major transportation projects. The Expert Review Panel on SR 99 Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement and SR 520 bridge replacement stressed the value of regional tolling and P3s as finance tools, especially for the looming life-safety rebuild of the 520 bridge. The Regional Transportation Commission chaired by former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice and ex-Western Wireless CEO John Stanton recommended serious attention to possible long-term concessions and build-operate agreements with private partners. A report prepared for the legislature's Joint Transportation Committee stressed that P3s can attract new capital otherwise unavailable, accelerate project delivery, and offload government's construction cost overrun risk.
P3s could prove especially helpful in getting built the new bridge across the Columbia River between Clark County, Wash. and Portland, Ore., extending SR 167 from South King County to the Port of Tacoma, constructing the SR 704 "Cross Base Highway" in Pierce County, in making improvements on Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie Pass, upgrading the state ferry system's big Colman Dock terminal in Seattle, and in financing additional ferry terminal, freight rail capacity, and "transloading" projects.
State-issued bonds are required for all projects; that should be changed to allow comparison of alternative financing structures. State bonding timelines should be extended from 30 to 40 years to help finance mega-projects. No fewer than six entities can effectively stop a P3 project; clearer authority should be given to the transportation commission to make final decisions.
To its credit, the state used a design-build P3 approach for the newer, southbound tolled span of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and lately has been exploring P3 possibilities for ferry facilities, and alternative fuel stations in the I-5 corridor. But with as much as $6.6 billion now needed for the SR 520 bridge rebuild, and another $4 billion required to put right I-5 in Seattle and US 2 to the north, plus a slew of other unfunded, important projects (see above), Washington needs to really open up to transportation P3s.
Recent news only underscores the paucity of funding. The Seattle Times reports that the state senate's proposed transportation budget has would delay until 2016 some 31 highway projects that had been planned for sooner (the House proposal slices things a bit differently). At the same time, Sound Transit is warning that its voter-approved $18 billion second phase expansion plan, including light rail across Lake Washington to Bellevue and Redmond, may come up as much as $2.1 billion short due to the recession and declining tax revenues.
Lawmakers admit that by (2016), a combination of declining gas-tax revenue and high bond debt will leave few dollars for new projects. Tolls or other taxes in the 2010s would be needed to keep promises made in the 2000s, when Olympia boosted gas taxes by 14-½ cents a gallon.
After the planned deep-bored tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct (for which the primary pot of state funding is intact), the 520 bridge is the next Puget Sound roads mega-project on the horizon. The Seattle Times reports that the cost could rise to $6.6 billion but the state only has about $1.9 billion exclusive of tolls. The most aggressive tolling scenario identified by a state committee (with the earliest start on the old 520 bridge plus tolls on parallel I-90) would yield another $2.4 billion, for a total of $4.3 billion, which is $2.3 billion less than the priciest and least intrusive option, most favored by influential activists in Seattle neighborhoods at the bridge's west end. (Fine tuning of the state transportation budget could boost dedicated non-toll funds, but a large gap is still a distinct possibility).
Credit has been tight lately, to say the least, dampening near-term enthusiasm for government borrowing, P3s, and activity by infrastructure investment firms. But a slew of recent deals foretell transportation P3s re-gaining traction as the economic recovery gradually unfolds.
In Florida, a Spanish-based consortium, ACS Infrastructure Development, has closed a $1.6 billion-plus deal to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a 10.5-mile reconstructed I-595 connector in Broward County, from near the Fort Lauderdale Airport and I-95, going west to the I-75/Sawgrass Expressway interchange. A central feature, right down the middle, is three reversible, electronic time-variable tolled lanes called 595 Express. Other project components will include improved interchanges, direct connections to the express lanes, ramps and bypasses, a greenway, sound barriers and bus rapid transit in the corridor. By having the private consortium design, build and finance the rehabbed connector and then maintain and operate it for 35 years before ownership reverts to the state, Florida offloads construction cost overrun risk and maintenance and operations costs. The state will lease the center express lanes from the consortium and collect the tolls. If the tolls must be raised at some point in the future, that will be done by the state, not the private consortium.
"This project is a harbinger of what we may be seeing over the next decade or so, as we don't have enough money for major construction," said Robert Poole, director of transportation studies at the Reason Foundation, a free-market think tank....The Obama administration has rejected the idea of increasing the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gasoline tax to raise revenue for infrastructure projects. That could lead states to pursue more private-funding options.
In Texas, a private consortium of Cintra, Meridiam and the Dallas Police And Fire Pension System has been chosen as the preferred partners in a $2 billion, 52-year concession to finance, operate and toll new managed lanes on I-635, or the LBJ Expressway. At four lanes in each direction, this 1969-vintage metro Dallas corridor is seriously congested, an "avoid it if you possibly can" route like I-5 through Seattle or Portland. Under the agreement, the private partners will completely rebuild 9.7 miles of I-635 and 3.6 miles of intersecting I-35E. In each direction along the way there will be two frontage lanes, four tax-funded general purpose lanes and three managed lanes to be variably tolled, electronically, at rates meant to attract traffic yet also keep it flowing no slower than 50 mph. If average speeds dip below that mark, sliding scale damages would be paid by the private operators to the state department of transportation. The Dallas Morning News reports that the deal comes amidst plans to develop tolled, managed lanes on all highways in the metroplex. Rush-hour tolls will be steep on the new tolled LBJ lanes, at $7 one way to start; off-peak tolls lower.
Two billion dollars worth of work is to be completed in five years. Four hundred workers will begin laboring full-time at the outset, with as many as 1,500 more added in phases from 140 subcontractors. Cintra, Meridiam and the pension fund will invest $600 million, borrow $500 million from private sources and plan to secure another $500 million in government-backed loans from the Federal Highway Administration. Texas will contribute $445 million.
Some of the money for the Texas projects will come from direct equity stakes held by the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System that should return at least 8.5 percent annually after 10 years, said Richard Tettamant, the fund's administrator. He said the stakes are the first direct P3 infrastructure investments by a U.S. public pension fund, and "we are open to investing in any type of infrastructure ... anywhere." Other pension funds seeking stable returns for long-term obligations may be interested as well, said Joel Moser, lead partner in the infrastructure practice at Fulbright & Jaworski in New York. "We're talking about trillions of dollars in equity that could potentially flow into this sector," he said.
The Dallas fund has 8,500 members, current and retired police and firemen. Cintra expects to hire 2,000 workers for 5 to 6 years for the job.
In another tolling-based P3, construction began last year in Northern Virginia to build 14 miles of "HOT" lanes on the Capital Beltway/I-495. Private partners Fluor-Transurban are investing $349 million and the commonwealth $409 million, supplemented by another $1.1 in toll-backed bonds and loans. Vehicles with three or more passengers will travel free in the new lanes while others will pay variable electronic tolls. Drivers will have the option of free lanes in both directions, though they will be more prone to congestion. The HOT lanes will be owned and overseen by the commonwealth but managed and operated by the private partners. Construction is to be completed in 2013.
Ports are getting in on the action, too. A division of a private infrastructure fund has won approval from the Port of Oakland for a $150 million deal which will give the Port $60 million in the near term and allow the private concern, Ports of America, to invest the remainder in cranes and environmental improvements to complement a 50-year operating agreement for several docks. Six thousand jobs will be created and a second-stage, $350 million deal is being discussed, which would connect the port to more rail lines.
Other major transportation P3s nearing completion in North America include the Sea To Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler, British Columbia, and the Canada Line rail extension from Vancouver south to the suburban hub of Richmond, and the region's airport.
Will Washington state's public employees get in on the P3 action? Only if makes good money management sense. The Washington State Investment Board oversees 17 different public employee pension funds and 22 other state funds with combined holdings of $67.6 billion, and would like to increase to at least five percent of its portfolio its "tangible assets" class, which can include timber lands, real estate and infrastructure assets. WSIB Public Affairs Director Liz Mendizabal says the board's first and foremost responsibility to its members is fiduciary. An ongoing performance benchmark is to achieve an eight percent average annual return on investments. Another aim, with the stock market meltdown at top of mind, is to diversify the portfolio further. Mendizabal cautions that while some public employee pension funds may invest directly in a specific transportation project (i.e. Dallas), WSIB is not one of those: it invests in managed funds only. Any WSIB investment in infrastructure would thus have to be through an infrastructure fund.
An additional note: because public employee pension funds already enjoy tax-exempt status on their interest earnings, they are highly unlikely to buy the tax-exempt, lower yield bonds that state governments often issue to fund transportation projects.
The Big Daddy of infrastructure investors among public employee pension funds is the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System. Bloomberg News reports OMERS manages $44 billion ($C) for its 390,000 members, and hopes to increase its infrastructure holdings from 31 to 35 percent of its holdings. North American rail systems are among its targeted areas for new infrastructure investment. The mammoth California Public Employee Retirement System - where former WSIB Executive Director Joe Dear is now Chief Investment Officer - is often mentioned as another potential investor in transportation infrastructure. But the talk has amounted to little so far. That may change with California's new transportation P3 law, though Calpers' members have previously been vigilant and litigious in warning the board off any P3s involving private partners. There are other approaches. A division of a wholly-owned Calpers subsidiary is proposing a sizable P3 investment in the state of Virginia's ports network. Calpers and the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund also are trying to advance a larger federal role in seeding infrastructure P3s. A key element would be a National Infrastructure Investment Bank. Famed financeer Felix Rohatyn helped develop the proposal and continues his advocacy. But Kiplinger Letter Associate Editor Jim Ostroff predicts it's a virtual non-starter.
Also in the political breakdown lane: a national infrastructure bank to fund large, multistate projects....It would be seeded with Uncle Sam's money and chartered to borrow money at ultralow interest rates that only federal entities can obtain. But Washington lawmakers won't cotton to ceding control of several billion dollars of highway money each year to an independent agency.
Which, if proven true, will tend to leave political leadership on transportation P3s at the state level, despite some existing federal programs that can help facilitate these deals, such as U.S. DOT "private activity bonds", and loans through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA project roster here). In any case, it is states especially that must confront one of the biggest perceptual obstacles to U.S. P3 investment by infrastructure firms: their characterization as "foreign" and "private." In truth they're often as much or more Main Street than Wall Street - drawing capital from building trade and public employee unions, and hiring loads of U.S. workers for big projects such as those in Texas and Florida, in all sorts of categories.
Another objection to managed lanes, which are often at the heart of roadway P3s, is that the higher peak-hour tolls are unfair to lower-income drivers. A study by UCLA and USC researchers is the latest to debunk that contention about so-called "Lexus Lanes" that favor the well-off.
Those who oppose tolls and other forms of road pricing argue that low-income, urban residents will suffer if they must pay to use congested freeways. This contention, however, fails to consider (1) how much low-income residents already pay for transportation in taxes and fees, or (2) how much residents would pay for highway infrastructure under an alternative revenue-generating scheme, such as a sales tax....Low-income drivers as individuals save substantially if they do not have to pay tolls, but as a group low-income residents, on average, pay more out-of-pocket with sales taxes.
So though the debate continues, there's already a brave new world of transportation finance taking shape. In the past, Washington state and regional elected officials have tended to approach planning and financing of transportation mega-projects on a piecemeal basis rather than developing a comprehensive strategy. Now, some - such as State Sen. Ed Murray - clearly get that a systematic approach to tolling regional highways, plus public-private partnerships are needed.
Next year, state lawmakers could begin the process of extending electronic time-variable tolling to major highway corridors in the region (federal approvals are required for Interstate tolling, but the signals are generally green). Regional tolling, new or raised taxes or fees of some sort, and private partnerships will be needed to build and operate vital surface transportation projects in many states, at a time when funding and finance prospects are dimming so precipitously. In a report on the proposed Washington Senate 2009-2011 Transportation Budget, the Senate Transportation Committee somberly warns:
The world is changing. Existing sources of state and national long-term transportation funding are not sustainable. In addition, new car technology and policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have a significant and negative impact on transportation revenues. A concerted effort is needed to merge a new reality with new policies, and bring key stakeholders together to develop and drive the transition.
In a presentation last summer to a gathering of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, Washington State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond and WSDOT's Director of Public-Private Partnerships Jeff Doyle shared some important observations:
U.S. public sector motivations for P3s include contractual allocation of risk and price certainty; outsourcing of unpleasant tasks and costs of facility operations and maintenance; creation of new revenue sources, use of innovative financing and the monetizing of existing assets (3rd slide).
In the continuum of P3s, WSDOT sees the state as firmly in the middle, comfortable with approaches going as far as "design-build" contracts which unite those two phases for increased efficiency and savings (such as for the newer southbound span of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge,) but shying away, so far, from more full-on P3s such as design-build-finance-operate-maintain lease arrangements with private partners. (5th slide)
In the U.S., P3s are seen in a more limited function, as an alternative finance mechanism, while "Canada views P3s more holistically" in terms of full life cycle project costs (2nd to last slide, "Conclusions").
Therein lies a telling point. Private debt adds costs to a project more than state-issued debt, but other savings during a project's full life cycle, such as from privately-managed operations and maintenance of a toll road or transit line for several decades, can compensate. Add to that the value of an asset returned to public management in turn-key condition after an operating lease expires, replete with the "12 secret spices" recipe for smooth going from industry-leading experts.
Then there's the real show-stopper: the hefty economic and social benefits of getting something built years sooner - including the associated savings in congestion avoided, business opportunities not lost, and idling vehicle emissions reduced.
All told, P3s can pencil out well. It depends on the project specifics; and how thorough and honest is the calculus.
At least as important in Washington state as freer rein for private partnerships in financing, operating and managing transportation assets, is that such a liberalized P3 policy would signal a new openness to finance innovation in times when system needs far outpace available public resources.
But even vaunted "innovation" is only as good as what it gets. Surface transportation systems emulate smaller entities and organisms. They must adapt and improve, or be eaten.
Columbia River Crossing is the $4.2 billion project to replace two old, crowded and dangerous bridges connecting Washington and Oregon on Interstate 5 (pictured below left, courtesy of KATU-TV Portland). The old structures (one goes northbound-only, the other southbound) are to be supplanted with a new, two-way variably-tolled bridge, that will also extend Portland's light rail system to Vancouver, Wash., add bike and pedestrian pathways across the river, and fix six devilish bridge corridor interchanges near the crossing.
It's been announced recently that the bridge will be 12 lanes total, then the highway will narrow back to six. The wider bridge will be built to help handle crossing volume fed by longer-haul traffic and also by local and regional drivers, a goodly portion of whom may not travel great distances on I-5, but need to access the bridge, from safer new merge and exit lanes, to get between Clark County, Wash. and points south, in Portland and environs. Yet the bridge lane count is prompting considerable worries among some critics that the new facility will encourage more vehicle use, suburban residential development, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Another, but somewhat contradictory argument is that the 12 bridge lanes aren't going to be needed because more and more people will be taking transit - witness the slight increase in transit use nationally last year, and slight drop in vehicle miles travelled.
Let's back up for a quick minute. First, it's great to see more people using public transit. That's been encouraged by the gas price run-up of last year, the faltering economy, and growing concerns about greenhouse gas emissions. Metro region transit systems are in a good position to increase their market share, except that they're now scrambling to make up for sharply declining sales tax revenues which may force cutting routes that carry fewer passengers, at higher costs.
But even assuming transit systems successfully re-tool, and even with a slight drop-off last year in vehicle miles travelled, the nation's roadways are still strained after decades of explosive growth in use, while maintenance lagged. We can all agree - or should - on the need to create more incentives to expand ride-sharing, transit and tele-work. Yet the private vehicle is here to stay and to plan metro region transportation systems based on a hope against hope that auto usage will go into significant decline, is just plain....not smart.
Improving fuel efficiency, and in coming years, mainstream market penetration by electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will help keep cars in heavy circulation. So too will the current daily realities of the driving life, for people who have pressures of limited time or longer distances to travel, or spread-out daily "trip chains."
There's hope, though, that Columbia River Crossing can be completed in a timely manner while successfully addressing mobility and environmental concerns. Now likely to be deployed on all lanes of the new bridge is electronic time-variable tolling - which rewards carpoolers, van-poolers and transit vehicles with free passage, but charges tolls to solo drivers, on a sliding scale determined by time of day or real-time congestion levels. (Lower tolls when traffic is lighter, off-peak; higher tolls when it's heavier, at peak hours.) Time-variable electronic tolling will help fund the project, and can help produce effective limits on peak-hour solo trips and congestion.
Last week, the CRC Project Sponsors Council approved a "mobility council concept" that paves the way for a high-level advisory body to help direct management of the new, tolled bridge and quite possibly, the parallel I-205 bridge to the east, across the Columbia.
That last part will be important because the two form a natural two-pronged highway corridor running north-south across the river, connecting Washington and Oregon. From the north, I-205 branches off from I-5 in Clark County, Wash., north of Vancouver and about six miles from the river, and then proceeds southeast across the river, parallel to I-5, but some four-plus miles apart from it, to the Oregon side. From there, I-205 connects with key arterial roads, and state routes, running approximately 24 more miles south, and finally back west before it rejoins I-5.
Joined At The Hip With I-5
Serving as a gateway to populous suburbs, plus commercial, business and leisure destinations, and providing an oft-utilized workaround to snarled I-5 in Portland, I-205 is literally joined at the hip to I-5. They can't be considered as anything less than a single corridor - where peak-hour solo driving must be priced and rationed, and transit, ride-sharing and tele-work further encouraged. If one bridge is tolled, but the other isn't, then there's great potential for exponentially more traffic diversions from one to the other. Corridor management is where things are headed in surface transportation, and defining corridors the right way is essential.
Here's the background to last week's action. The "locally preferred alternative" for Columbia River Crossing, set last July, established that the new bridge would replace, not augment the current I-5 bridges; and that design and planning should facilitate use of the bridge by light rail, bus, high-occupancy vehicles and bicycles while also taming "one of the most significant chokepoints" for traffic in the "nationally significant" West Coast trade and commerce corridor.
The mobility council concept agreement approved last week by the Project Sponsors Council represents part of the plan to make those aims reality. The agreement notes some important points of consensus as the project moves through the final phase of the Environmental Impact Statement and into design:
The replacement bridge will be constructed with adequate width to accommodate six lanes in each direction to provide for safe operations between interchanges and efficient movement of people and goods.
This project is consistent with the regional plans that call for three through lanes in each direction on I-5 within the metropolitan area.
The finance plan will include tolling options to not only repay debt and ongoing operations and maintenance, but also to help manage the travel performance of the Columbia River crossings.
The project will create predictable and reliable trip durations for freight and other high priority trips moving through and within the corridor, and help maintain regional trips on the facility, rather than spilling over to local collectors and arterials due to congestion.
At its meeting this coming June, the sponsors council will create a technical group to develop performance measures and initiate public dialog on tolling strategies. This work will serve as at least a partial template for the mobility council, when it sets to work. Once formally seated, it would advise the two state transportation departments and local and regional transit agencies on how best to manage the 1-5 bridge and possibly also the I-205 bridge with tolls and other policies.
While the CRC Project Sponsor Council's mobility council concept does not specifically mention including the I-205 bridge in performance management corridor, a corollary resolution approved a week earlier by the Portland City Council does. The city resolution and an "attachments" backgrounder can be viewed here (click on the magnifying glass icon for each to access the MS-Word documents). The city resolution states, in part:
...the Columbia River Crossing is a project of great importance and unprecedented magnitude in our region, with far-reaching benefits for the city of Portland and the city of Vancouver; and...the physical capacity of a new bridge is inextricably linked to the issue of how it will be managed over time...the City of Portland supports the concept of performance-based management to maximize freight and personal mobility through the I-5 and I-205 Columba River Crossings using performance standards....the City recommends that a new bridge be built to accommodate up to three add/drop lanes and three through lanes in each direction, but that use of these lanes will be actively managed over time to get the right mix of tolling, HOV or HOT lanes, vanpools, and transit fare programs to reduce vehicle miles traveled and pollution...the City of Portland supports the formation of a Columbia River Crossing Mobility Council...
The Mobility Council would have a chairperson jointly appointed by the governors of both states, and one non-elected member serving a three-year term appointed by each of the two state DOTs, the two states, the two cities (Portland, and Vancouver, Wash.), the four designated transit or planning agencies, and the two ports. The two DOTs would provide staff to the Mobility Council, and the council would every year develop a Columbia Crossing Mobility Operations Plan on tolling, transit service, vehicle demand management and related measures, which the two DOTs and two transit agencies would then either accept or reject. Parts of each yearly plan could be rejected with comments, for re-submission. Stalemates would be broken by a meeting of the mobility council's chair with the chairs of both state transportation commissions or both transit agencies. The two DOTs and the transit agencies would retain the right to act without recommendation of the mobility council if deemed necessary, and the DOTs could also raise toll rates at a faster than recommended schedule if needed to satisfy bond obligations, including maintenance and operations costs.
Those seem reasonable caveats. Given the political and economic stakes, it would be mistaken to assume the mobility council would be just another paper tiger. Policy experts and everyday users alike will be watching the corridor closely to see if traffic flow and environmental objectives can be met. One thing is certain. The complex juggling act is one faced by scores of other major metro regions, on the West Coast and across the U.S. And at the root of it all are two clear realizations. Free peak-hour highway lanes for solo drivers carry huge social and economic costs, and failure to develop robust road pricing systems and better mobility choices will hobble surface transportation and the economy.
During his successful campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama embraced the cause of surface transportation, arguing with gusto for improvements to inter-city high speed rail, for research and development to advance the mainstream adoption of alternative fuels, and for other green transportation initiatives. In contrast, his general election opponent John McCain trilled one note on the evils of transportation funding earmarks. To those who follow surface transportation policy, the difference between the two was stark: Obama won big points as the more knowledgeable, engaged, and passionate of the two. McCain appeared to be either out of his depth, disinterested, or constrained by poor political counsel.
Now flash forward to our current and befuzzled times. While a disappointingly scant $50 billion of the $787 billion federal stimulus bill was allocated to transportation, Team Obama seemed again to be warming to transformation when newly-appointed Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a wide-ranging recent interview told Joan Lowy of the Associated Press the country needs to take a good hard look at taxing vehicles by the mile, and more regional tolling. The White House brusequely and publicly notified LaHood that in mentioning a mileage tax he had wandered far off the reservation.
That's hardly where the story ends, as I will explain below. But first, just what is this beast, anyway?
The envisioned vehicle miles traveled tax, or VMT, is seen by backers as a better way for drivers on our nation's worn out highways, bridges and roads to pay as they go, resulting in a more sustainable surface transportation system. A VMT is also meant to make choices such as transit, ride-sharing and tele-work more attractive than peak-hour solo driving, while helping to fund those alternatives, too. Why do some believe a VMT is needed? Even if raised, the by-the-gallon federal gas tax will fail to deliver over the long haul, as vehicle fuel efficiency continues to increase. The big federal Highway Trust Fund it feeds is already on last-gasp life support. Meanwhile, VMTs have already been successfully beta-tested in, of all places, Central Puget Sound, and the state of Oregon, which is widely seen as a national leader in evaluating the policy's possibilities.
What about common criticisms of a mileage tax? The answer is to design it well. A VMT can be designed to protect privacy. It can also be calibrated to give discounts to drivers of more fuel efficient vehicles and those who travel during off-peak hours and on less-congested roads.
By 2020, Congress willing, GPS trackers could be built into all new cars sold in the U.S. and added to older ones. Cross-state coordination would be required, as would inter-operability between a federal roads VMT and state or regional tolling systems. Regional systems, in addition to imposing time- or congestion-sensitive electronic tolls on certain bridges and stretches of highways, could - if Congress does not - extend the VMT concept to major arterials or even all streets and roads. Such a bold step is all but unthinkable today, but could help make maintenance of county and local roads and funding of regional transit less dependent on endless ballot measures and special pleadings to the legislature.
To be sure, the costs and benefits of the current versus the new approach would have to be convincingly detailed to win voter approval for anything so radical as a mileage tax on arterial and sub-arterial roads. The political risks would be considerable at the front end, but could diminish sharply over time as turmoil around surface transportation funding eases and user benefits steadily accrue.
For Washington state, a national VMT on federal-aid roads would mean a steady funding source for the $2 billion worth of mostly-orphaned work needed on Interstate 5 between downtown Seattle and Northgate, and for the nearly $2 billion needed to fix fatality-plagued U.S. 2 which runs east from Snohomish County. That same VMT could be divvied up in such a way as to help fund more transit in those corridors, too. A regional or state VMT could provide a steady share of funding for all manner of languishing pavement repair, interchange re-design, Active Traffic Management, Intelligent Transportation Systems and life safety projects on roads, plus high-capacity corridor transit enhancements.
Some politicians intuit the game-changing possibilities. That's why the VMT has been gaining momentum in recent years and months despite predictably visceral reactions from the general public. Recent news reports show the VMT concept being advanced, at various stages and in various ways, in Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan and Massachusetts. The head of Missouri's state transportation department says a VMT is probably inevitable there within several decades. Even Idaho's Republican Governor Butch Otter has voiced support for taxing vehicles by the mile. In Washington, the state transportation commission's 2009 policy platform suggests a closer look at a VMT tested across state lines on the West Coast.
So the VMT's prospects are considerable, though we're only in the early innings of this contest.
Yet no sooner had the mention of a mileage tax escaped Secretary LaHood's lips to Web news sites, than Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a sharp rejoinder, saying a VMT was not, and would not, be a policy of this administration.
A predictable barrage of stories immediately ensued, declaring the mileage tax dead, sunk, history, D.O.A.
But Gibbs' curt smackdown of LaHood was itself quickly overtaken by events.
In an interview with Congressional Quarterly, Oberstar said that LaHood "had the temerity to think...and what did he get? Slapped down. He's a good man. A decent man. Don't let him get slapped down by know-nothings." Oberstar then suggested that Gibbs ought to stay out of the conversation on transportation policy.
"I've got news for you," Oberstar said, "transportation policy isn't going to be written in the press room of the White House."
"Oh, it's on," Tapper concluded with relish.
That it is. For then came the velvet hammer: the issuance last week of a long-awaited final report of the Congressionally-created National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Revenue Financing Commission, titled "Paying Our Way" (executive summary here). An earlier version had already favorably highlighted the VMT option.
In its final report, the commission first noted the troubling backdrop. There's been a doubling of U.S. auto and truck traffic from 1980 to 2006 while growth in highway lane miles was virtually flat and maintenance of roads and bridges lagged. Real spending per highway mile traveled is down by nearly half since the Interstate system was established in the late 1950. Total highway and transit outlays as a percent of gross domestic product is down one-quarter over the same span, to 1.5 percent today. Because it has been unadjusted for inflation, the federal gas tax has lost one-third of its purchasing power since the last time it was hiked, 16 years ago.
The price of inaction is high. With resulting lost time, squandered fuel and vehicle deterioration, congestion in the U.S.'s 437 urban region costs upward of $78 billion annually. The commission reported the feds ought to be providing half of the $200 billion required per year to maintain and improve the nation's highways and transit systems, but that currently all levels of government are generating only one-third the needed funding. The commission took pains to point out - quite properly - that state, regional and local governments must shoulder the burden too, finding new resources to boost capacity and make other improvements.
What to do, then? The 15-member commission in its unanimous report said the gas tax - buried in a per-gallon price that is shaped by other factors - sends poor price signals to motorists, and that a mileage tax would clarify the linkage between driving and the needs of a poorly maintained, underpriced system.
The commission emphasized that a VMT could be calibrated by time of day, type of road, vehicle weight and fuel economy, and could be implemented nationally in 2020 after a decade of thorough research and development, and demonstration programs. To meet the base-case goal of providing sufficient federal funding for maintenance and improvement of highways and transit, the rate would need to be set at about 2.3 cents per mile for cars, if a VMT was charged on all roads. If the charge were restricted to federal-aid roads only, it would need to be somewhat higher, according to the report.
In its report, the commission also pinpointed variable tolling as a key approach at the state and regional levels and identified a slew of effective federal revenue-generating measures complementary to a VMT, such as a tax on auto and truck tire purchases, a 10 cent per gallon hike in the federal gas tax to help meet near-term needs, a 15 cent per gallon hike in the federal diesel fuel tax, and a federal carbon tax.
Major national dailies weighed in thoughtfully after the release of the commission's final report, drawn to the flame of the VMT debate. The Christian Science Monitor editorialized:
Gas taxes - at both the federal and state levels - must inevitably go the way of the gas guzzler. As vehicles become more fuel-efficient, they'll drink less gas, and thus produce less revenue to maintain and improve America's aging roads and mass transit. Add electric cars to the mix, and this revenue stream turns to a trickle.......Financing for transport infrastructure can no longer depend on indirect fees hidden in the overall cost of a gallon of gas but must rely more on direct user fees, such as tolling and congestion pricing.
Gasoline taxes may have sufficed to build the highways of the 20th century, but they've done little to influence vehicle use of roads. Changing behavior is the key to 21st century transport that must unclog crowded highways and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Taxing miles alerts drivers to the real cost of using roads and can better motivate them to drive less....Last week, the US Department of Transportation secretary spoke favorably of the VMT, but the White House press secretary quickly dismissed the idea - odd for an administration interested in innovation.
Members of Congress, which commissioned the panel in the first place, can drive the VMT idea when they reauthorize the surface transport bill, which expires this year. Well they know the fragility of the federal Highway Trust Fund, which last year neared bankruptcy and needed an $8 billion infusion because the gas tax couldn't keep up with repair and improvement needs. A VMT is the more reliable and efficient way to pay for transport. Its time has come.
A mileage tax could be tailored so that Hummer drivers, for example, paid more per mile than Prius owners. The tax could also be levied at higher rates during rush hour or on congested highways, discouraging people from driving at times when they would spend the longest on the road. It's no surprise, then, that groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund have praised the proposal.
Most mileage tax proposals call for a tracking device in vehicles that, according to the commission, would "function like the GPS devices that million of Americans have already installed in their cars without worry of privacy loss." There are potential privacy pitfalls, but, as the commission wrote, "such systems can and should be designed to fully protect travelers' privacy." The trackers could be designed so that the government would only receive information about how much a driver owes, not where the driver has traveled. Reassuringly, a successful mileage tax pilot program in Oregon protected drivers' privacy.
In leaping to quash any further discussion of a mileage tax, Obama spokesman Gibbs was more likely than not doing the bidding of some higher-up adviser wary of blowback from the political Right. But Team Obama's Old School move has had exactly the opposite of its intended effect, as indicated by the reaction from Chairman Oberstar and the national dialog that has ratcheted up following the issuance of commission's final report.
If Oberstar is as serious as he sounds about continued examination of a VMT, the next logical step would be for Congress to include robust funding in the reauthorized surface transportation bill this autumn for several VMT demonstration projects. The I-5 corridor - crowded and worn, but vital to freight and passenger vehicle mobility - is an especially suitable candidate.
As it happens, in April a national symposium on VMTs will be staged by the Texas Transportation Institute. Leaders of the completed Oregon and Puget Sound pilot projects will be among the featured presenters, as will a representative from Germany, where a VMT for heavy trucks has already been instituted. Also scheduled to speak is a representative of U.S. DOT's Federal Highway Administration. Perhaps the White House should send an envoy as well, to listen, and learn.
The newly-signed federal stimulus legislation includes $8 billion for intercity passenger rail projects - preferably high-speed rail in major corridors connecting metro regions. In addition, as reported by The Politico, the Obama administration will seek an additional $5 billion in high-speed rail funding over the next five years.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has designated six main high-speed rail corridors, all of which would link major metro areas. Here's a map. The corridors are: Eugene-Portland-Seattle-Vancouver, B.C.; San Diego-Los Angeles-Bay Area-Sacramento; South Central; Midwest; Southeast; and Northeast (a.k.a. "Keystone-Empire"). The California High Speed Rail Authority, which last fall won voter approval for $10 billion in bonds to help develop its system, has already prepared preliminary plans for how it would spend a requested $2 billion slice of the high-speed rail stimulus pie. The authority's plans include nine "grade separation" crossings, which employ overpasses or underpasses to separate vehicle traffic and train tracks, and thus eliminate the costly delays that result when their pathways cross.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, the existing Amtrak Cascades route between Portland and Seattle (pictured, right) includes extensions south to Eugene and north to Bellingham, Wash. and Vancouver, B.C. Operated by Amtrak in concert with the Washington State Department of Transportation and the Oregon DOT, the route's ridership hit a record high in 2008, up 14 percent from 2007. Travelers like the alternative to slogging on Interstate 5. WSDOT Secretary Paula Hammond says:
"While we suspect high gas prices last summer helped entice people to try Amtrak Cascades, we think the excellent service and convenience for travelers will continue to stimulate even more growth in Amtrak Cascades ridership. Amtrak Cascades is a great investment for Washington and provides motorists with yet another travel option."
A high-quality intercity passenger rail service offers an alternative to automobile and air travel that can help reduce congestion, energy use, and environmental impacts of highways. If the rail system cannot accommodate frequent and reliable intercity passenger rail service, the State risks losing the benefits of passenger rail as an alternative to highway and air travel.
Against that backdrop, the Commission sounded a warning about the I-5 rail corridor which serves the Amtrak Cascades route, plus frequent freight rail operations, and commuter rail. The corridor, said the Commission:
....is subject to frequent stoppages when trains tie up the mainline to enter and exit the many ports, terminals, and industrial yards along the corridor. Some half dozen sections are chronic choke points, causing delays that ripple across the entire Washington State and Pacific Northwest rail system. The pressure on the rail system will increase in the next decades...many more rail lines within Washington State will be operating at or above their practical capacity....As freight and passenger trains compete for time and space on the rail system, the capacity constraints may also frustrate the service and ridership plans for the State’s passenger-rail program....
Among the policy recommendations in the commission's report:
where public benefits are clearly demonstrated by rigorous cost-benefit analysis, the state should invest in preserving and improving freight and passenger rail systems;
additional private investment in the state rail system which benefits the general public should also be sought.
In an interview aired yesterday on KOMO-AM 1000 in Seattle by reporter Travis Mayfield (mp3 file here), Cascadia Center's Bruce Agnew said the Amtrak Cascades route has good prospects for winning a share of the $8 billion high-speed rail stimulus - and that a slice of that pie could improve service frequency, some route infrastructure, and average speed. The Spanish-made Talgo trains can reach 110 miles per hour but currently average closer to 70 mph due to factors including at-grade crossings, other train traffic, and track condition.
The U.S. Senate and House Appropriations Committees will get an outline within 60 days from U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood on criteria for a national competitive grant program for the high-speed rail funds in the stimulus bill. The funds are then to be allocated to winning recipients within another 120 days.
Over the long term, additional funding will be needed to build a separate freight rail track between Seattle and Portland. Nationally, the stimulus money just approved for intercity and high-speed passenger rail will provide important benefits but also underscores the necessity of state and private investment.
A committee hearing is schedule today for a bill (HB2211) introduced in the Washington State House of Representatives to effectively exclude the Interstate 90 bridge from an east-west bridge corridor tolling plan that would help fund replacement of the dangerously windstorm-prone and earthquake-prone parallel State Route 520 Bridge. The bridge replacement is estimated by the state to cost between $4.6 and $6.6 billion, as the Seattle Times has reported. Both the I-90 and SR 520 bridges connect Seattle with major Eastside job centers and will have to shoulder more traffic in coming years as population and employment grow, even if transit and vehicle trip reduction gain market share. Dropping I-90 from the corridor tolling plan is something with which the state treasurer and a key Senate legislator who has introduced a regional corridors bill, beg to differ. More from today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
The Senate measure (SB549) would create a regional transportation corridor authority in King County that, with voter approval, could impose tolls to finance improvements on SR 520...and I-90. It would permit tolling of both Lake Washington bridges, something (sponsor State Sen. Ed) Murray thinks is needed if enough money is to be raised to finance the 520 Bridge alone. He said world experience shows traffic will avoid tolls on a bridge if there's another nontolled route nearby....Murray said the two bridges are really managed together as facilities that both move people and goods across the lake. "They work together, because traffic on one helps traffic on the other," he said. "You can't solve problems on one without the other."
Former State Treasurer Mike Murphy also said both bridges needed to be tolled in order to finance a new 520 Bridge, and once said he wouldn't sell new bridge bonds unless there were tolls on both spans. Murphy's successor, Jim McIntire, hasn't gone that far but is helping lawmakers analyze the consequences of new tolls. Through a spokesman Wednesday, McIntire agreed it "would be very difficult to finance a new (520) Bridge without placing tolls on both I-90 and 520.".....Murray also thinks the tolls could help finance corridor bus service, which is under pressure in King County as supporting sales taxes decline. The county has proposed a car-tab tax to help it support new bus service.
Never mind Everett Dirksen's alleged remark. A billion is real money. The user fees would be well calibrated and reasonable. Final rates must be approved by the state transportation commission, but the committee summarized a variety of scenarios it studied. One-way rates would be $1.05 to $2.75 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; $1-$2.55 from 7 to 10 p.m.; 0 to 95 cents overnight; and 80 cents to $1.60 on weekends. Bridge passage would carry no toll for transit passengers at any time, or for ride-sharing vehicles of three or more passengers (or perhaps two or more, depending on what legislation is ultimately passed). The real kicker price-wise would be for peak-hour solo drivers, who'd pay $2.15-$4.25 from 5 to 9 a.m. and $2.80-$5.35 from 3-7 p.m. Rates rise as real-time road use does, to keep traffic flowing at 45 mph or more. If a final scenario within the range of those studied by the committee were adopted, then peak-hour solo drivers using the bridges would have to decide if as much as $9.60 a day to guarantee quick passage is worth the cost or not. No costs if ride-sharing, using transit, or tele-working. Lower costs if traveling off-peak.
There's no free ride anymore. The per-gallon gas tax won't be raised much, and isn't buying much anymore, anyhow. User fees are an important piece of the puzzle in surface transportation funding and shouldn't be applied in isolation in a major metro region such as Puget Sound.
King County Metro Reform
Other revenue measures must be considered as well, to help fund transit operators - particularly bus operators, who've been hit by a double-whammy of increased demand but plummeting revenues from sales taxes. At the same time, bus operators, particularly King County Metro, will need to: winnow service aggressively to routes and hours which have the highest percentage of seats filled; seriously consider far stiffer fare hikes than recently announced; focus more on express routes rather than "milk run" locals; and develop a plan to fund important amenities which improve the rider experience, such as mandatory pre-boarding pay kiosks, dual ground-level entries/exits, and on-board wireless Internet service (for a premium monthly fee). Last the region checked, in 2006, scheduled transit's share of daily trips was four percent (second paragraph of p. ES-6, here). That figure likely rose in the last two years but service funding difficulties now threaten continued gains in transit market share. Despite the current tight economy, we'd better figure ways to help our region's varied bus fleet operators adapt and improve for the long term. That must go hand in hand with funding crucial corridor management and infrastructure replacement plans that include time-variable electronic tolling.
Earlier this month, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Executive Ron Sims announced an historic accord to replace the seismically vulnerable Alaskan Way Viaduct on SR 99 along the downtown Seattle waterfront with an inland deep bored tunnel. (The last page of this state summary provides details on all project components and planned funding - the tunnel is expected to cost between $1.2 and $2.2 billion). State legislative approval is required. Now, Washington State Senate Majority Caucus Chair Ed Murray, State Senate Transportation Committee Chair Mary Margaret Haugen (pictured, right), the committee's Ranking Minority Member Dan Swecker, and committee member Fred Jarrett of Mercer Island have introduced Senate Bill 5768 to get the tunnel built. The bill will soon get a committee hearing, and if it clears the full Senate will require passage by the House and final approval by the Governor.
Several other legislators have already gone so far as to publish blog posts expressing their support for the Gregoire-Nickels-Sims tunnel plan. They include State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles and State Rep. Reuven Carlyle, State Sen. Joe McDermott, and State Rep. Ross Hunter. More on the tunnel's supporters - and one very important potential backer - in Olympia from C.R. Douglas in today's Crosscut. Members of the King County Council and Seattle City Council and a broad coalition of business, labor, neighborhood and some environmental groups also back the tunnel plan. The current Senate bill could be amended in either chamber, of course, but as introduced it would:
expedite environmental review and design of a four-lane, stacked deep bored (inland) tunnel which according to state plans would run under First Avenue from near the sports stadiums in Sodo about two miles north to near Denny Way;
approve disbursement of the already secured $2.4 billion in state gas tax and related funds for Viaduct replacement;
require generation of at least $400 million in tunnel funding through tolling the facility;
limit the use of that combined $2.8 billion to building the tunnel and demolishing the Viaduct, with replacing the downtown seawall and creating a waterfront promenade to be funded from non-state sources;
assign to the City of Seattle the costs of public utility relocation stemming from viaduct replacement and tunnel construction;
direct the Washington Department of Transportation to prepare by January 2010 a report to the legislature analyzing the revenue potential of tolling the tunnel, the impact of tolling on tunnel performance, and scenarios to offset or reduce traffic diversion onto other routes caused by tolling the tunnel.
One possible scenario, tolling parallel Interstate 5 through central Seattle, would help minimize diversion, raising additional revenues toward the $2 billion in needed I-5 work identified by WSDOT, and establishing the concept of north-south corridor tolling in west-central Puget Sound. In terms of an evolving regional policy, this could dovetail with a pending option to establish east-west corridor tolling on the State Route 520 and Interstate 90 floating bridges connecting Seattle and the booming Eastside, across Lake Washington.
Tolling of some sort is all but certain to be approved by the legislature on at least the SR 520 bridge as a condition of a federal grant to help fund a multi-billion replacement of the wind- and earthquake-prone structure.
A special SR 520 tolling implementation committee created by the legislature yesterday issued its final report to lawmakers. The committee found broad public support for time-variable electronic tolling on the SR 520 bridge and majority support in the region for such tolling on the I-90 bridge as well. According to the report there is potential to raise as much as $2.4 billion for the SR 520 bridge replacement through tolling both bridges. That's approximately 40 to 50 percent of the total bridge replacement cost.
The report also notes that peak-hour tolling on the SR 520 bridge could improve average speeds from the current 20 miles per hour to 38 mph. Improved peak-hour speeds on the SR 520 bridge are predicted because, given time-variable tolling, an estimated 24 percent of drivers would then either shift to less costly off-peak periods (six percent), transit (three percent), ride-sharing (one percent) - or they would change routes (nine percent spread over three alternates), or destination (five percent).
The projected aggregate shift away of one-quarter of peak-hour drivers following implementation of time-variable tolling on the SR 520 bridge is significant. So are the three-quarters of peak-hour bridge drivers who would not alter their patterns. We cannot wish or hector them into their homes, buses, or ride-share vehicles, nor force their employers to expand tele-work policies.
But further change can be induced through funding increased peak-hour transit frequency in key highway corridors with a full-on system of tolled express lanes, using express buses augmented with pre-boarding automatic pay stations, ground-level entrances and exits, real-time arrival information kiosks, and on-board WiFi connections to the Internet. That last part will prove a huge draw, prompting employers concerned with productivity and costs to more easily see their way to subsidizing large numbers of yearly transit passes for workers.
Accompanying all this must be performance-based measures of improved transit travel times and better inter-modal connectivity, especially for "last mile" travel to work or commercial hubs.
Tele-work will need to grow through employer education, expanded government-funded pilot programs to measure benefits, and perhaps then modest tax incentives.
Another objective is continued development of on-the-fly ride-sharing facilitated by networked communications, one of several big ideas discussed by Microsoft's Chief Environmental Strategist Rob Bernard (TVW video with full transcript at page's bottom, here) during our Cascadia Center's jam-packed September, 2008 "Transforming Transportation" conference in Redmond.
The key conclusions from the SR 520 committee's report are that to manage peak-hour traffic congestion, scarce highway capacity should be rationally allocated through time-variable tolling; and that policy-makers must continue their important efforts - including electronic time-variable tolling - to ensure travelers can select from a robust menu of mobility choices. This pertains not only to Central Puget Sound, but also to heavily-travelled highway corridors in Clark County, Wash./metro Portland, and Spokane .
The unfolding actions to toll the SR 520/I-90 bridge corridor; and to toll the SR 99 tunnel, perhaps ultimately paired with central Seattle I-5 tolling; present a golden opportunity for the state legislature and Gov. Gregoire to continue carving their own broader environmental and economic legacy in 21st Century surface transportation.
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 p. 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'd 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 scarifying 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 piece, already taking shape, is 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 - but even more importantly, help control peak hour use by solo drivers while transit and ride-share vehicles go free. If you're still skeptical, at the New York Times' "Freakonomics" blog 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 nation, which rewards greener vehicles. Some of their policy priorities, in their words:
A Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) based system in which drivers pay for the miles they drive with per-mile rates varying according to location, time of day, and day of week is a technically feasible approach. However, it appears doubtful that one state can implement such a system on its own. While there are serious political challenges with such a concept in the short term, the topic is gaining interest nationwide and is actively being discussed in Washington, D.C. One possible approach ...would be to implement a federally funded pilot VMT-based project on the West Coast - perhaps an I-5 “Corridor of the Future” project. This idea is advocated by the West Coast Transportation Commissions.
Tolling and congestion pricing should be applied over time where appropriate, to transportation facilities as identified in the Commission’s 2006 Tolling Study. (Parts 1 and 2 here). Pricing has been proven to be an effective means to manage congestion, maximize the efficient use of scarce transportation resources, and reducing VMT which carries climate change benefits. Tolling has these effects in virtually all cases in which demand out-paces capacity, including both highways and ferries. Indeed, the recent experience in the United States with relatively high gas prices began to demonstrate the impact of pricing on personal transportation decisions. We must act now to move critical tolling projects forward.
Consider imposing a state carbon tax structure based upon vehicle type. Ordinarily this concept would be a long term notion in this country and in Washington State. However, such taxes are being implemented in other parts of the world and should be acted upon in the near future in this state and nation.
The commission also urges a closer look at strategies including these:
Increase vehicle registration fees.
Reinstitute some form of a value-based vehicle “excise tax” with a reasonable depreciation schedule.
Explore, using cost-benefit analysis, public/private partnership investments in delivering capital construction projects and how such investments can be employed to help shape our economic and environmental future around sustainable mobility.
The commission discusses a range of additional strategies highlighting environmental concerns and the crucial role of transit. Legislators will need to ensure that some judicious share of new road revenues is directed to transit in major metro regions, so that better alternatives exist for those who'd like to sidestep expanded road pricing when their schedules permit.
Drawing on the transportation commission's 2009 policy priorities, Washington state legislators and Governor Chris Gregoire can help pave the way for a new breed of revenue solutions to our long-neglected and growing surface transportation needs. These solutions in turn can help meet - and disperse - the future transportation funding obligations of a state now badly overextended, while simultaneously fueling our economic engine.
In an interview with Ross Reynolds on KUOW-FM - MP3 audio file here - Washington Governor Chris Gregoire said it was "very likely" that tolling would be applied to the new deep bored tunnel planned to replace the seismically vulnerable Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 in Seattle. (A state rendering of the bored tunnel's cross-section is below, right.) At the 3:02 mark, she states:
It's very likely that we will toll. Any mega-project that we do today is having to be tolled because historically we had so much federal money coming in (but) we no longer do...
"There has to be tolling. In any megaproject there is going to have to be tolling...There is no other way to move forward on megaprojects if we don't."
That's an on-target assessment, consistent with the strong support the Governor, some legislators, and the state transportation department have already shown for tolling current and planned projects. Electronic time-variable tolling is on the legislature's agenda this session to help fund replacement of the wind- and earthquake-prone State Route 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington, and that plan could include tolling of the parallel Interstate 90 bridge. A federal Urban Partnerships grant of $138 million for the 520 bridge replacement, with millions more attached for regional transit projects, is conditioned on legislative approval by September 30, 2009 of tolling the bridge.
A recent poll by the state's 520 Tolling Implementation Committee showed significant public support for time-variable electronic tolling on the SR 520 and I-90 bridges, and for starting tolling on the old 520 bridge in 2010. For polling results, see p. 17 of the committee's Draft Tolling Report to the state legislature, released last week).
Electronic time-variable tolling is already underway on State Route 167 in south King County, and electronic and booth tolling are in place on the new southbound span of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. And the governor has helped build support for electronic tolling on the planned new I-5 span across the Columbia River connecting Washington and Oregon, as a funding and peak-hour traffic management tool.
So, electronic tolling, and time-variable tolls, are on their way to gaining a foothold in Central Puget Sound, and in a major bi-state bridge project. And that approach for the deep bored tunnel on SR 99 makes sense - in terms of funding and public policy. The expected cost of the single bored, 54-feet diameter, two level tunnel to go deep under Seattle's First Avenue for two miles is currently pegged at $1.9 billion by the Washington Department of Transportation, though it could be less in the end. (The 14th slide in this WSDOT presentation of 12/16/08 indicated the cost for the single-bored SR 99 inland bypass tunnel could be as low as $961 million. More clarity on costs for all project elements will develop as engineering progresses.)
But for now, additional transit and infrastructure projects for the key north-south travel corridor bring the total package's estimated cost to $4.25 billion. The City of Seattle, King County and Port of Seattle are slated to supply the balance of funding beyond the state's $2.8 billion, pledged by the legislature for Viaduct replacement work. (More in this WSDOT deep bored tunnel project overview - the p. 3 chart details who intends to pay for what).
However, $400 million of that $2.8 billion was shifted to the SR 520 bridge replacement project by lawmakers impatient with this second-time-around Viaduct replacement decision process. It could be yanked back to SR 99, but the crucial, costly SR 520 endeavor needs all the help it can get. Unless the money turns up in a turnip patch somewhere, or is re-allocated to SR 99, the state's $400 million funding gap for Viaduct replacement on SR 99 needs to be filled. It's a real concern to some State Senate Democrats, as the Tacoma News Tribune's Joe Turner reports. Electronic time-variable tolling of the deep bored tunnel, with transit and ride-share vehicles traveling free, will help close the gap. On his blog, State Rep. Ross Hunter, an Eastside Democrat, says he likes the tunnel as long as it's tolled, and really gets built.
Under any circumstances, tolling the tunnel is a smart move policy-wise. In a concession to cost constraints and environmental concerns, it will only be four lanes, not the current six of the Viaduct. But with added transit service (including an up to 25 percent countywide increase in King County Metro bus hours funded by a 1 percent car license tab tax), a four-lane tunnel can prove workable, especially if there are toll pricing incentives to discourage overcrowding during morning and evening rush hours. Usually, it is only at those times and before and after professional sporting events at the First Avenue stadiums that the Viaduct comes anywhere near capacity.
But would tolling the SR 99 tunnel simply divert traffic to parallel Interstate 5?
Not likely. Even with improvements to I-5, SR 99 will retain a strong logistical advantage for many drivers.
Roughly two-thirds of the Viaduct's 110,000 daily vehicle trips are thru traffic bypassing the downtown core, and SR 99's location west of I-5 makes it a natural choice for many drivers in Seattle and points north and south of the city.
Whereas I-5 is now synonymous with congestion through Seattle, SR 99 enjoys a reputation as a breezy alternative. A reduction from three to two lanes in each direction should not alter that, especially if - as noted above - the tunnel is tolled to discourage peak-hour congestion.
Still, there are some access issues causing discomfort, particularly for local truck drivers going to and and from the Ballard, Magnolia and Interbay neighborhoods of Seattle. Under the current tunnel plan they would lose on- and off-ramp access to and from more convenient, west-side routes where northbound SR 99 bends east from Elliott Bay to an inland alignment. Additional entrance and exit ramps to the tunnel to address these concerns are seen at present as too costly, so a surface street route may be necessary for these vehicles (that could change, as talks regarding a tunnel spur to the northwest are ongoing). And unlike the Viaduct, this tunnel will not permit trucks bearing hazardous materials. More here from the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Everybody, including advocates of a six-lane tunnel, gets to give some blood. There's no way a project of this nature can ever win acclaim from all quarters as a perfect solution, but the tunnel's overall benefits to the region will be huge. It will maintain a crucial downtown bypass alternative to jammed I-5, while encouraging options other than solo driving. It will minimize disruptions to waterfront businesses during construction, versus a new elevated structure at water's edge, which would necessitate awkward detours during years of construction while the old Viaduct is torn down. It will open up the downtown waterfront for more recreation, development and commerce, adding huge increments in property values, which in turn will help finance the project and fatten tax coffers for years to come. And it will last twice as long as any new elevated roadway.
Electronic time-variable tolling makes sense not only to manage traffic flows and help fund the new tunnel, but also on some lanes of I-5 in Seattle from downtown to Northgate. This would contribute to $2 billion in badly-needed I-5 work; and help achieve a regional policy overlay on highways and major state routes of tolled lanes with free passage at all times for transit and ride-share vehicles; and for solo drivers, peak-hour premiums paired with off-peak discounts. This in turn would help drive further adoption of transit, ride-sharing and tele-work. But note: That transit piece depends on continued maintenance and expansion of transit services, such as that enabled by the Metro funding in the larger tunnel package.
In embracing the deep bore tunnel Governor Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, King County Executive Ron Sims and Port of Seattle CEO Tay Yoshitani (all pictured above, left) - were spurred by an informed and savvy Viaduct Stakeholders Advisory Committee - and have come together in what is for the Puget Sound region a near-historical political accord on a major infrastructure project.
The tunnel choice is a 100-year masterstroke, and time will prove that out. But let's not develop tunnel vision. A more pressing challenge, which aligns with the green transportation agenda, is breaking away from the piecemeal approach to road and bridge projects, in favor of a consistent regional road pricing strategy for private single-occupancy vehicles. One day that could mean a vehicle-miles-travelled tax on all roads and streets, with off-peak discounts. For now the region and the legislature should adopt a variable-rate tolling policy for some lanes on all highways and major state routes in Central Puget Sound, to alter for the greater good the ways and times we travel here.
Because mere exhortations to solo drivers to "do the right thing," aren't enough.
Though the details are far from settled, a federal economic stimulus package of roughly $600 billion to $800 billion has strong support from President-elect Barack Obama. Congress, including the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrat caucus, is bound to register concern over more borrowing. Still, something will pass and everyone will be grabbing for their share. As much as $300 billion of the stimulus could be set aside for infrastructure, primarily surface transportation.
Hammered by declining tax revenues tied to the economic downturn, plus tight credit markets and growing transportation infrastructure needs, states are feeling needy, and many are voicing great hopes for stimulus package aid.
But the stimulus money has to be spent wisely; and regions and states will have to pitch in themselves, using innovative approaches to transportation finance and funding (about which more at our conclusion, below). Whether the stimulus provides $250 billion, $300 billion, or $350 billion for infrastructure, spread across the nation, it will only go so far. Looking at surface transportation alone - not including other essential infrastructure such as utilities - many major metro regions and states have priority project needs running well into the tens of billions.
The first step, securing congressional approval of the stimulus package and ensuring a hefty share for infrastructure, is vital. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (pictured at right, with friend) explains, in Newsweek:
Our infrastructure is more than just a quality-of-life issue. It is an economic issue. Americans waste billions of dollars while semi-trucks carry goods on gridlocked roads and lose millions of gallons of water in leaky old pipes. We lose time and dollars because our ports are not computerized or modern enough to meet today's demands. Our businesses lose real dollars because our buildings are not energy efficient. This kind of waste raises the costs of everything from clothing to cars to raw carrots. It's clear that the faster we can move people and goods, the stronger our economy is. In short, we are a dinosaur economy trying to compete in a space-age global environment.
...why do we sit bumper to bumper on the freeway for two or three hours in order to get home from work during rush hour?...why do Americans stand in long security lines at the airport, in our socks, just to sit in the terminal for hours as our flights get delayed because of overcrowded airport runways?...we still rely on trains that go the same speed as they did 100 years ago, so our shipping times and commutes are longer than other countries....
...when you think about America's aging infrastructure, we're going to get beat...by our competitors China, India, Europe and Brazil. Travel overseas and you see faster commuter trains, better public transportation, double-decker freeways, and more efficient ports. Meanwhile, infrastructure spending as a share of gross domestic product in the United States has dropped 25 percent over the past 20 years. So, government spending is at an all-time high, while investment in our critical infrastructure is at a historic low. Recession or no recession, our nation desperately needs to update infrastructure that lags behind that of even some developing countries. But it is also true that a recession is the perfect time to put money into long-term investments like massive public-works projects because it creates jobs while pumping up our economy.
Tell it, Guvernator. But how can Congress ensure that the stimulus money for infrastructure - and other purposes - is spent wisely? Some useful guidelines are offered by a national group called America 2050, which tracks land use, climate change, demography, trade and infrastructure, with a focus on emerging U.S. mega-regions. The organization is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, and others. Civic, business, environmental and transportation leaders convened by America 2050 say:
...it cannot be spending as usual. A new approach is needed that establishes a new level of accountability, transparency, and economic and environmental performance for how this country invests in infrastructure projects.
All well and good. States should adopt similar guidelines. Washington D.C. may even figure out some new ways to boost surface transportation spending after the stimulus package is passed, such as this autumn when the surface transportation spending bill has to be re-authorized. Yet in the end states and regions will bear the lion's share of the burden in coming decades for funding surface transportation systems and boosting alternatives to solo driving. That means they will need to move more aggressively on:
regionwide electronic, time-variable tolling;
laying the groundwork for taxing vehicle miles travelled, with off-peak discounts;
investment by public employee and trade union pension funds, and private infrastructure funds in projects which will yield a steady stream of revenues;
"alliance contracting" with performance incentives for teams which design, build, operate and maintain surface transportation facilities - so project delivery schedules can be compressed, quality assured, and costs controlled;
developing better incentives and capabilities for tele-work and ridesharing;
better marrying scheduled public transit with para-transit provided by public and private operators.
In metro regions up and down the West Coast Corridor including Puget Sound these future-facing approaches are vital to regional mobility and accessibility and will require an unprecedented degree of cooperation between city and suburban mayors, state and federal legislators, community, labor, environmental and business interests.
That in turn will necessitate a resurgence of the old-fashioned kind of leadership, one which is less concerned with getting re-elected and pleasing everybody than with getting done what needs to get done.
One of the best ways to get around metropolitan regions without a car....is on the water. And you need not own a boat yourself. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there's an extensive network of passenger-only ferries - they carry people, but not cars. The Bay Area Water Emergency Transit Authority promotes a combined 14 commuter and leisure routes, and is considering more. WETA was created in 2004 to consolidate several long-standing passenger-only ferry routes in the Bay Area, and coordinate emergency response for all. As the "emergency" in the agency's name implies, one focus is being prepared to deploy foot ferries to connect people and places in case of a natural disaster such as an earthquake, or a terrorist attack. Either could decommission roads, bridges and highways. But WETA's main charge is boosting regional daily water transit.
To update the Bay Area's foot ferry fleet, the agency recently took delivery of a new, $8.8 million, 149-passenger twin-hulled catamaran constructed by Nichols Brothers Boat Builders of Freeland, Washington - on Whidbey Island, right here in our very own Puget Sound. The company has built 41 similar vessels since 1982 but the latest iteration is state of the art, as the South Whidbey Island Record reports. Nichols Brothers is already building a second model for WETA, one of three more boats the agency has ordered to date and expects to have running this year.
WETA hopes to have 10 new boats operating by 2025. Fleet expansion and replacement takes foresight and finance. As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, the new vessels are financed by a one-dollar hike in Bay Area bridge tolls which was implemented at the beginning of 2007. The Gemini, which also carries up to 34 bicycles, will initially run between San Francisco and the East Bay.
Meanwhile, the other foot ferry agency in the Bay Area, which also operates the Golden Gate bridge (above at left), has bought for $4 million two late-90s vintage high speed passenger-only vessels from Washington State Ferries. The boats will run between San Francisco, and Larkspur and Sausalito. They were used on the Bremerton-Seattle passenger-only route, which was discontinued because of lawsuits from waterfront homeowners in narrow Rich Passage who contended the voluminous wakes from the boats caused shoreline erosion. That is not expected to be an issue in the more open waters of the Bay Area.
WSF, which continues to operate a badly aging and fiscally-strapped system of car ferries, gradually got out of the foot ferry business (it also operated the Vashon Island-Seattle route) after passage of I-695 in 1999 cut car license tab fees used for funding.
Foot ferries remain in Puget Sound, though. King County has created a foot ferry district - funded by a portion of the property tax - to operate the Vashon-Seattle route, the West Seattle Water Taxi and several demonstration routes which could become permanent, depending on ridership. Bremerton and Kitsap County will test a new low-wake high-speed foot ferry on the Bremerton-Seattle route. The Port of Kingston plans a Kingston-Seattle route. San Juan and Whatcom counties are exploring a Friday Harbor-Bellingham run. Securing full funding is still an issue in each of these last three instances, and shoreline impact challenges remain pressing for Bremerton-Seattle, as Kitsap Transit's Executive Director Dick Hayes writes in the Kitsap Sun.
Compared to the unified approach of the Bay Area, the future for Western Washington foot ferries looks pretty uncertain, and pronouncedly ad hoc. But some sort of unifying regional agreement with additional funding provisions is worth further discussion. This approach could better allow current and future operators to develop - to some degree - shared facilities, equipment, promotion, and management.
In metro Vancouver, British Columbia, a company named Coast Mountain Bus operates, for the regional transit agency TransLink, the SeaBus passenger-only ferry service. Two double-ended 400-passenger catamarans run across scenic Burrard Inlet (one is pictured above) from Waterfront Station in downtown Vancouver to Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver, a community connected to Vancouver and the mainland by the local road and bridge network. Trip time is 12 minutes. A variety of direct transit connections are available at both ends - a bus network in North Vancouver including routes to Grouse Mountain (pictured below) and the Capilano Suspension Bridge; and at Waterfront Station, direct connections to light rail, commuter rail and buses. Two boats, the Burrard Otter and the Burrard Beaver, ply the route. But they are each 30 years old and require maintenance often enough for TransLink to purchase a new third boat to keep schedules on track during repairs and then expand service frequency in 2010.
On the whole, the Vancouver region's foot ferry service, and particularly the Bay Area's, provide an example for Puget Sound. Here, our extensive water highway is used by plenty of lumbering, aged car ferries but precious few of the more nimble passenger-only vessels which encourage broader multi-modal transit use, walking and cycling, and can provide crucial emergency transportation.
The new year is shaping up as the most eventful period in the history of the federal transportation program since the enactment of the Interstate Highway Program more than 50 years ago. 2009 promises "transformational change," to use a currently fashionable phrase. It will be the year in which the transportation sector may expect the injection of an unprecedented sum of money in the form of an economic stimulus. It also will be the year in which the administration of President-elect Barack Obama, a new team at US DOT, and a heavily Democratic Congress will be putting their own stamp on a new multi-year transportation authorization. Lastly, it will be the year in which the federal transportation program is expected to undergo fundamental reform to respond to the changing needs and circumstances of the 21st century.
One key development is the long-awaited report of the congressionally chartered National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission which is about to be released later this month. What follows is a brief summary of the Commission’s findings, based on the open record of the Commission’s public meetings, supplemented by interviews and informal conversations with individual Commissioners. We believe that no significant changes will occur in its key conclusions as presented below.
Multi-pronged Approach
The Commission has concluded that the current federal surface transportation funding structure is unable to generate sufficient revenues to support the country’s future transportation needs. Hence, the nation must begin to shift to a more sustainable system that is able to raise substantially greater revenues. A search for alternative funding mechanisms has led the Commission to focus on the potential of direct user charges, and particularly on a charge system based on vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT). Such a funding framework is consistent with the Commission’s guiding principle that users and direct beneficiaries should bear the full cost and pay more directly for the services they use.
However, a transition to a VMT-based charge system cannot occur overnight, and the immediate needs are simply too critical to wait. Therefore, the Commission will recommend a two-phased approach. To accommodate transportation infrastructure needs in the near and intermediate term (i.e. possibly over the next two authorization cycles), the Commission will recommend a program of incentives to help states and local governments finance infrastructure investments through tolling and other user fees. To enable the federal government to meet its share of capital funding (currently this share amounts to about 40-45 percent of total national system-wide infrastructure investment), the Commission recommends a one-time increase of 10 cents/gallon in the federal gasoline tax and a 15-cent increase in the federal diesel tax, both taxes to be indexed for inflation. In the long term, as the nation converts to a VMT-based charge system, the federal fuel taxes should be progressively phased out. Because of the complexity inherent in transitioning from the current system to a VMT-based system (both institutionally and technologically), the Commission believes the transition process must begin immediately.
State & Local Incentives Program
State and local governments have always been major partners in the funding of transportation infrastructure. In recent times, they have contributed nearly 60 percent toward the funding of highway and transit infrastructure. To enhance their future ability to invest in infrastructure, the Commission will recommend a number of incentives aimed at facilitating the use of tolling and other direct user charges. Specifically, Congress should (1) allow tolling of new highway capacity and of existing Interstate highway capacity in large metropolitan areas; (2) continue and expand the Interstate Highway Reconstruction & Rehabilitation Program which allows tolling of existing Interstates for the purpose of reconstruction and rehabilitation (currently the program is limited to only three projects); (3) authorize pre-feasibility assistance for toll projects and "gap financing" for projects that cannot be fully supported through toll financing alone; (4) reauthorize the existing federal credit (TIFIA) program at a higher annual volume of credit support than currently allowed; and (5) continue and expand the Private Activity Bond (PAB) Program. In addition, the Commission will offer certain observations and make certain recommendations as to how Congress should consider proposals to create a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB). Some Commissioners think the incentives program is a key to getting states and localities to embrace tolling and invest in transportation infrastructure.
Private Sector Financial Participation
The Commission wishes to encourage private sector financial participation where such participation is necessary to get projects to move forward or where it can improve project cost effectiveness and accelerate project delivery. The Commission believes that appropriate governmental controls should be put in place to protect the public interest. Appropriate provisions should be enacted to govern concession arrangements for new toll facilities ("greenfield" projects) and for long-term leases of existing transportation assets ("brownfield" projects).
Federal Fuel Tax Increase
To fund the near-term federal capital contribution to transportation infrastructure investment, the Commission will recommend a one-time 10-cent increase in the federal gas tax and a 15-cent increase in the federal diesel tax (neither of which has been increased since 1993). All future fuel taxes should be indexed for inflation. Part of the proposed diesel tax increase should be dedicated to freight-related investments. The Commission estimates that the proposed tax increases would generate an additional $20 billion per year to the Highway Trust Fund. (This would still leave a $10 billion annual shortfall, assuming a $66 billion annual budget for surface transportation as proposed by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.)
Transition to a VMT-based Charge System
The Commission will recommend that Congress define a clear roadmap for a transition to a VMT charge system as part of the next reauthorization of the federal surface transportation program. The Commission also will recommend a comprehensive program of technology development, pilot test programs and standards development to support the transition to a mileage-based user fee system. Lastly, the Commission will recommen that Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation should initiate and support extensive public outreach to raise awareness and understanding of the need for a shift to a VMT-based charge system. Public support will be essential to a successful transition to a new funding system.
Analysis
Only time will tell how influential the Commission’s thinking will be in shaping and reforming the federal transportation program, and what impact the Commission’s report will have on future legislation. Our own sense is that the Commission’s report will confirm and add authority to the already widely held notion that the current fuel tax-based system must eventually be replaced with a more robust charge system based on vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT). We also think that the Commission’s support of tolling and public-private partnerships will add legitimacy to these concepts and strengthen the states' resolve to expand their use. We hope that the Commission’s proposed program of incentives for tolling and other direct user fees will be embraced by Congress and the Obama administration and contribute to mainstreaming these measures and realizing their full potential as both a source of revenue and a tool of congestion management. As for the Commission’s recommendation for an increase in the federal gas tax, we reserve our judgment. Looming over this recommendation is the almost certain prospect of a massive economic stimulus bill, a sizeable portion of which is expected to be dedicated to infrastructure (a recent proposal by a group of governors would devote $350 billion to infrastructure investments out of a total stimulus package of $675-775 billion or more). Such a huge injection of capital over two years would be bound to affect the need for and the politics of a federal gas tax increase in ways that cannot yet be fully assessed.
An editorial tonight online at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer praises the smart decision by Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Executive to take a harder look at an inland deep bore tunnel to replace the worn out Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 in downtown Seattle.
Could this be the Year of the Tunnel for Seattle? An idea that seemed buried could make a decisive comeback. After being left off a list of two final possibilities for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a waterfront tunnel survived the end of 2008. On Tuesday, Gov. Chris Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels postponed a final decision on a long-term replacement, which they had promised by Dec. 31.
Even on an already-protracted decision-making process, this is a healthy delay. Assuming that a choice can be agreed to within weeks, it's much more important to make a good call than an immediate one. We are glad that Gregoire appears to be looking closely at all the relevant numbers: costs, how to apportion them and how traffic will move....strong arguments for some inclusion of a tunnel option clearly got the governor's attention.
...At this point, a surface-transit option certainly deserves first place. It's the most reasonably priced. Unlike a viaduct and a tunnel, voters haven't rejected a surface plan. But the current tunnel idea, involving deep boring, is quite different from what Seattle voters turned down in early 2007. Gregoire seems to be interested in the advancing technology for boring, which has been used by Sound Transit. Tunnel backers at the well-versed Cascadia Center say costs would be lower than the state estimates.
Tolling and city contributions could help hold down costs. With the economy in the tank, a big state project might be a good idea. Perhaps federal help would be available. Gregoire, Sims and Nickels need to make a good decision based on solid numbers. That will get 2009 off to a good start.
KOMO 4 TV aired a story tonight (user-friendly Flash video link and transcript here) also highlighting the growing momentum for the deep bore inland tunnel option.
Washington Governor Chris Gregoire yesterday announced she'd push back by two weeks a recommendation on how to best replace the aging, earthquake-prone Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 along Seattle's downtown waterfront. But there's more. A top Gregoire advisor tells the Seattle Times that the deep bored tunnel proposal - energetically advanced by Viaduct Stakeholders Advisory Committee members plus our Cascadia Center and the general public - is "probably the most viable option." Deep bore tunneling technology has advanced greatly in recent years and the method is considered highly suitable for an inland downtown tunnel away from Seattle's waterfront. (A tunnel boring machine used for Madrid's M30 roadway project is pictured below, right.) The Times:
OLYMPIA - A proposed tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct is making a comeback. A key adviser to Gov. Christine Gregoire said Tuesday that replacing the viaduct with a deep-bored tunnel "is probably the most viable option" - if the numbers pencil out. The comments came after Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels issued a joint statement saying they would miss today's deadline for deciding how to replace the viaduct and needed more time to study the options. They now expect to make a decision sometime in January, according to the Governor's Office. The reason for the delay? "The interest in the tunnel has led us to take some additional time to study it right," said Ron Judd, a senior adviser to the governor and her lead negotiator on the viaduct.....
Judd said transportation planners will be crunching numbers and talking to international tunnel experts to see if a tunnel is feasible now. "I think the governor would say that if we could make the numbers work, that is probably the most viable option," Judd said. "But that option is going to mean that there has to be a real meaningful partnership with the city and county and Port [of Seattle] to make it happen."
Gov. Gregoire's administration, the Washington Department of Transportation, the project team and SAC members are all to be commended for pursuing an optimal solution for the region and the economy which includes a deep-bored, inland, downtown bypass tunnel on SR 99.
A useful template for the detailed discussions which will continue next week is the state's own breakdown of the costs for either a twin-bored or single-bored tunnel. This WSDOT slide briefing presented to the Puget Sound Regional Council, SAC members and other interested parties on Dec. 16 shows:
A single bored, dual level tunnel could be 54 feet in diameter, with two 12-foot lanes in each direction, and an eight-foot and four-foot shoulder in each direction (see the 9th slide in the above link, they are not numbered).
Tunnel components are defined as work on city streets and at entrance ramps, construction of south and north portals, construction of the tunnel, utilities work at portals, and tunnel systems. Broader "scenario components" for the tunnel include downtown seawall replacement, an Alaskan Way and Western Avenue "couplet" boulevard system, waterfront utilities, surface street improvements, Viaduct removal, transit enhancements, and Interstate 5 improvements (13th slide).
"Tunnel only" costs for building a (two mile long) twin bore tunnel would be $1.24 billion, versus $961 million for the above described single bore version; (14th slide);
Those estimates grow to $2.82 billion and $2.13 billion, respectively, when WSDOT factors in contract and construction management, administration, preliminary and final design, contingency risk, and potential cost escalation (15th slide).
Addition of the above-described "scenario components" raises the figures to $3.5 billion for a double-bore tunnel and $2.8 billion for a single-bore tunnel (15th slide).
Adding in another $1.1 billion in already planned "Moving Forward" projects for improvements to SR 99 at the north and south ends of the existing, elevated Viaduct and elsewhere brings the total to $4.6 billion for the double-bored tunnel and $3.9 billion for the double-bored tunnel (15th slide).
So, to report that the tunnel is estimated to cost $3.5 billion, or $4.6 billion, leaves out a lot.
The state has $1.3 to $1.7 billion left to spend on Viaduct replacement at present. However, additional funds can be raised from:
a local improvement district funded by property owners whose values rise due to the project;
tolling the tunnel (and parallel I-5);
and quite possibly from the Port of Seattle and City of Seattle, which both have a vital stake in regional mobility and access.
The tunnel-only estimates ($1.2 B for double bored and $961M for single bored) can both be paid for within the current budget.
Risk factors can be firmly controlled with a stringent competitive bid process tied to innovative "alliance contracting" recommended by the Washington State Transportation Commission. Under this approach, design and construction can be coordinated by a contractor consortium which is paid in full only if strict performance measures are met, including an accelerated construction schedule and project completion deadline.
In addition, the downward turn in the global economy has resulted in a sharp drop in the cost of construction materials. Contractors are hungrier, as well. This reduces the cost overrun risk, especially if material and labor costs are locked in at something close to current value. Industry-leading professionals could be brought in to manage the project, with pay incentives for cost control.
Discussions in the coming weeks, before the Governor makes a formal proposal to the legislature for Viaduct replacement, are likely to include not only additional funding and financing strategies, but also cost control strategies, refinements of project scope, and a fleshed-out set of next steps. Many or at least some of the "scenario components" could arguably be left out. Even if not, the single-bore version, with the highest assumed level of administrative, design and risk costs, plus all "scenario components," is estimated by WSDOT to cost $2.8 billion, against $1.3 to $1.7 billion in current funds.
As noted above, that gap could absolutely be closed through tolling and a local improvement district, at no added cost to the state. Participants underscored such an approach earlier this month, as reported in The Seattle Times.
The legislature will make the final decision, during a session in which priorities will also include taming the state budget deficit and authorizing time-variable electronic tolling to help pay for replacement of the unsafe SR 520 floating bridge. You could say the stars are aligned.
Excitement over the looming federal stimulus package aside, each of the nation's 50 state governments will be necessarily embracing a "pay as you go" ethic to help ensure high-priority programs and facilities are maintained and built in these trying economic times. In surface transportation especially, the heavy lifting next year and in coming decades will have to be at the regional level.
In terms of congestion management, jobs stimulus, durability, life-span, seismic safety, air quality, and urban design and environmental amenities, the deep bore tunnel option trumps another elevated viaduct or a massive dumping of traffic on surface streets. A full life cycle cost-benefit analysis is the responsible approach.
We've only got one chance. Let's get this one right.
A real consensus is emerging. Last night at the final Stakeholders Advisory Committee meeting on replacement of the earthquake-prone Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 along Seattle's downtown waterfront, Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis and a top aide to King County Executive Ron Sims joined the near-unanimous majority in voicing clear support for more detailed study of the deep bore tunnel alternative in combination with surface and transit improvements. Meeting notes here.
To minimize traffic and business disruption, the viaduct would stand until tunnel completion, and tolling the tunnel would close the funding gap. Tunnel boring technology has advanced greatly, as detailed a year ago at a Cascadia Center expert symposium on the topic. The downtown waterfront would be opened up, not blockaded with traffic or another elevated viaduct. Superior life cycle costs and seismic safety are other advantages of a deep bore tunnel. Credit for advancing the emerging compromise solution - still subject to legislative approval and a clear and workable finance plan - is due to all SAC members.
SAC members Vlad Oustimovitch of West Seattle and Tayloe Washburn of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce detail the argument for the "surface-subsurface hybrid" in today's Puget Sound Business Journal. Thanks to the SAC, the project team, and important research from deep bore tunnel experts convened by Cascadia Center, the message of the tunnel's viability is being heard at the highest levels, regionally. Governor Chris Gregoire is examining the tunnel option. She, Mayor Nickels and Executive Sims will make a recommendation to the legislature by mid-January, perhaps by late December, on a Viaduct replacement.
When the state evaluated eight options for replacing the viaduct, the deep-bore tunnel was the most expensive, at $3.5 billion. But since then questions have arisen about that cost estimate. The Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center, a nonprofit that explores transportation issues in the region, continues to push for a bored-tunnel option - just inland from the Elliott Bay shoreline, which would keep the viaduct in place during construction. The institute has lined up tunneling executives to argue that improvements in technology have made tunnel boring more efficient and that a bored tunnel could be built for much less than the state estimate.
....The Legislature has set aside $2.8 billion for a viaduct replacement. "We're not asking the state to spend one more cent," Washburn said. He said other financing options should be explored, such as regional tolling and a local-improvement district. "This is a 100-year investment, and we've got to get it right. We, the region, need to take ownership with a funding package to pay for the bored tunnel." Washburn said those who would benefit from a viaduct-free waterfront should help pay for a tunnel.
Dave Freiboth, with the King County Labor Council, agreed. "Any notion of going to the Legislature to ask for more than $2.8 billion is in a dream world. That's not in the cards and shouldn't be in the cards," he said. Seattle City Councilwoman Jan Drago said the region is capable of paying for a deep-bore tunnel. The City Council officially supports the surface option, only because the tunnel was considered too expensive. "We have the available tools and authority (to build a tunnel)," Drago said. The region should explore tolling on all area freeways, she said, creating a transportation-benefit district that could collect viaduct-replacement money, a special motor-vehicle excise tax for the tunnel, and a local-improvement district. "I'm very optimistic," Drago said. "What's new here is the region picking up the funding." The state said it will decide by the end of the year which option to select for viaduct replacement. But it's unlikely support for the tunnel option will disappear when that decision is made.
President-elect Barack Obama Friday is to name retiring Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood the next U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary. Though he has served on the House Transportation Committee, moderate Republican LaHood's upside is his well established role as a bipartisan diplomat with close ties to Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, as the Chicago Tribune reports. He'll need to use well the relationships he's built in seven congressional terms. The surface transportation landscape poses big challenges and real opportunities for establishing a new way of doing business. This article about LaHood's appointment, from the New York Times, highlights several important menu items.
Mr. LaHood...has overseen major spending projects as a member of the House Appropriations Committee....The next transportation secretary will face several challenges. One is that the gasoline tax, regarded since the Eisenhower administration as a user fee to pay for building highways, is no longer reliable or sufficient. Gas at $4 a gallon stunted sales and tax revenue, and the Congress had to come to the rescue of the Highway Trust Fund with $8 billion.
With a growing number of hybrid cars, use of tax-exempt ethanol and the possibility of plug-in hybrids, gasoline consumption is becoming disconnected from highway use. When the bill to re-authorize the Transportation Department is considered by Congress in 2009, there will be proposals for a variety of replacement financing methods, including tolls that vary by time of day, possibly using transponders like those now provided by E-ZPass and similar systems. Another open question is the status of rail transportation, both passenger and freight. Many freight lines are now operating at capacity. And Amtrak, strongly backed by Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and spoken of favorably by Mr. Obama, needs cash for new equipment.
All along, Cascadia Center has been advocating for time-variable electronic tolling, as well as plug-in electric hybrids and increased inter-city passenger and freight rail capacity, as well as new ways of funding surface transportation. It's going to be an eventful, exciting time. But even with federal stimulus spending on infrastructure, states that are tens of billions short for roads, bridges, and transit, will have to raise the lion's share of funds at the regional level. Against a backdrop of region-wide time-variable electronic tolling on highways and major state routes, that means more and more emphasis on complementary funding tools such as transportation benefit districts, local improvement districts, performance-based "alliance contracting" and investment by public employee union and building trades union pension funds. Over the long term, impetus will grow for a mileage-based tax on vehicles, with discounts for off-peak travel.
In ways yet to be fully determined, Congress must help pave the way for this new era. The gas tax - for which prospects of a large hike are politically nil - will have an increasingly ancillary role in transportation funding. Many key players at the federal level either realize that already, or will soon.
OK, another hot flash from your (currently) ''All Viaduct All The Time" news channel. Venerable Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly writes for tomorrow's edition (online tonight), "What's Needed Is A Third Option For The Viaduct."
The view here is we are not yet ready to swallow, and could gag on either viaduct option. What's needed is tough, honest analysis of a third option, the combination of a deep-bored tunnel and surface transit. Speed is one factor: Could a tunnel get dug and be open for traffic before demolition of the existing Alaskan Way Viaduct? The city has to avoid, at all costs, the kind of prolonged mess that disrupted and degraded Third Avenue when the bus tunnel was built. The Transportation Department's planners seem to have taken a deep dislike to the deep-bored tunnel option. We've heard sky-high estimates on the cost of going underground.
By contrast, experts consulted by The Cascadia Center of the Discovery Institute have filled my e-mail box with analyses that an inland tunnel option would cost $1.7 billion at most. Don't know who's right. We need a analysis by a neutral team of experts.
Our decision-makers should consult Washington's congressional delegation on whether a tunnel replacement of an earthquake-vulnerable viaduct fits President-elect Barack Obama's definition of infrastructure repair. We could have a ready-to-go candidate for federal dollars. All this requires, in Royer-speak, a little more chewing. But, it a) spares us political gridlock in the Legislature; b)helps us steer clear of clawing in the courtrooms; c) potentially gives us a fast through route for freight and auto traffic; and d) ensures us a waterfront that's not an Aurora Avenue-by-the-sea.
Advocates of the deep-bored tunnel option to replace the seismically vulnerable Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 along downtown Seattle's waterfront, including business and neighborhood interests, rightly stress that the Viaduct serves some 110,000 daily vehicle trips and that the majority of that is "thru" traffic that neither starts nor finishes in downtown. According to p. AWV-5 of this report on the Viaduct, from Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, 60 percent of those 110,000 daily vehicle trips on SR 99 in the project area use the Viaduct as a route through, not to or from, downtown Seattle. This is crucial because if the Viaduct's six total lanes are replaced with surface boulevards including 20-plus traffic signals, plus more transit and an added lane in each direction on the shoulder of Interstate 5 for several miles, Viaduct thru traffic will nonetheless spill onto surface streets and I-5 and worsen congestion severely. More and more so as Puget Sound's population grows by half again in the next 30 years, and total vehicle miles travelled in Washington State rise a projected 54 percent from 2007 to 2030.
Thus the argument, in part, for a deep-bored tunnel which could handle the SR 99 traffic load without obstructing the waterfront like either the envisioned wide, heavily-used boulevards or another elevated viaduct. These are the two options currently recommended for further study.
Some non-governmental advocates of the surface-transit option to replace the Viaduct have been saying that "only 15 percent of the trips are regional trips." This can be misleading if it is understood to refer to SR 99's thru traffic bypassing downtown Seattle, because that is not the case. As this Washington State Department of Transportation document shows (p. 4), 85 percent of person trips through Center City (essentially the downtown Seattle core plus several adjacent neighborhoods) begin or end within a somewhat larger zone known as the "study area," including North and South Seattle. These person trips are on a wide range of streets and roads, on transit and in vehicles, and could be described as more local than regional. Fifteen percent of these person trips don't begin or end in the study area, and are thus considered longer-range, or more regional in nature.
That's all nice to know, and certainly of some use for transportation planning - along with such tidbits as the four percent market-share of scheduled transit for daily trips in the region, last any survey was done (see 2nd paragraph of p. E-6 here). But we're looking at tearing down a crucial portion of a specific state highway that carries 110,000 vehicle trips a day, 60 percent of which are thru traffic bypassing downtown entirely. Sixty percent of 110,000 is 66,000 vehicles a day.
There's a better way. The deep-bored downtown bypass inland tunnel can be built for
$2 billion or less. Nonetheless, to safeguard taxpayers from possible financial risk, a method strongly recommended for greater use by the Washington State Transportation Commission (see p. 9 here) should be employed. This is so-called “alliance contracting,” in which highly competitive bidding delivers a stringent agreement between the public sector and a private consortium of contractors, who must perform project design and construction for a set price within a given timeline or suffer reduced payments.
Facility operations and maintenance can also be included in such an agreement, which is then termed a “DBOM” or “design-build-operate-maintain” project. British Columbia has used DBOM or related approaches successfully to control costs on several new infrastructure projects including a new rail line to the Vancouver airport, a tolled bridge across the Fraser River in metro Vancouver, and the rebuilt Sea-To-Sky Highway connecting Vancouver and Whistler.
Cost controls are one thing, capital is another. If additional financing beyond the remaining $1.7 billion in public monies is determined to be necessary to build the deep-bored bypass tunnel on SR 99, then several approaches should be considered. One is formation of a local improvement district (LID) where property owners who benefit from the project can approve a special levy. A similar approach is formation of a transportation benefit district (TBD) in which a $20 per vehicle license tab renewal fee surcharge can be levied without a vote and a higher amount with a public vote. In either case, electronic tolling of the tunnel could be integrated into the finance plan.
Another strategy that is likely to be viewed as daunting but which holds real promise, is investment from public employee union or building trade union pension funds, provided adoption of a north-south corridor tolling plan covering I-5 and SR 99 in Seattle. With respect to additional financing, we should heed the stated intention of the Washington State Investment Board, which manages numerous state employee pension funds, to invest 5 percent of its substantial capital in infrastructure projects. Jurisdictions across the U.S. are beginning to grasp what Europe, Canada and Australia have long realized: in some instances, innovative approaches to infrastructure contracting and financing are essential to getting road and transit projects built on time and on budget, and built sooner rather than later or not at all.
There is every reason for Washington State to take a leadership role here, not only on SR 99, but also urgently needed improvements to SR 520, I-5, SR 167, SR 705, SR 509, and US 2. Whether through LIDs, TBDs or union pension funds - and while deploying cost-control best practices - Washington State can and must move forward on major roadway projects required for public safety and improved mobility.
Cascadia Center commends the Viaduct project team and the state for all their hard work to date, and hopes that the ongoing dialog around further consideration of the deep-bored tunnel proves fruitful.
Since the recommendation came Thursday Dec. 11 from Washington State Department of Transportation, King County and Seattle officials that the wobbly Alaskan Way Viaduct through downtown Seattle on State Route 99 should be replaced with either a surface boulevard system and more transit, or another elevated roadway, the reaction has been remarkable.
Remarkable because of how much support is being voiced for an option planners have essentially rejected for now, a deep-bored tunnel. Let's survey some of the blowback, which is only likely to grow. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's editorial board today writes:
...several troubling questions have arisen. Does a new, elevated structure really deserve to be one of just two finalists, with its massive commitment to autos and prospect of sealing the city off from its waterfront for perhaps the entire 21st century? For the surface option's waterfront boulevards, why do planners envision stoplights at virtually every block? Can even the most technologically advanced traffic signal synchronization system keep traffic flowing through all those intersections?
Most important, why have government officials tried to eliminate any longer-range option for eventually drilling a deep-bore tunnel should the surface plan wind up quickly overwhelmed by traffic growth? With boring technology advancing significantly, costs may be less than anticipated. And financing mechanisms, such as a regional tolling system, may change the feasibility of a tunnel for the better in the not-too-distant future, if not immediately.
A year-long review of ultimately eight semi-finalist options - conducted with advice of a special Stakeholders Advisory Committee (SAC) - preceded Thursday's winnowing. Next comes a recommendation from Governor Chris Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, before the legislature makes the final choice in its Winter 2009 session.
The rebuilt viaduct option has been deemed unacceptable by both downtown and environmental interests, and the surface solution is unacceptable to both the business community as well as all of the commuters that depend on the Viaduct to get to their jobs....Neither of the two options offer a solution that will garner support from a broad base of constituents, and will undoubtedly once again lead us into acrimonious debate, dividing the region and stalemating the process.
...we all recognize that the most important thing is to maintain our ability to get around....We need to maintain our transportation capacity. The bored tunnel, although slightly more costly than a rebuild is a good investment.
Under the (surface-transit option) if you leave West Seattle and drive through downtown going to north Seattle you will encounter 28 stop lights, a 90 degree turn to proceed through the Battery Street tunnel and a 30 mile per hour speed limit...I am not convinced that another elevated option will solve our transportation needs 50-plus years into the future. This is our opportunity to make Seattle a world class city with a world class waterfront. Building another elevated structure running along the waterfront does not help to accomplish that.
I lean toward the hybrid (tunnel and surface-transit) solution that has been brought forward by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce...I also encouraged the Executives to give a much stronger look at the deep bored tunnel option.....I am not convinced that the cost estimates have been thoroughly vetted and are somewhat exaggerated in materials that we were presented.
..a new Viaduct would represent the worst throwback to poor design in the history of the city and qualify Seattle for architectural booby-prizes for years to come. Such short sighted, single-purpose transportation thinking would consign the harborfront to blight and economic stagnation. After literally three decades of criticism of the present Viaduct, the region would inexcusably replicate the error for our posterity....the all-surface option will fare little better....As mitigation, there are some good ways proposed to improve traffic flow on downtown streets and expand transit use. A new lane squeezed out of I-5 would help, and is needed anyhow. But there is no reason to think such mitigation would begin to suffice in soaking up the existing (SR) 99 traffic flow. It would be an ironic environmental “improvement” that resulted in more clogged, polluting traffic tie-ups on the waterfront.
Even before an all-surface outcome is tested in practice, City, County and State will have agitated the already restive business, trade, and labor communities that consider politicians to be insensitive to what is required to make trade and commerce work on a waterfront. And - just to rev up the lawsuit and initiative process with real passion - the many Seattle area people who merely want to get through the downtown bottleneck as quickly as possible are going to be indignant over the prospect of start and stop, cheek by jowl traffic along Alaska Way.
The fallout is clear. Leading business and labor organizations, as well as international tunneling experts based in Puget Sound and neighborhood leaders, are voicing support for the deep-bore tunnel option, coupled with deep concerns that last Thursday's recommendations are inimical to mobility, commerce and quality of life.
A sentiment to "just do something soon" does not alone make for good public policy. Especially not when a region's economy and the usability of a city's downtown waterfront are at stake. The sooner that business and the neighborhoods can be made to feel that their interests are truly being addressed, the sooner a replacement for the Viaduct can actually be built.
