Way too much detailed reading.
Common sense tells us that a new lane relieves congestion. Simple. Almost everyone who drives says the same thing, “This road is always backed up. Why can’t they make it [bigger/better/wider]?”
At a transit forum hosted by Dave Ross, I attempted to make a simple (at least I thought it was) comparison, and he replied (after his eyes glazed over) “By this time, you’ve lost half of my listeners!”.
Since I was so immersed in the transportation process at that time, I figured I WAS simplifying the argument.
Although, be careful, if you make the point TOO SIMPLY, it then becomes a target for those opposing your point of view. For instance, take the statement describing “induced demand” for freeway lanes – “Build it and they will come”.
Sounds good to transit supporters, but road warriors will dismiss it, and the data behind it.
Even when I was deep in the analysis for I-405, I still didn’t have the clear mental picture of how, what, why, and where (and when, come to think of it).
But here is one approach that started forming a more cohesive picture.
Start by going back in time, when PRIVATE COMPANIES ran the transit systems. That alone tells you that, at minimum, transit PAID FOR ITSELF (and presumably generated a profit). What put them out of business? Government funded highways. Except for a few major roadways back east, no investor came along and built a parallel roadway, and charged a fare to use it. Since the government used various tax sources (in addtion to gas taxes) to fund these roads, it would stand to reason that road building was a socialist redistribution of resources. Social Engineering!
So when someone proposes that more lanes are the answer, simply ask for the ‘business plan’. How will it make money? Or at least, pay for itself.
There really aren’t many numbers you have to internalize to make the argument for transit.
1 freeway lane carries 2100 vehicles per hour uncongested (defined as 45mph avg).
A congested freeway lane, at maximum carries 3100 vph (35mph avg).
In order to decongest a freeway lane, you only need to draw 1000 ‘riders’ from that lane.
Now the Induced Demand portion of the equation comes into play. If people see uncongested freeways and decide to make a trip, (i.e. those who come when you build it), they clog up the ‘congestion reducing’ capacity of that new lane. For the I-405 analysis, it was set at about 1/3.
So your new lane will really only pull over about 1500 vehicles. Works if you only have a 1-lane-in-each-direction freeway. Most freeways I’ve seen have 2.
Solution? Build another lane. Then you take care of decongesting the 2 lanes, and have a little excess capacity for future growth.
The other side of the coin is the cost.
Figures we used for 1 mile of freeway lane:
At grade, in the rural areas – $7 Million
In the Puget Sound Region, closer to $11 Million
Elevated – $60 Million
Tunneled – $100 Million
Tunneled, built to Mercer Island standards – $200 Million
In the Puget Sound area, an average freeway lane is around $20 Million per lane, per mile.
Freeway lanes do a better job at relieving congestion because you don’t have to convince anyone (of the 1000 vph) in the adjacent lanes to ‘change modes’, they just change lanes.
Play with these numbers. It’s simple. Just pretend you’re going to be that Private Company that will solve the congestion problems without the big bad government, and think about how you would get ‘new customers’ to use it.
And if you think the gas tax is the so-called “user fee”, then realize that you should only be getting the contribution based on the amount of driving done on your segment of roadway.
And don’t cloud the issue with ‘trips’. You would only get money for gas burned for the miles driven on your new road. If you had a small freeway, with a beginning, an endpoint, and one on/off interchange in the middle the number of ‘trips’ doesn’t matter, since you can’t charge full bore for someone only going halfway.
The cost per mile that people are paying via the gas tax is $.015 (1 1/2 cents)
If you want to look at all-day number, take a page from the SR-520 analysis. The Evergreen Point Bridge carries approximately 130,000 vehicles a day. Generally, there are now about 6 hours of congested commute daily. (The daily use of the lanes is roughly 32,000 vehicles)
Remember, SR-520 is considered congested, but NOT all day. If you have your new freeway there, you won’t be able to draw people over if they are getting the existing roadway for free.
How much will you charge?
How much did the roadway cost? (use 30 years for the lifespan)
When will it be paid off?
Exercise your business sense.
MAKE the road proponents exercise theirs!
Jim
