Transportation

Because being there is what's most important, WPC's Center for Transportation researches and analyzes the best practices for relieving traffic congestion by recapturing a vision of a system based on freedom of movement.

Research Centers / Transportation / Research Centers / Transportation / What's New

What's New

Travel Times Across I-90 Could Climb Significantly

May 16, 2008 in Publications
By

Michael Ennis, Director, Center for Transportation, & Sarah Rindlaub, Past Chairman

, May, 2008

Mercer Island residents should be worried because current transportation planning could force travel times across I-90 to climb significantly higher.

Note to Seattle....Britain's reversal on congestion pricing and pollution fees

May 5, 2008 in Blog

A centerpiece in Boris Johnson's campaign to unseat the incumbent mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, was the mayor's proposal to expand the city's congestion pricing scheme.

Livingstone implemented a £25 charge on high polluting vehicles, entering the city. The CO2 fee is on top of the £8 congestion pricing fee. Using an exchange rate calculator shows the charge for someone driving an SUV into London is about $65. For someone who worked downtown everyday, the charge amounts to about $17,000 per year!

Boris Johnson ran on the platform of reforming the congestion and CO2 charges. This from the BBC:

Once installed at City Hall, Mr Johnson will be able to start his plans to
reform the congestion charge, another high profile part of his election
campaign.

Last month, the state of New York took a page from Johnson's strategy, killing Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal, which was modeled from London's scheme.

Locally, the Seattle Times recently ran a story highlighting a new study that claimed widespread congestion pricing could reduce congestion. And other notable policymakers are on record supporting such a scheme here. 

But with 42% of the vote, Johnson defeated the incumbent (36%) Livingstone. This stunning reversal demonstrates that congestion pricing and CO2 fees are not popular with voters, who only have so much tolerance for higher tax burdens. 

More on the Baffling Economics of Transportation Policy in Washington State

May 2, 2008 in Blog

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the cost for China to build a 22 mile, 6 lane bridge was $1.7 billion. That translates to about $12.8 million per lane mile.

The cost per lane mile for the 6 lane, 6 mile 520 bridge replacement is about $122 million. That means China is able to build one lane mile of bridge for 950% less than Washington officials can.

Consider the following chart, which shows the cost differences (inflation adjusted) between three major projects. The green bars represent the cost of the original structure and the red bars represent the estimated cost of a new structure.

Bridges_3

 

There are generally two drivers of
costs in transportation projects: natural and non-natural. Natural cost drivers
occur as a result of basic economical principles. They include inflation,
material expenses, and higher costs for new technologies.

Unnatural costs are governmentally
created policies that artificially inflate costs on transportation projects.
These policies do not occur naturally and are implemented for reasons that are
not necessarily required to fund a project. These non-natural cost drivers include
prevailing wages, imposing government-to-government sales taxes, apprenticeship
requirements, inefficient permitting, onerous regulations, and setting aside
money for public art.

These policies are valuable and
serve important political interests. But as we have seen, they can significantly drive up
expenses.

Transportation Taxes Are Up, But Traffic Congestion is Worse

May 2, 2008 in Publications
By

Michael Ennis, Director, Center for Transportation and Justin Bryant, Research Intern

, May, 2008

In Washington, we pay about 50 different state taxes and fees into the State Transportation Budget each year.

In the 1999-2001 budget, Washington residents paid $2.65 billion in state taxes and fees to fund transportation. In the current biennium, residents are paying about $4.18 billion in transportation tax revenue, a 51.2% increase over the last nine years. That means the buying power of Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has grown significantly in nine years. To put this in perspective, inflation over the same time period rose only 20%.

The Baffling Economics of Transportation Policy in Washington State

May 1, 2008 in Blog

Bridge_3
Can someone explain why China can build a 6-lane, 22 mile bridge for $1.7 billion, but Washington leaders can't build a 6-lane 520 span between 405 and I-5 for less than $4 billion?

The first 520 bridge had a cost of about $225 million in inflation adjusted dollars. That means we could build about 20 of the current 520 structures for the same cost WSDOT estimates the new version will cost today.

Upside down transportation planning

April 29, 2008 in Blog

In this oped from the Sierra Club in the TNT, Mike O'Brien and Bliss Moore suggest its time for a littleAlice
spring cleaning:

The public debate on transportation is now in the “messy” stage. With
RTID’s failure at the polls last November, we threw out highway
expansion as the answer to our congestion problems.

Note to the Sierra Club: RTID only comprised between 10%-30% of Prop 1....so referring to Prop 1, as RTID is misleading and a veiled attempt to protect Sound Transit. Furthermore, Prop 1 did not fail because of the roads piece. Polling shows that Prop 1 failed because of costs and it didn't relieve congestion.

As long as policy decisions are made on spin and delusional assumptions, voters will continue rejecting packages that don't link spending to congestion relief.

Sound Transit misleading voters, again (update II)

April 25, 2008 in Blog

On the matter of Sound Transit rolling back ST1 taxes, Joe Turner raises an interesting question at the TNT's blog:

So, as Sound Transit heads toward another ballot measure, I suppose
it's fair to ask "How many defeats does it take to indicate that voter
approval is not forthcoming?" Proposition 1's defeat was Strike One. Is this a Three Strikes situation?

Since Sound Transit promoted this language in Sound Move as a taxpayer protection, the clause should be triggered with the first failure. Otherwise, it is nothing more than a hollow statement designed to make Sound Transit appear to care about accountability. Since the Sound Transit board would probably disagree with this claim, then they must respect the will of the voters in approving the roll back of ST1 taxes.

Sound Transit misleading voters, again (update)

April 25, 2008 in Blog

There have been some questions about the quote from Sound Transit on whether they really said they would roll back ST1 taxes if an ST2 failed. So here is a document that includes the quote....its the last paragraph and you may need to click on the image to zoom in.

Interestingly, Sound Transit used virtually the same taxpayer protection clause with Prop 1...saying that if an ST3 ever failed, they would roll back ST2 taxes. Now we know how little they meant it.

Untitled_11

   

Sound Transit misleading voters, again

April 25, 2008 in Blog

These (PI, TNT, Times)articles summarize the two proposals Sound Transit is considering for a second attempt at the ballot.

First, as part of ST1, which passed in 1996, Sound Transit said this:

Any second phase capital program which continues local taxes for
financing will require voter approval within the RTA District. If
voters decide not to extend the system, the RTA will roll back the tax
rate to a level sufficient to pay off the outstanding bonds and operate
and maintain the investments made as part of Sound Move.

Since voters rejected ST2, Sound Transit must roll back ST1 taxes to O&M levels. If Sound Transit moves forward with another ST2 program that contains ST1 taxes, then Sound Transit is violating the tax payer protection clause voters authorized in 1996.

Secondly, Sound Transit has claimed they would propose an ST2 program that is smaller than the first. Yet, one of the two proposals imposes the exact same sales tax increase as Prop. 1 (.5%). This translates to about $125 per family within the Sound Transit district, which is the same as Sound Transit's first attempt.  Based on their pattern of choosing the most expansive option, Sound Transit is not set to propose a smaller package. Rather, Sound Transit is likely to choose the one that is exactly the same, which of course was rejected by voters.

Just the facts, please

April 24, 2008 in Blog

Over at HorsesesAss.org, Jon DeVore uses the typical attack the messenger strategy to criticize WPC's work. Specifically, our recent study on the performance of the six existing light rail systems on the West Coast and this editorial in The Columbian.

Note to HorsesAss: the last time I checked, 2 + 2 still equals 4.

No one can escape the fact that light rail across a new Columbia River Bridge would add over $1 billion dollars to the project costs. This means adding light rail would increase costs by 40%, but only serve between 2.4% to 9.8% of all bridge crossings by 2030. That presents a significant gap between public costs and public benefits.

There is a better way: maintaining the current transit configuration (rubber-tire buses) across a new bridge would carry just as many transit riders as light rail or BRT, yet cost a billion dollars less.

But of course, DeVore doesn't address these facts and only engages in an Ad Hominem attack. The people of Clark County deserve to know both sides of an issue when public dollars are used.