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October 17, 2005
Incremental Cost of Building Freeways and Exporting Portland’s Road Fees
I would like to explore to issues related to cost of building freeway lanes, the benefits to the transportation system, and who pays.
1) The incremental costs of building out of congestion is inefficient and serves only a small number of people, making the cost per user extremely high.
2) Personally, I rarely sit in traffic and do not need increased freeway capacity. Therefore my payments, including licensing, registration, and gas taxes will go towards building freeway lanes and road capacity that do not serve me. In fact I am subsidizing suburban development.
Discussion
Too many people driving during a peak time is the reason for traffic congestion. A new freeway lane would only add real capacity during two or three hours per day. How many users is that?
A typical freeway lane will carry approximately 2,100 cars per hour. And since the average vehicle occupancy is 1.2, we’re talking 2,520 people per hour per lane., or approximately 6,000 users. If freeway lanes cost up to $25 million per mile, the incremental cost per user is $4,167 per mile.
At the same time, I rarely sit in traffic congestion. Well sure, I bicycle to work most days, however I do drive, I drive to Salem as a lobbyist, to meetings, conferences, to visit the Oregon Coast, and even sometimes for shopping. However I almost never sit in traffic congestion because of my trip-types. For me, I don’t need the freeways expanded.
Others however do sit in traffic. One solution is to build more roads. However economists using their math realize that existing capacity is being used inefficiently and developed the concept of “congestion pricing.” Pricing is a tool to that puts a premium cost on a limited roadway supply in order to reduced demand in order to alleviate congestion and increase overall efficiency. The pricing would put the expansion costs squarely on all users, but especially these 6,000.
So, is it efficient to build more freeways?
Are urban core folks subsidizing suburban folks?
How does freight play into this picture?
Who can answer my questions?
Posted by Scott Bricker at 11:15 AM
Comments
October 17, 2005 12:56 PM
nathan Says:
It is my opinion that those that choose to live in the suburbs should pay for the additional costs associated with that lifestyle, including, of course, roads.
Freight is an altogether different matter, and some effort should be made to seperate it from commuter traffic, either in terms of cost or in terms of actual infrastructure.
October 17, 2005 11:36 PM
Peter W Says:
This is a good subject to bring up, considering the upcoming meeting about the proposed expansion of Hwy 217.
The 217 project would cost about $500 million, very little of which is available currently (in fact, without additional funding sources like property tax or tolls the project won't be able to be completed until the year 2086).
I don't think that widening 217 (or any highway for that matter) will really alleviate traffic in the long run. As they widen the roads and keep traffic flowing it will only continue to encourage and support people who live very far from where they are working. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the gov't took a minimalist approach to the problem and simply left the highway as it is; over time I think people would either get used to sitting in the traffic they created or they will use better options like biking or taking mass transit.
Does anyone have info or links to info about what percent of tax money is spent on transportation projects?
October 18, 2005 11:59 PM
user Says:
Scott,
Do you also believe that transit users should pay for the real cost of mass transit?
