Creating Space: Get Serious About Toronto Cycling, Part I

In a speech given 9 October 2009 at the National Club in Toronto, Yvonne Bambrick, Executive Director, Toronto Cyclist Union, presented an idea to replace street parking on one side of an oft-biked city artery (Queen Street) with a two-way bike lane.

For those of us who drive, we can imagine the loss of several kilometers of street parking to mean longer searches by circling for on-street parking, more congestion, and further walks to our favorite restaurants and shops as we park ever farther away from our destination.

For those of us who bike, the idea sounds fair. During peak hours, each bike takes either 0.83 cars off our congested streets or one rider off our crowded subway, while each parking spot adds one more car. Sounds exciting and sensible. But realistically the ‘cars-first’ habit of operating in Toronto society makes this idea seem remote at first blush.

Fortunately, there is a way to replace several kilometers of street parking and make Bambrick’s bike lane idea work – all while being kinder to cars and business along Queen street – or other similar arterial. It is possible to have more and safer biking in Toronto while improving automobile access and reducing congestion all at the same time. To do this requires a relatively modest change – miniscule in comparison to Metrolinx’s 25-year, $50B Big Move or the City of Toronto’s Herculean target of an 80% reduction of our greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In fact, such a modest move as I will describe below would contribute to both of these grander goals showing the world and ourselves that moving toward such changes is possible.

First, consider that there are more parking spots available than are publicly or freely accessible to visiting cars. This parking is in many hundreds of small segments (four to 20 spots) that may be privately owned by banks, shops, churches, service stations or is on-street one or two blocks off of the main arterial and is managed by ‘no parking’ signs, extremely limited availability, ‘one-hour free’ parking, being chained-off, or enforced by tire marking and ticketing. This ‘other’ parking produces little or no revenue for its owners or residents, generates a spillover enforcement problem and provides ‘free parking’ for those that know how to play the game. All parties except scofflaws and freeloaders lose in this scenario.

Private, dedicated-commercial and residential parking is managed this way for two reasons: (a) it is intended for the customers or employees of those businesses or for the residents of those streets, and (b) the cost in effort and equipment to rent those few spaces when they are not used for their primary purpose, using market pricing makes it infeasible to do so.

This second issue – management expense – is critical. I am told that in North America about 70% of all parking revenue is absorbed by infrastructure, enforcement and collection costs. Granted, some of this due to under-pricing, but some is also due to the sheer expense of the machinery and people required to take one or two dollars from you. Parking is painfully expensive to manage (and the transaction cost makes it painful to use!) - all of which helps keep underpriced, overcrowded street parking in place. A certain formula for non-livability, 20th century parking management is as physically inefficient as it is economically and socially inept.

This serves to ensure that there are very many spots or small lots that could be sold for short-term parking but are simply made unavailable because they are not profitable to manage and create a liability, loss or nuisance if used unmanaged.

It is possible, using new, anonymous, satellite-based, "smart meters" to manage those small parking areas in a way that protects the interests of visiting motorists, residents and business owners. Developed in Canada, these in-vehicle payment management systems require no curbside meters for parking and no 407-type gantries for road tolling. Such a system would be set up to reserve sufficient free parking access for customers and residents while charging market rates to non-customers and non-residents in replacement for the lost street parking.

Second, consider that the reason street-parking is often fully occupied for long stretches of each day and on each street is a supply-and-demand problem exacerbated by two, long-term, opposing municipal policies: constrain automotive infrastructure to reduce automotive use (see ex-Mayor Crombie’s comment in transcript) and keep on-street prices low to make sure street parking is affordable for visitors.

There are a lot of good reasons for both of these policies. But the unintended results include congestion, emissions (while circling), less room and less safety for bikes and less livability.

Making more market-priced parking available, both on-street and off-street, on existing pavement can:

1. Benefit business both in attracting customers and in receiving payment for their unoccupied spots
2. Make dedicated two-way bike lanes feasible without making parking less available
3. Increase bike safety
4. Provide new business for private and municipal parking operators to manage new parking inventory
5. Improve the local funding base by keeping additional parking revenue in the community
6. Provide income for churches and other charities that may participate.
7. Provide a way to remove most costs from street parking operations.
8. Reduce demand for sidewalk-crowding pay-and display machines

Parking management is one of the most underappreciated urban opportunities we have. Since 2002, it has been my goal to make it possible to charge on all (or many more) streets without curbside meter collection and enforcement, to provide MORE off-street parking by repurposing the private spots already built (i.e., without increasing land-use), by allowing these private lots to charge for use by non-customers. (Imagine a banking lot sign: 30 minutes free parking. For satellite meter users: 8 cents per minute after 30 minutes, 2 cents per minute after closing (5pm) and on weekends).

There is a dangerous tendency to set bikes against cars or drivers against transit users or even the CAA against Transportation Demand Management professionals. Such a Car-Wars mentality serves no one except unscrupulous news sellers. All modalities are appropriate and needed. We are missing only a balance. Addressing the combination of too little parking, underpriced-parking, wasted parking potential, and street-parking-at-the-expense-of-bicycle-access-and-safety is a place to start.

Next: Funding: Get Serious About Toronto Cycling, Part II

Wicked Problems: Part I, TRAFFIC CONGESTION

Peter Gorrie at the Toronto Star asserts that traffic congestion is a wicked problem. Is he right?

A ‘wicked problem’ is a phrase used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.

Says Laurence J. Peter: “Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.”

The following comments prescriptively follow the opening chapter of a book by Dr. Jeff Conklin called “Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems”. While the architecture of the argument and indeed many of the passages forming the matrix of the discourse are Conklin’s, the assertions and analysis are mine. So, in a fundamental way, this series is jointly authored, but the blame for errors and weak assertions rests solely with me.

Wicked problems, according to Jeff Conklin, have six critical characteristics:

1. You don’t understand the problem until you have developed a solution.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.
4. Every wicked problem is essentially unique and novel.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a 'one shot operation'.
6. Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.

PART I: CONGESTION

Let’s look at congestion through the lens of Conklin’s six descriptive characteristics to assess whether Peter Gorrie is correct.

1. You don’t understand the problem until you have developed a solution.

Many solutions are proposed to solve congestion. More roads, more transit, fewer trips, car-pooling, higher density, eat local, telework, smaller cars, roundabouts, removing stop signs, synchronizing signals. The list is very long.

The innumerable ills of congestion are well described, and a great number of solutions have been offered, but we have not tried a solution that has taken hold and that shows more than a temporary or local relief such as the London Congestion System or continuous-flow intersections, respectively. Perhaps this is because the greatest determinant of congestion – an increase in the number of cars – continuously overwhelms our otherwise sensible, local solutions to keep up.

Every solution offered eases the problem a bit while exposing new aspects or another layer of the problem. A new lane invites more traffic. A new transit service or an HOV lane is underused. An increase in bicycle use creates a safety issue.

Perhaps congestion is not necessarily the problem we should tackle, but rather just a symptom of problem we could solve. So what is the problem? To say ‘too many cars’ states the obvious. To say we feel entitled to a private vehicle or that we ‘have earned it’ or prefer it to another mode of travel says why the problem is entrenched, but does not lead to a solution. To say we ‘ought’ to change our travel choices (carpool, bike, transit) moves only a small minority to change.

To say ‘driving is not correctly priced’ may help but that changes the problem domain completely exposing a host of other problems. I will return to this in Part II because it is its own wicked problem.

While there are thousands of papers decrying and detailing the problem of congestion there is no single agreed definitive statement of ‘The Problem.’ As a problem, traffic congestion is ill-structured, a complex and arguably evolving set of interlocking issues and constraints. Horst Rittel said, “One cannot understand the problem without knowing about its context; one cannot meaningfully search for information without the orientation of a solution concept; one cannot first understand, then solve.” Moreover, what ‘the Problem’ is depends on who you ask – different stakeholders have different views about what the problem is and what constitutes an acceptable solution.

This tells us that there is no ‘perfect solution’ or even one good (in every sense) solution to congestion.

2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.

Since there is no definitive ‘The Problem’, there is also no definitive ‘The Solution.’ The problem solving process ends when you run out of resources, such as time, money, or energy, not when some optimal or ‘final and correct’ solution emerges.

For congestion, no ‘The Solution’ has yet appeared. It is hard to envision a solution that we would like that has the roads we have be enough for the cars we want to use.


3. Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.

They are only ‘better,’ ‘worse,’ ‘good enough,’ or ‘not good enough’ solutions to Congestion. The determination of solution quality is not objective and cannot be derived from following a formula. Solutions are assessed in a social context in which “many parties are equipped, interested, and/or entitled to judge [them],” and these judgments vary widely and depend on the stakeholder’s independent values and goals.

I have yet to read any description of a solution to congestion in an online newspaper article or blog that is not followed by a plethora of varying opinions vehemently for or vehemently against. If you want to increase your facility for insulting other stakeholders, these comments are a great place to start.


4. Every wicked problem is essentially unique and novel.

There are so many factors and conditions, all embedded in a dynamic social, political, geographical and economic context, that no two congestion problems are alike, and the solutions to them will always be custom designed and fitted. Rittel: “The condition in a city constructing a subway may look similar to the conditions in San Francisco, say, . . differences in commuter habits or residential patterns may far outweigh similarities in subway layout, down-town layout, and the rest.” Over time one acquires wisdom and experience about the approach to wicked problems, but one is always a beginner in the specifics of a new wicked problem.

Surely, transit works in some urban geographies, but not in others. Sometimes you can add a lane for cars or bikes, sometimes not. Sometimes what you can physically or politically achieve will have no impact in any case.

5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a ‘one-shot operation.’

Every attempt has consequences. As Rittel says, “One cannot build a freeway to see how it works.” This is the “Catch 22” about wicked problems: you can’t learn about the problem without trying solutions, but every solution you try is expensive and has lasting unintended consequences which are likely to spawn new wicked problems.

Many solutions to congestion are large and expensive. Urban rail is a huge undertaking. Is it the best solution? Not all agree. Even if they did, what route should it take? How long should it be? Should it follow the majority path of current commuters or will transit-oriented development make it worthwhile to lay track where no one currently goes?

6. Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.

There may be no solutions, or there may be a host of potential solutions that are devised, and another host that are never even thought of. Thus, it is a matter of creativity to devise potential solutions, and a matter of judgment to determine which are valid, which should be pursued and implemented.

Who can say that we have thought of all solutions to congestion? In any one location we visit, we might be surprised at a local solution. I was recently in Springfield Missouri, and was surprised to learn of the effectiveness of a continuous flow intersection. This system, which I had never seen before, is now projected to reduce gridlock delays by over 70% rather than the original 32% projected.

So, I would say Peter Gorrie was right.

See the entire whitepaper, here.

Americans Don't Like Being Tracked

Good that this kind of poll is being conducted. Privacy is complicated. It is critical, sacred, protected, violated, dangerous and for sale. A lot of what we worry about does not matter, but other things we don’t know about do. Online privacy is only one of many privacy issues, but because it is bigger, faster and invisible (to many of us) it may be more important than other potential infringements. I tossed my PC and moved to Mac because I was spending precious time each day running spyware and other malware filters. My time was more valuable to me than privacy – in that case. But I am also glad not to be watched – or watched less, because my IP address is still watched by site visits.

Privacy shields will continue to grow in importance. As we eventually move away from fuel taxes to charging for road use by miles traveled, devices to meter your road use will need to be designed so that your location information is private. The EU is looking at this now and privacy commissioners there are insisting that location data never leave your vehicle. Ever. If technology is designed to prevent that completely, then you can drive anonymously, as you do now (excepting that your license plate can be read by a camera). But that leads to a gap in auditability. That can be addressed by writing to your handheld for only you to read, but that could leave an opening for privacy infringement, however small.

Regardless of what is done technically – legislated or not – we must address the definition of privacy on the road as well as in cyberspace. Roads are public, your use is a privilege, but your trip’s time and route is usually seen as private except partially when violating a traffic rule or driving through a toll booth. Interesting distinctions.

Even internet-enabled meters for power use in your home carry potential threats. Every new wireless – or wired – technology has privacy threats, and we will only be using more such technology.

Consider that the best way to protect privacy may be to set a price on personal data. Imagine that you can ‘dial-up’ what to hide, delete, sell, publish and receive advertisements about. Any commodity with a price will be protected far more carefully than you now know how to protect your own privacy. That will all be very complex so you’ll need a trusted broker to sell/hide that data for you. And governments cannot operate this service.

Does poorly-managed privacy in a consumer society exacerbate the cost to the planet? In a consumer society the cost (waste) in selling to you can be reduced if corporations could target more accurately and you would be exposed to less nuisance (waste of time, junk mail, spam).

Privacy Commissioners have their work cut out.

Nine Lives of VMT Fees

A 150-page US study, “Implementable Strategies for Shifting to Direct Usage-Based Charges for Transportation Funding”, commissioned by AASHTO through the National Cooperative Highway Research Program was released early in September 2009. The NCHRP study, conducted by the RAND Corporation with the University of Minnesota answered the question: “How can the US deploy VMT fees by 2015?”

Only 20 months prior, the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission published a two-year, 258-page report that called for a fuel-tax increase and indicated that we eventually need to start thinking about VMT charges as a user-fee in lieu of fuel taxes. VMT fees were so remote for this Commission that the then Secretary of Transportation and Commission co-Chair, Mary Peters – who appreciated that they could not be forestalled much longer – wrote a dissenting view with two other of the 12 commissioners that stated that the gas-tax was unsustainable and that VMT fees need to be looked at more critically.

In February 2009 – 13 months later – a second US congressional body, the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, published another 2-year, 235-page report. This one was more assertive about the VMT fee idea, essentially agreeing with Peters’ earlier dissenting view. In little more than a year, the US thinking went from “Raise the gas-tax now and consider VMT charging someday” to “Start thinking about VMT fees in time for 2018, and raise the gas-tax as an interim measure.”

The message contained in the NCHRP report from last month was alarming by comparison: “Here are nine ways to implement the VMT charge by 2015”. By comparison, a fuel-tax increase was treated as ‘nice-to-have’.

Buried on page 120 is the single, clearest evidence of political mischief I have seen regarding fuel taxes and road user charging: “If there is a major need for short-term revenue, it is not clear how implementing a poorly thought-out VMT fee is superior to raising the gas tax. There is a lot of room to raise the gas tax without affecting behavior… However, Congress seems very focused on what they can do besides raise the gas tax, such as implement a flat VMT fee based on average mileage.”

That statement, which I was greatly relieved to read, should be highlighted in your copy. I hope it gives enough pause to policy makers to recognize that the single greatest mistake the US can make now is to kludge its way out of a congested, under-funded, oil-dependent, gas-tax-broken, surface transportation mess with a pure VMT charge and assume it can be retrofitted for congestion management later. The United States would be better served by an effective time-distance-place (+vehicle-type) charge scaled to address the funding requirement.

15 sec promotions for transit reform

Easily some of the best 15 sec promotions for transportation reform I have seen.

Funding
Congestion
Million
GHGs
Cars

Thank you, Translink.
Wish Toronto's Metrolinx would run these...

Perfectly Shapeable Charge

Chris Davis, over at blogs.discovery.com recently wrote one of the more intelligent pieces on the contentious subject of road pricing. As evidenced by the comments made to his post, one of the problems with this discussion is the number of variables that need to be considered.

1. The move to improved or alternate power plants makes the gas-tax less useful every day. Mary Peters put it best: “Relying on the gas tax is like relying on cardboard to keep the rain out – the longer you use it the less it works.”
2. Taxing the resource (oil) we want people to use less of in order to fund our roads is plainly shooting ourselves in the foot as is funding hospitals solely on cigarette taxes.
3. Are we trying to fund roads? Then we can tax anything you’d like such as property tax or sales tax as is now done in some jurisdictions (a great congestion-builder, by the way).
4. Are we trying to manage congestion? Then tax by time of use, distance driven and place of use (TDP).
5. Are we trying to reduce emissions? Then tax road use by vehicle type/size.
6. Are we trying to move people to electric cars? Then tax gas AND roads.
7. Are we trying to balance the damage from trucks? Then charge trucks more (to be reflected at retail anyway; sorry, Virginia, no free lunch).
8. Are we trying to open highways for more effective commerce? Then charge cars more.
9. Are we trying to get people to use transit or walk or bike or telework or move closer to work? Then charge by time of use, place of use, and distance driven.

If you want to do all of these things in some reasonable measure, then Time, Distance and Place (TDP) charging is your ticket – your only one. The technology now available to do this can be made private (even anonymous), and can handle parking, insurance, driver rewards and credits and a dozen other user-attractive features, so that the cost of metering for road-use charging can be reduced to the current cost of collecting gas tax.

The fact that the gas tax is unsustainable is incontrovertible. We can patch it with an increase. We can even index it to the cost of road build and maintenance (that would be an astonishing achievement wouldn’t it?). But as soon as we reach 10% fleet electrification (which is coming in the decade after next – if not sooner), then what?

The gas tax simply will not work much longer. Far-sighted organizations like James Whitty’s ODOT are asking “How can we prepare for that?” ODOT’s and Jim Whitty’s work has been pioneering as has Puget Sound’s and Matthew Kitchen’s. Is this work perfect? No. Does anyone have the perfect answer? No. Can we diddle the gas-tax to get there? Not for long. Can the current administration side-step this? Maybe.

Can the next one?

The Return of Gridlock

Anthony Downs (Brookings) wrote in his book Still Stuck in Traffic that a good recession is the best cure for congestion. Dude was right. Seems that gridlock may be on its way back to us...

Locational Privacy

Andrew Blumberg and Peter Eckersley are right to be concerned about your privacy. They are wrong that GNSS-based road tolling systems naturally invade your privacy. They don't need to. In most countries, they won't be allowed to.

My reply to their concerns:

I agree absolutely that privacy, and specifically locational privacy should be guarded. ... In the EU (one of the regions that constrain our [GNSS-road-tollling system] designs), location data is generally not allowed to leave a vehicle in the case of the private automobile (not so for commercial vehicles – yet). This problem is easily solved by moving price map segments to the vehicle and calculating usage fees (based on time, location and place) inside the vehicle. In one extreme, what comes out of the vehicle is an encrypted message that effectively lists the road authorities to whom money is owed and how much – never when or where the vehicle used their infrastructure. In some jurisdictions, we are not permitted to re-use location data, in some we can build aggregate O-D maps as long as we destroy end point data that could be used for inferencing location.

However, even with these constraints a person living in Pennsylvania who takes a trip into New York might have on their bill, which is discoverable, a line that says they paid money to a New York road authority. Even if the bill does not disclose where or when the vehicle visited New York, it is still evident New York was visited. If this is a problem, do what is done in Singapore – pay in the vehicle with a smart card. All that remains to do in that case is to tell an enforcement authority that that vehicle has paid it’s bill, and no one needs to know it ever visited New York. Location data in the telematics memory can be deleted immediately on payment, and if the user has a prepaid account the location data can be deleted ongoingly, just like your Garmin forgot where you were a few seconds ago.

I submit that autonomous, self enforcing, satellite-based systems that pay privately and do NOT permit location data to escape, are most private – there is NO need to track vehicles for the purpose of road taxation any more than I should be tracked because I have a Garmin NUVI on my windshield. Tolling systems using license plates, RFID, DSRC are less private than properly designed GPS-based systems. It is these systems that we should watch, as well as the privacy design components of satellite-based systems.

Do economists reach a conclusion on road pricing?

Robin Lindsey finds that on the main issue of using pricing to manage congestion, there is a strong consensus among economists working in the field. But there is little consensus on secondary issues—how to price road usage, whether to subsidize, whether to earmark revenues, whether to privatize. The conclusions at page 384 on, are important to note. From...

Hybrids, eh?

So far, the edge hybrids promise isn't. As with a lot of things that lay claim to green-guilt, hybrid hype probably uses more pulp that it saves in GHG.

First, a UBC prof criticizes rebate programs that encourage the purchase of hybrids:

Hybrid vehicles produce scant environmental benefits, high cost

“If the intention of rebate programs is to replace gas guzzlers with hybrids, they are failing,” says Ambarish Chandra, a professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business and study co-author. He says large vehicle sales have risen steadily since the introduction of hybrid rebates.

The study finds that hybrid sales have come largely at the expense of small, relatively fuel-efficient, conventional cars, rather than large SUVs, trucks and vans, which produce substantially greater carbon emissions.

“People are choosing hybrids over similarly priced small- and medium-sized conventional cars, which are not far behind hybrids for fuel efficiency and emissions,” says Chandra. “The reductions in carbon emissions are therefore not great."

Then Seth Zeren over at World Changing starts off a parking article by asking When does a Prius have the same environmental impact as a Hummer? and answers: "The 95 percent of the time it’s parked."

And to cap it off, my favorite London Congestion Charge non-supporter, supporter Mayor Boris Johnson is reported by ITS International to be up some new and inconvenient truths.

Review of London congestion charge rules
Monday 10 August 2009

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and Transport for London (TfL) have announced a review of existing exemptions from the congestion charge for motorists coming into central London, due to increasing pressure from campaigners that the current system is unfair. At present, only electric and hybrid cars are exempt from the charge, while many petrol and diesel-powered cars now have lower carbon emissions than hybrids due to significant advances in technology.

There are 20 non-hybrid cars with lower emissions than a second generation Toyota Prius, which emits 105g/km of CO2. The new Ford Fiesta, meanwhile, emits just 98g/km and the Volvo C30 104g/km. However, there are also hybrids that are exempt but have much higher emissions than most normal cars, such as the Lexus RH450x (148g/km) and GS300 (226g/km). Johnson said that he and TfL are considering changing the exemption rules so that the congestion charge is based on actual emissions, rather than technology.

I am all for more efficient and/or cleaner energy sources. But how will the gas-tax fare by the time we get there?

Resisting the increase in motor fuel tax

After my critique of Congressman Oberstar’s highway revenue comments at Humphrey, a colleague wrote:

… I believe that your support for a VMT based fee and your opposition to increasing the motor fuel tax (a view you share with Ed Regan as a recent article noted and quoted), in my view, are deficient as they fail to relate to goals and objectives. What are you trying to achieve? For example, would a VMT based tax discourage use of petroleum for motor fuel? Would it help get rid of polluting clunkers? Etc. - MH

My objective is to most effectively achieve the tax shift from gas-use to road-use. But my utopia and the US surface transport reality are two different places. There are three ways to argue the “tax the road” vs “tax the fuel” conundrum in the immediate, US circumstance.

Tax the road
This argument, repeated ad infinitum, says that paying by time-of-day, distance, place and vehicle type (IF private, secure and affordable to collect) is the “economic-man” solution – i.e., economically optimal. This needn't be repeated, because the creeping, green-force, electrification of our fleet will turn the tax-ship, rather than the platitudinous Adam Smith arguments. In other words, Obama’s investment in battery technology will do more to force the TDM-pricing-solution than any bleating blogger.

Realistically, “tax the road” – i.e., “tax all the roads, everywhere” – while feasible technically by 2011 (in my opinion, and using now-developed technology), is not feasible logistically for perhaps 3 or 5 years, more importantly, it will not be feasible politically in a single, wrenching shift, ever. The Dutch shift is five years long, hasn’t started, its jury is out, and Holland ain’t America. Even, if I was the president of the United States and both the house and senate were all of my party, it would still take me ten years for the full shift. So “big picture” VMT charging is for the next administration (or the next, or the next, as Oberstar so clearly pointed out in a part I did not transcribe). So while I, Ed Regan and many others may strongly favor this solution, we have not found a convincing path to get there, yet.

And the total progress made since the February 2009 release of the NSTIFC report, taking everything into account, has been zero (not including any incremental profits realized by the pulp and paper industry…).

Tax the gas a bit more
Not only is this the most transparent route and the fairest in the immediate circumstance and it is the one that will happen after about two or three more general fund bailouts – i.e., circa 2011.

Every gas tax increase, every RFID gantry that is installed, and every general-fund bail-out begged and granted, cements the wrong tax architecture in place and delays the day of solution. As Mary Peters put it: “Relying on the gas tax is like relying on cardboard to keep the rain out – the longer you use it the less it works.”

General Fund Bailout
This is the easiest, most uncomplicated, and now-habitual route. It is the one we will use this time and twice more, before a sufficient number of people get that it is unsustainable AND that the problem is not going away.

And I hope President Obama makes me eat my words in his second term.

As to discouraging the use of petroleum-based fuels and clunkers, this is handled by setting different road use fees for different vehicle types -- when the time comes. And if you must, you can still provide incentives.

Oberstar at Humphrey Institute August 2009

Congressman Oberstar, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, spoke at length at the Humphrey Institute on August 5, 2009. A video of Getting America to Work: Opportunities and Challenge in Transportation Policy is here.

After his talk, Congressman Oberstar was interviewed by Lawrence Jacobs, Director of the Humphrey Institute Center for the Study of Politics and Governance. Halfway through that (timemark 53:00), the ensuing few minutes make it clear that the fuel tax will likely be raised and that VMT taxes will be delayed – at least for the next couple of years…

Lawrence Jacobs: Let turn to the revenue issue – that is obviously the big question. There’s a structural deficit now in the … highway trust fund, because you’re getting less of the gas tax paying the needs… it’s partly good news, we have more fuel efficient cars out there, we’ve got alternative fuel sources, you’ve also got obviously less driving during a recession, and you’ve laid out some different options – you’re clearly leaving your own options open as to how things break down, but I’m curious: when you look at the White House, President Obama ran a campaign and they repeated it – he’s repeated just recently – that he’s unwilling to support taxes that land on Americans that earn less than $200,000 a year. Increasing the user fee – the tax on gas – would obviously fall on that part of the population. How’s that going to be resolved?

I found this $200,000 figure startling. VMT tax, if a revenue neutral replacement for fuel tax, is projected at less than $300/year/vehicle or $0 net average tax increase. At perhaps twice this – a net-new $300 – which is what some analysts think is actually needed to balance the books – is about what the average American spends on cigarettes per day. I am hard pressed to see how a driver earning a measly 100,000 per year would be thrown into poverty at a new $1 per day tax burden. Crazy as it seems, I would hazard that the projected savings of “several days” of annual idling in traffic for the average driver should more than offset the $300. What am I missing, here?

James Oberstar: That’s why I brought together all the interest groups, the user groups who have a stake in the outcome to get their input. The US Chamber of Congress testified at the Ways and Means Committee hearings in support of an increase in the user fee. The American Trucking Association has expressed their support for increase in the user fee, including indexing it to the construction cost index. The Association of General Contractors has done the same. Well, if the biggest business groups in America who support increasing user fee – gas tax – that takes away a great deal of the sting or the fear that the Administration has and will continue to have about the program. I’ve told the groups that they have to lead, because the White House isn’t. And they have to develop a consensus around an approach. And we have to take into account political realities but if the Chamber and the manufacturers and the Truckers Association and the Association of General Contractors, and all the building trades unions and the American Public Transit Association all come around in favor of a financing scheme then the White House problem is solved, the Senate problem is solved, we’ll move ahead and do this Bill.

LJ: Thank you. One of the options you mention briefly, and that’s gotten some attention in a variety of different communities is the idea of creating a tax on miles traveled. How do you view that issue? …I realize that’s something under consideration, there a lot of political forces on it… there are some that are really concerned that while this may deserve attention that it may also raise privacy issues because your gonna have the government tracking your travel … the miles. Do you see a way outta that or do you just kinda prefer to put that to a side and let it kinda simmer for a bit?

JO: That issue took on a life of its own. I simply mentioned it at a committee hearing, as one of a range of options being considered and one that had already been tested in Oregon, and it somehow took on a life of its own, that I was advocating it. I just laid it out … that this is one of a range of options that we ought to consider.

LJ: … and do you favor that option….

JO: … and I went on to say, which never was reported, that Oregon tried out the idea – 280 drivers – they found a number of concerns … the technology needed to be perfected. The Center of Transportation Studies here at the University of Minnesota, has tested a technology of their own using [making?], something the equivalent of a cell phone. Oregon said we need to protect privacy – that can be done by a certain computer technology. But it needs a wide scale, nationwide, test run. Well, that might take 3 or 4 years.

The significance of VMT is that it really does measure your use, each person’s use, of the roadway and impact on the roadway.

Now rural folks say, well, we travel longer distances so we might pay more. No. It would be calibrated to the existing gas tax raising similar revenue … as I said a little while ago … 50% of the vehicle miles traveled occur in urban centers, in metropolitan areas of the country. They’re the ones putting the most miles on. In rural areas – 70% of the national highway system is in rural areas – and much of that is used by trucks. Those are the kinds of issues that need to be weighed, evaluated, thought-through. And its too new a concept, too untested a concept, to advocate. We laid it out as one option. I don’t think at this time we should be terribly experimental with the funding. I think we need to stick with what we know has worked.

LJ: Well, here’s something we know that has worked, and that is general revenues. The Obama Administration has talked about pumping in perhaps 68 billion or 70 billion and relying on general revenues for some of the transportation…

JO: I think that would be a terrible mistake. We have had a long, sustained connection between the use of the roadway, revenues to sustain its construction and maintenance, and a trust fund that is protected against diversion to other governmental purposes. Once we slip over that divide and go into …

All in all, I can see Oberstar’s arguments, but I am sorely disappointed that he is distancing himself from VMT charging. Perhaps he needs to do that to force the gas tax increase that he clearly argues well for. Perhaps he recognizes that there are sufficient technology and trust issues that he risks embarrassment pushing a program now that still needs 4 or 5 years to develop. But I am certain that off camera, he knows well that funding through fuel taxes is even less unsustainable than funding through the general fund as fuel efficiency and alternate fuel sources continue to erode the current funding foundation. No amount of politics and no length of recession can stop the eventual collapse of the gas tax.