Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Dulles Toll Road Boycott

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by

James A. Bacon
in

The NoTollIncrease.com has been urging commuters to boycott the Dulles Toll Road and use alternate parallel routes. Apparently, the boycott had some effect on the first work-day following the toll increase. According to the TimeCommunity.com newspapers, traffic dropped down by 6% on Monday, compared to the Monday traffic counts for the three weeks before the toll increase. The average transaction count for the three weeks prior to the toll increase was: 372,354. Last Monday the toll transaction count dropped to 350,202.

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  1. The Jaded JD Avatar
    The Jaded JD

    Small non sequitor with a little post hoc ergo propter hoc for flavor.

    No one knows how many of those 6% who didn’t drive the toll road Monday decided not to drive it as a simple economic choice in reaction to the increased price having affected the alternative costs of alternative means–instead of making a political statement that they disagree with using revenue from the increased toll to fund Metro.

    While the boycott may be having “some effect,” these statistics don’t show what that effect is nor make the effect apparent.

    I don’t have a dog in the Dulles Toll Road fight, because I avoid as much of what we used to call the Northern Neck Proprietary as I can. (At least they’ve stopped charging quit-rents.) And I think the 6% drop is an interesting datum. But I don’t think it helps measure the effect of the boycott movement at all.

  2. COD Avatar
    COD

    It’s also the Monday before Memorial Day, and a lot of the area colleges have graduated and gone into summer mode over the last week.

  3. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    I agree, you can’t tell anything from those figures. It might be that some of those people can simply no longer afford the price.

    Let’s reserve judgement until after Dulles Rail is built and all the people and jobs have time to rebalance themselves to reflect the new transportation economics.

    60 years from now we might be able to determine whether this was a good choice.

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