Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

MORE INTERSTATE CRIME

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Some may recall the story about the Howard County Exec who won an upset campaign against the ruling party establishment in the 70s and then spent the next four years proving to those who voted against him that he would NOT do what those who voted for him were counting on him to do.

Looks like a similar scenario is evolving because the new administration has a Secretary of Transportation that was chosen for ‘bipartisanship’ (NOT antiPartisanship) and who has little transport credibility. See “LaHood Talks of Mileage-Based Tax: White House Dismisses Controversial Idea to Fund Transportation Projects. WaPo 21 Feb 2009.

In an attempt to not rock too many boats at once the White House has apparently nixed one of the most important opportunities to improve Mobility and Access now available. They could also reverse one of the three catastrophic mistakes in implementation of an InterRegional roadway system. See “Interstate Crime” 28 Feb 2005

In summary the three problems are:

1. Running the Interstate roadways inside the Clear Edge (or the logical location for the Clear Edge) instead of stopping at the Clear Edge as called for by the earlier InterRegional Highway plans. Stopping at the Clear Edge is the normal practice for limited access roadways linking New Urban Regions in Europa.

2. Artificially holding down the true cost of the Interstate system by limiting the damages paid to Urban citizens in severance damages due to isolating land owners and citizens from the components of settlement that supported their quality of life and their property values. The Urban landscape is littered with orphaned Clusters, Neighborhoods and Villages. NonUrban land owners WERE compensated. This is one of the prime drivers of both Abandonment and Scatteration discussed in the first two chapters of ROOTS OF THE HELTER SKELTER CRISIS.

3. Failing to develop a fair allocation of the cost of use of the Interstate System and Federal Aid Highways by failing to instituting a equitable weight distance levy on roadway use.

Now for some reason correcting the only error that is still correctagle without massive expense is viewed as “controversial.”

How can it be more “controversial” than Lexus Lanes or raising the gas tax enough to make a difference?

Footnote: This post was drafted on 22 February. On 23 February WaPo carried a lead editorial that said about the same thing about the usefulness of considering at least a step toward fair and equitable weight / distance levies. Credit where credit is due.

Now if WaPo could just focus on settlement pattern dysfunction…

EMR

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

26 responses to “MORE INTERSTATE CRIME”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Taxing by the mile is not going to do anything that an equivalent gas tax wouldn’t do better, and cheaper.

    RH

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Stopping at the Clear Edge is one way to subsidize mass transit. making auomobiles less desireable and more expensive is another way to subsidize mass transit.

    RH

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “…holding down the true cost of the Interstate system by limiting the damages paid to Urban citizens …”

    Oh, so you are all in favor of fullproperty rights for Urban citizens: it is only rural ones that have no rights.

    RH

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “….failing to instituting a equitable weight distance levy on roadway use. “

    Which a properly levied gas tax would do, automatically.

    RH

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Now for some reason correcting the only error that is still correctagle without massive expense is viewed as “controversial.””

    It is controversial because truck weight tolling is the one area where we KNOW the costs will be passed right through to the consumer, with additional profit added on top for the trucking companies carrying costs.

    It is contrversial because it is an issue in transportation that you can logically argue either way.

    RH

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Take a lok at the blog comments appended to the Post article.

    At this time there are 42 comments, two mildly in favor of a mileage tax and 40 more or less ADAMANTLY opposed.

    RH

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Ray – if the proposal were to raise the gas tax in today’s economy, I suspect that the comments would also be negative.

    I support a gas tax increase, but only after:

    1) complete elimination of the taxpayer subsidy to overweight trucks;

    2) the imposition of much higher fees on all heavy trucks;

    3) reform of the Commonwealth Transportation Board so that my gas tax dollars aren’t funding some land speculator’s windfall;

    4) adoption of an adequate public facilities law with very sharp teeth; and

    5) the imposition of cost-based development impact fees for VDOT.

    TMT

  8. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    re: ” ….if the proposal were to raise the gas tax in today’s economy, I suspect that the comments would also be negative. “

    dead on.

    add tolls to the opposition also.

    The question never asked:

    ” what method for increased taxes for roads do you favor?”

    VDOT is virtually tapped out – which sounds a little weird when they are still dealing with a multi-billion dollar annual budget – but much/most of it is for road/highway maintenance…

    … why by the way – most folks think that their taxes have “already paid for”..

    .. that’s the thinking for many folks – that a built road is “paid for” and never needs another penny of funding…. so no need to raise taxes….

    of course…also true – the average person could not tell you how much money they pay for roads every year either – only that …more taxes… or tolls is “wrong”…. “not fair”… etc, etc..

    so VDOT is broke.. and no one wants to pay more – especially in a down economy….

    .. and the last project standing is…. ta da …HOT LANES.

  9. charlie Avatar
    charlie

    Sigh. When you agree with EMR on politics something is wrong. Obama is getting transport policy very very wrong — as opposed to clean energy, where there are some good ideas. LaHood is a symptom of that.

    RH, do I read your comments as saying it is good to subsidize mass transit?

    EMR: Regarding your first point, a lot of people would argue that this is what happened in Washington, and that is the source of traffic problems. Only two highways run downtown (66 and 395) — maybe 295 if you are stretching downtown a bit. Granted, since the Beltway was built, massive development has occurred outside. I’d argue the real beneficiary of that is not DC but the inside-Beltway suburbs. Curious to hear your thoughts on the 66 expansion.

    Drove the beltway for the first time in six months this weekend: the traffic jams for 5 years of HOT lane construction will never be paid pack in decreased congestion. Sigh.

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “….if the proposal were to raise the gas tax in today’s economy, I suspect that the comments would also be negative. “

    Probably true, I won;t argue that, but the roads have to be paid for somehow, even if your cars are getting 100 mpg.

    “the traffic jams for 5 years of HOT lane construction will never be paid pack in decreased congestion. “

    Might be true, some similar cases have been documented. Hire a German company and let them work 24/7.

    “complete elimination of the taxpayer subsidy to overweight trucks”

    Taxpayers are consumers, you will pay it one way or another, truckers willpass th costs along.

    “the imposition of much higher fees on all heavy trucks”

    Agreed, no reason to let them pay to break the law.

    ” my gas tax dollars aren’t funding some land speculator’s windfall”

    How do you know it is a windfall? If you’ve been sitting on land for 200 years, is it still a “windfall” just because you finally develop it? That developer may have worked hard for his money, invested, and taken considerable risk. How do you know it is “your” tax money? Put another way how many hundred things are you opposed to spending “your” tax money on, and how many cents apiece does that amount to?

    I appreciate the sentiment, but I think is it inaporppriate, especially since one purpose of roads is economic development, after all, same as rail.

    “adequate public facilities law with very sharp teeth”

    Since we will NEVER have adequate public facilities, this is equivalent to saying no more development. It’s a nice argument, but adequate is way to subjective and vague. Let’s put a price on how much development for how much impact fee and be done with it. Everyone will know the rules up front, and if some “developer” foots up the money, well, then he is playing by the rules.

    “the imposition of cost-based development impact fees for VDOT.”

    Now you want double billing: adequate public facilities AND impact fees. Why not just tell us what you really think – no development that hurts me, meaning no development?

    “what method for increased taxes for roads do you favor?”

    Gas tax, no matter how high you have to set it. it’s the cheapest, most effective, fairest way to do it and it encourages less gas coonsumption, meaning less VMT. it has wverything going for it and nothing against.

    “most folks think that their taxes have “already paid for”..”

    Here we go on that “my taxes’ deal again. Most people would be sorely surprised if they knew how little “their” taxes have “paid for”. That’s why we pay for things with loans, so the “new guys” can help us pay for what we built for them. And that’s why the “my” roads are not “already paid for”.

    “RH, do I read your comments as saying it is good to subsidize mass transit?”

    I have said very clearly that mass transit probably does provide some benefit to people who don’t ride it. A little bit less congestion, a little bit cleaner air, a little bit more tax density near the stations (although I’m not sure even that is a net positive).

    To the extent that these benefits can be proven, then other people should not object to paying for them. That is a lot different from supporting a blanket mass subsidy for any whacko mass transit project someone dreams up, with a claim it will save us from suffocating in CO2.

    However, some analysts have said exactly that: that the proper fare to charge for SOME mass transit is zero. If we had a fully saturated, dense, downtown METRO system instead of the dispersed radial system we have, then you might make an argument for 100% subsidy because it would be readily available to all.

    But the situation we have is that millions of drivers who mwy never have an opportunity or a reason to ride Metro, and who get very little benefit from it are paying half the fare, and soon they will be footing the bill for enormous repair/renovation/retrofit projects – because we never paid enough as we went along. (Same as with all our other infrastructure that we now want to bill the “new guys” for.)

    I think Mass transit should have appropriate subsidies, and I think roadways should have appropriate subsidies. To do that we have to agree on what appropriate means, what rules apply to eveluate that, and then agree to use those rules universally: for the things we don’t like the same as the things we do like.

    Just like with property rights, the only way we can be sure of getting a fair deal on ours is if we protectct everyone else’s equally.

    RH

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The traffic jams for 5 years of HOT lane construction will never be paid pack in decreased congestion and th3e HOT lanes are the last project standing.

    Sigh.

    All we can hope is that the HOT lanes are FLOODED with HOV drivers and the sate has to pay huge sums to Transurban. Then maybe the state will see the error and jsut buy our roads back.

    Or, that people just boycott the hot lanes and there is no money to be made, in which case the state will still pick have to up the tab.

    Any way you slice it, the idea that we can build more roads by charging a few pwople a lot more money is about as silly as thinking we can solve our national budget problems by taxing the rich at 90%.

    RH

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Somewhat relevant article

    http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/los-angeles-transportation-facts-and-fiction-freeways/

    Apparantly LA doesn’t have that much highway miles after all. Number 1 is Kansas City for the record.

    I would suspect then that LA has poor settlement patterns OR poorly designed roadsystem which would explain the traffic issues

    This goes back to the earlier commenter. The ultimate problem in this region may not be settlement patterns but road design and geogrpahic problems (i.e. river crossing issues) Think about it of course there are going to be bottlenecks when the only way to get from Maryland suburbs to VA suburbs is over the American Legion Bridge due to the potomac river.

    NMM

  13. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    one could argue that the HOT Lanes came about because the public refused to pay higher gas taxes…so the options left for building more lanes were given to those who would front the money and then would have to have a way to get it back.

    this is going on across the country.

    out of road money… public opposed to higher taxes – only option left = toll roads.

    and the thing about bridges, water crossings, etc and other “complicating” terrain… is .. that .. it is what it is….

    For any given area – terrain considerations aside – congestion is most often associated with rush hour and solo-driven autos…common in most urbanized areas – regardless of terrain issues.

  14. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    The single sentence that says it all:

    “Any way you slice it, the idea that we can build more roads by charging a few pwople a lot more money is about as silly as thinking we can solve our national budget problems by taxing the rich at 90%.”.

    Well put.

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “…out of road money… public opposed to higher taxes – only option left = toll roads.”

    That isn’t an option, it is an example of circular logic: the option to higher taxes is more tolls which are the same thing as higher taxes.

    Only a lot more annoying, and they include an additional amount to cover profit.

    Whoopee, I’m sure glad I avoided those higher taxes.

    RH

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Humm I came to the opposite conclusion

    At least with tolls you have a choice and you can change your behavior to lower your financial burden

    With taxes there are no choices and everyone is taxed fairly equally regardless of personal decisions. Its the whole argument that with the current model there is no financial incentive to change your behavior.

    NMM

  17. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    that’s exactly correct.

    Taxes charge everyone to provide something that not everyone wants and who would prefer to pay their own costs.

    That’s the essential reason why taxes for roads are so unpopular.

    Most folks know/suspect that higher gasoline taxes will not be used to improve their particular travel circumstance.

    Even Groveton claims that NoVa gets screwed on taxes diverted to other localities.

    Tolls are more fair for many folks.

    NMM has it right. With tolls, people have choices – perhaps some not as good as others but better than no choice but to pay higher taxes to essentially subsidize those who do not want to change their behavior.

  18. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Larry & NMM are correct. The real estate crowd is very good at manipulating the political process to get transportation tax dollars spent to help their investments without regard to whether the transportation improvements improve commuting time or safety for most people.

    But, at least so far, there is no way for the real estate crowd to manipulate drivers' decisions whether to pay tolls for a quicker drive or to carpool or vanpool to gain quicker travel times. I've been told by some that is one of the reasons why they don't generally like toll roads.

    Moreover, toll roads can adjust their fare collection practices to accommodate other needs, while the gas tax cannot. For example, MWAA could except certain entrances on the Dulles Toll Road from paying tolls to divert Tysons traffic from Routes 7 and 123 during HOT lanes and Dulles Rail construction. The shortfall could then be recouped by charging higher tolls on exit ramps elsewhere.

    TMT

  19. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    I don’t know about this year but maybe soon – the NoVa region will be asked: “Now that the State/VDOT is out of road money, how would you like to pay for additional transportation infrastructure?”

    and .. “Would you like to pay an increased State Tax or a Regional Tax? or Regional Tolls?”

    and the always popular answer:

    ” No..we want the ‘State’ to pay [for transportation] but not increase our local/region taxes but instead, tax the rest of the State and give us the money” may well rear it’s silly face also.

  20. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “At least with tolls you have a choice and you can change your behavior to lower your financial burden”

    Same with a gas tax.

    The real problem is that it might cost more to change your behavior that you would save. It is not that easy or cheap to move.

    Whether we up the gas tax or institute a new toll, we have changed the rules, in such a way that they affect one class of citizens more than another. This may affect the value of their property, which they purchased under a different set of assumptions (implicit promises).

    Just as we do with may other businesses, we would owe these poeple an accomodation of some type to smooth out the bump.

    You don’t care about tolls because you dont commute and they won’t affect you. it looks like a good way to stick it to the other guy. You might feel different if it affects the value of your home.

    RH

  21. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Moreover, toll roads can adjust their fare collection practices to accommodate other needs, while the gas tax cannot.”

    complete and utter nonsense.

    Toll roads are operated priveately, the only need they are going to finance is more profit.

    on the other hand, the gas tax was originally for road maintenance and construction. It has since been hijacked for transit use.

    Your example is completely bass ackward.

    RH

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Tolls are more fair for many folks.

    Which is why the comments ran 44 to two agains the HOT lanes.

    The Hot lanes are a done deal. i se nopoint in arguing it anymore until a few years after they are finished.

    My prognostication is that they will do no more to releive congestion or auto usage than METRO has, and they will contribute far less to our ongoing highway needs by virtue of the profit skimmed off the top.

    They MY turn out to be not the wort thing in the world, but they will be nothing like the panacea of smooth driving an economic fairness that Larry claims.

    RH

  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Ray – I can see arguments against converting existing lanes into toll lanes. But I struggle to see why there is a problem with construction of additional lanes that will be tolled.

    There are problems with some of the warts with constructing HOT lanes on the Beltway that need to be addressed. However, but for the private funds that Fluor is providing, there would not be additional lanes constructed on the Beltway.

    Moreover, the HOT lanes will be free to HOV-3. There will be a financial incentive to carpool and vanpool. HOV-3 takes at least two cars off the road. Everyone driving the Beltway is better off when that happens.

    Everyone else can chose whether to pay the fee and arrive more quickly or drive without a toll.

    I don’t know where the problem lies.

    TMT

  24. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    all I can tell you is that the studies suggest there will be fewer carpools and more congestion.

    But that was before the recession. now there may be fewer carpools, fewer cars, less cogestion and more unemployment.

    If that happens, I rest my case.

    One of the “New Lanes” used to be the emergency lane.

    But for the private funds that Fluor is providing, there would not be additional lanes constructed on the Beltway, unless we paid for them. Where does Fluor get those funds? From people just like us (some of them will be us) who are smart enough to figure out this will be a good investment for them and provide a good return.

    If that is good enough rationale for investing private funds, then why isn’t it good enough rationale for investing public funds?

    Because we don’t have any public funds.

    And why not?

    Thirty years of “no new taxes”. Keep the taxes doan and it willspur new investment in companies like Fluor.

    See? It worked.

    Except now we get the new taxes from Fluor in the form of tolls.

    That worked well.

    RH

  25. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “I don’t know where the problem lies.”

    Re-analyze the problem. The problem is that we built HOV lanes and they were never fully utilized. This caused angst among the regular drivers who felt that they could have a (marginally) faster trip if the HOV lanes were open to all.

    As it turns out this isn’t true, but the nonbelievers would never believe and VDOT did a lousy sales job.

    Be that as it may, the HOV lanes were never fully utilized, so we were not getting our money’s worth out of them. We created HOV-2 to make them more popular and the next step would have to be HOV-1, but then everyone would be able to see how silly this is.

    People were not using the car pools because it wasn’t worth the “cost”.

    So our brilliant marketing strategy? Take away that cost and replace it with a charge for using HOV-1. Only there wasn’t enough money in that so we gave away our emergency lane to sweeten the deal.

    The result will be more cars on the road, not fewer, whichis why we built the HOV lanes in the first place. If we reallywanted people to use HOV lanes then we should have paid them to do it.

    That would have taken many cars out of the regular lanes and resulted in an (actually) faster trip for the non car poolers. No new lanes needed. No toll booths, no smart passes, no BS. You wold still have a choce: take your time, contribute to congestion and drive for free (less whatever minimal amount was your share to pay the carpoolers: call it a congestion fee) or switch to carpooling and GET PAID.

    I like that choce better than the other: contribute to (and enjoy) congestion for “free”, or pay a buck a mile to zoom along at 45 MPH.

    So the differece between choices is pay the congestion tax or pay the tax to avoid congestion (HOT lanes) vs pay a small tax or get paid for your trouble to help alleviate congestion.

    Pay Fluor, or pay ourselves.

    So, we are not willing to pay for what we want so we just pay for it some other way. Brilliant, truly brilliant.

    Of course, had we gone tht route we would not have the new lanes, if we wanted those we would have to (gasp) pay for them.

    Yet somehow, we got brainwashed into thinking (at leas some of us) that toll roads actually represent free enterprise and free markets.

    Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.

    RH

  26. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    But what makes you think that, if we would have paid higher gas taxes, we’d have road improvements in places where ordinary drivers travel? The political process in Virginia is corrupt. Transportation funds are applied based on who has the best lobbyist and not based on engineering and safety data.

    Why did the sales tax referendum fail in NoVA? To a large extent because it was a scheme by the real estate development industry to get taxpayers to fund transportation near their landholdings.

    At least with Fluor, I have choice whether to spend my money on something that I chose to consume. If gas taxes are raised in Virginia, they will not be used to improve traffic flow in Fairfax County. We build trolley lines in Arlington so landowners can redevelop. We build elevated rail lines in Fairfax to keep Bechtel happy. We build tri-county parkways because that’s where the landowners want the money spent.

    I’ll trust Fluor over the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

    TMT

Leave a Reply

Read More