Section 2: TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT The Case for “Revenue-Neutral” Congestion Pricing
This website makes the case that, like the cities of the past, the cities of the future must grow their way out of congestion. Furthermore, cities can only grow their way out of congestion at no cost, ideally for profit. But no new or enhanced transportation system—subsidized or not, self-funded or for profit—can be “grown” fast enough to stop congestion overnight. This makes ideas managing traffic (such as congestion pricing or value pricing) promising concepts. But not as implemented in some cities, most famously London. Congestion pricing as conceived by many proponents is a fixed fee or “tax” applied to vehicles entering a defined perimeter, generally the most congested area of a city. Traffic might be monitored by cameras pointed at license plates. This is a clumsy and expensive low-tech way to manage traffic. Worse still, it is unfair as well as a slippery road to economic elitism. Unfair because it applies to some and not others based on rather arbitrary all-or-nothing boundaries. Economic elitism because it makes wealth a ticket to privilege in the public square. Yet I’m all for considering congestion pricing. Not because it stops congestion with continued growth by today’s means (it doesn’t) or because it’s fair (it isn’t) or because I don’t mind the rich gaining advantage using their limos (I do). I’m for considering congestion pricing because this is an important recognition that traffic can be managed for congestion-free results. This is badly needed and something new. Gasoline taxes don’t manage traffic. Toll fees on highways, bridges, and tunnels don’t manage traffic. Sales taxes on cars and trucks don’t manage traffic. So let’s agree that congestion pricing and other schemes managing traffic might, under the right conditions, be a step in the right direction. But let’s insist on a smart democratic system that truly reduces congestion and is economically fair. Fairness requires that a) everybody pay according to their real contribution to congestion and b) those going out of their way to reverse congestion receive a credit. The Math of Traffic Management A smart Traffic Management scheme works because America’s congestion blues, although very real, are surprisingly borderline. Consider this: Congested highway lanes handle less than 1000 cars per hour and free flowing lanes handle more than 2000. These numbers are not theoretical. Two “priced” lanes on SR-91 in Southern California handle more traffic than the other four unpriced lanes combined. The mathematics of more-than-double lane performance based on managed access provides many opportunities for greatly enhanced traffic conditions because relatively minor inducements recalibrating our driving habits can provide excellent results. But the math of object dynamics is not a simple direct progression. Traffic management in a downtown area is different to highways because the city is a different kind of environment. Cities are built for stop-and-go circulation with vehicles negotiating traffic lights, pedestrians, parking, and unscheduled street obstructions like service and emergency vehicles. Still, as measured in London, a 4 to 8% reduction in the number of cars active at rush hour reduces congestion 50%. That is a welcome result but not exactly a straight mathematical progression because reducing the number of cars 8 to 16% does not eliminate congestion 100%. Not even close. The math of object dynamics is non-linear and chaotic. Consider these two irreconcilable outcomes:
The simple fact is that transportation engineers have failed to develop a science of traffic management. The transportation bureaucracy is good at collecting data on limited experiments but fails managing driving behavior throughout complex megacities. Highways are one kind of environment; gridded downtowns are another. And there are countless other built environments in between. Urban locomotion is a complex dynamic process requiring a holistic approach to traffic management. The smallest design unit is the metro area itself. Managing anything smaller than the de facto postmodern megacity is an exercise in congestion shifting from one area to another. The US Department of Transportation is finally admitting this, although only indirectly. Their recent national Congestion Initiative is looking to subsidize a few large metropolitan areas willing to implement variable-cost congestion pricing ideas via new Urban Partnership Agreements. The details of any one agreement co-funding metro wide experiments managing traffic are negotiable. Below is my proposal for a smart, economically fair approach managing traffic. It uses the total roadway infrastructures of greater metropolitan areas as the minimum management module. Pricing is indeed variable but with a catch: productive driving habits receive a credit. To simplify the proposal and make it applicable to all megacities, I venture no ideas on new mass transit capabilities, which are likely to be part of any long-term solution.
Installing GPS+ navigation with revenue neutral congestion meters in every motorized vehicle is not an economic burden because everyone benefits with everyday opportunities for direct monetary gains. But over time GPS+ can do much more. By keeping track of our collective driving habits and the vehicle-types used, GPS+ opens up new possibilities beyond the functions described earlier. For example, new software might be provided for revenue neutral “pollution management” based on a program factoring a vehicle’s precise emissions with actual air quality conditions. Or “occupancy management” with multi-passenger travel rewarded with a reduced charge or credit. Americans might not immediately agree to this or other ways of charging and crediting fees based on driving habits and the impact of that behavior on others. But we don’t have that far to go. All of us already agree that today’s megacities are too congested, expensive, and inconvenient and that better ways to build and manage transportation to the benefit of all are needed. On the longer run, even a very productive traffic management system relying on GPS+ is not enough. Only new cost-effective infrastructures—most prominently MINIHIGHWAYS as proposed in SECTION 1—make growth without congestion possible indefinitely. With projected and on-time traffic information easily available to all drivers and with traffic managers rewarded for performance, the congestion price becomes a negligible or negative cost—hence a profit—for more and more Americans. And congestion itself a rare occurrence. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
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