Urban road congestion has plagued transportation for years and will continue to grow. Some have said we cannot build our way out of congestion and should just maintain existing assets, while others believe it is a matter of prioritizing and better managing limited capacity. While neither idea is the answer, they share one common problem: A lack of resources. The future for funding increases looks bleak.
Federal and state transportation programs, while recently highlighting congestion as a priority, are built on political priorities, not the need to reduce urban congestion. Since highway funds for new capacity are primarily distributed via formulas or geography, are already earmarked for special projects or are consumed by the growing need to rehabilitate and rebuild the existing system, it is the rare case where the required billions can be dedicated to solving urban congestion problems.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters identified the problem in a recent Washington Post op-ed when she said, “Our system is failing because federal gasoline taxes are deposited into a centralized trust fund and allocated based on political will. Major spending decisions often have nothing to do with underlying economics, engineering realities or consumer needs.”
Public-private partnerships (P3), when permitted by state law, are a new tool that can be used to focus on congestion relief by identifying projects that are of major benefit to the traveling public, create revenue sources that pay for such improvements and provide the public with new travel choices. Managed lanes, such as high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes and express lanes, are examples of the type of facility that could help shortcut the congestion solution gridlock. A P3 program, if used correctly, can mobilize the private sector to work with DOTs to find new solutions to old congestion problems and find ways to pay for the improvements.
P3s offer new choice
Virginia Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer, in his keynote speech to an International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association conference in May 2007, called tolling and P3s two of the most powerful tools to achieve mobility and economic growth in America. He called upon U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Jim Oberstar to reconsider his opposition to these two tools.
“I believe that Mr. Oberstar had good intentions in writing a letter to the 50 governors opposing further use of PPPs and appreciate the fact that he wants to protect transportation as a public good,” Homer said. “However, I disagree with his letter on two major points. First, we need tolling to generate critically needed revenues for transportation. Second, we need tolling to help us manage congestion. There seems to be no recognition by Mr. Oberstar of the need for congestion management, and we will engage him in a debate on this issue. There is an enormous amount of naiveté in this country about public-private partnerships. To do something well, you have to invest resources. Public-private partnerships help us to do that.”
The introduction of P3s has been a major force to help Virginia deliver more projects on budget, in a shorter time and with results that please the customers: drivers on Virginia’s roads. Secretary Homer emphasized, “The intermingling of politics and administration has made it difficult to get things done. The solution is to get politics out of the process of executing transportation plans and let those who wear boots make the decisions.”
The public can benefit in two ways from P3s for congestion relief. First, there are direct public benefits from a specific project, and second, there are public policy benefits resulting from the availability of P3 programs that facilitate and encourage such projects.
Pair of successes
Two examples of P3 congestion relief success are the Capital Beltway (I-495) and the I-95/395 HOT lanes in the heavily congested northern Virginia portion of the D.C. region. Both projects are in development by a partnership between the Virginia Department of Transportation and Fluor-Transurban. Construction is expected to begin in 2008, and congestion relief is expected by 2013.
The Beltway project will add four new HOT lanes, two in each direction, along 14 miles of I-495 circling D.C.—one of the most congested roads in Virginia.
The I-95/395 HOT/Bus/HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) reversible lanes add a third lane to the existing 28-mile HOV lanes and extend them 28 more miles south, creating a 56-mile system. New entry and exit points will be added. An estimated $390 million contribution will fund new buses, bus routes and other improvements to public transportation in the corridor. Traffic will be managed by the use of value-priced tolls or what some have called “congestion pricing.” Drivers will be able to choose to pay a toll to use the HOT lanes or ride for free if part of a car pool.
These two projects will have a combined construction cost in excess of $2 billion. More details on both projects can be found at www.virginiahotlanes.com.
The direct public benefits of these projects are described below.
All motorists will benefit from reduced congestion even if they do not use the HOT lanes, since the traffic diverted to the HOT lanes will allow the regular lanes to flow more freely. The HOT lanes will be actively managed to assure reliable travel time at all times and attract traffic that normally shortcuts through local neighborhood streets and arterials. HOT users will have something they lack today in road travel: A choice between premium service or regular lanes.
Carpoolers and sluggers will benefit from free access to the new, reliable-travel-time lanes, which will encourage greater carpooling. For those not familiar with the term “sluggers,” it is something unique to the D.C. region. Sluggers are commuters who offer to join others in their car in order to meet the posted carpool minimum to enter the restricted HOV lanes.
Public transportation users will benefit because HOT lanes will make it possible for bus services to operate reliably on both interstates and on the Beltway for the first time, and provide free-flowing access to major employment centers such as Tysons Corner, downtown D.C. and other activity centers.
The community will benefit from improved mobility. Mobility can be sustained into the future by use of value-priced tolling. Mobility in turn supports the region’s continued economic prosperity. In addition, the system assures commuters can arrive on time, provides for reliable just-in-time delivery of goods and assures greater mobility to emergency vehicles and police assisting the public. As taxpayers, the community will further benefit by receiving ownership of major transportation assets valued at over $2 billion in a timely manner and that are primarily paid for by private tolls and corporate investments with little or no burden on the taxpayer.
The Beltway HOT lanes have been modeled after another P3 congestion-relief success story, California’s S.R. 91 HOT lanes, the oldest in the country. In operation for over 10 years, first as a private concession operation then subsequently sold to the Orange County Transportation Authority, S.R. 91 is a highly successful project that provides reliable and attractive travel service as well as a new source of revenue for Orange County.
The public benefits demonstrated by S.R. 91 are numerous. In spite of the fact that tolls, which vary with the time of day, have been increased almost yearly, the road still enjoys loyal ridership and performs its mobility function better than any other similar road in America. The two S.R. 91 HOT lanes represent only one-third of the road’s six lanes but carry 50% of the p.m. peak traffic. This represents the most efficient use of limited road capacity to date—not to mention the proven air quality benefits that accompany such efficient operation.
Public policy benefits
In order to benefit from the advantages of P3s in helping to solve urban congestion challenges, it is necessary for a state to have passed the required legislation to allow the private sector to meaningfully participate in the process. Over a dozen states now allow P3 projects both as solicited and unsolicited proposals. The two previous Virginia examples were both submitted as unsolicited proposals to the Virginia Department of Transportation under the Virginia Public Private Partnership in Transportation Act of 1995, one of the most successful P3 programs in the country.
Here is what the private sector can bring to a P3 partnership: new ideas, new money and public support for congestion solutions.
New ideas
P3 programs help mobilize the private sector to find new and innovative solutions to urban congestion and other transportation challenges, working in partnership with state DOTs or other major transportation agencies. The two Virginia HOT lane examples were not part of any state transportation plan or initiative, yet they have provided a realistic and potentially sustainable multimodal congestion-relief solution for northern Virginia. This idea has spread across state lines to Maryland and D.C. where the local metropolitan planning organization is considering a managed-lane network for the entire region.
New money
Properly managed P3 programs will encourage the private sector to find innovative ways to finance congestion-relief projects with money that supplements and leverages traditional, dwindling federal and state resources. The two Virginia HOT lane examples represent over $2 billion in new congestion-relief construction that would not have been possible relying on traditional highway funding sources.
Build public support
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) restricts a DOT’s ability to promote new road development during the study phases since they are not legally permitted to advocate a “build versus no-build” alternative prior to completing the location and environmental study phase of a project. All too often excellent highway plans are killed by highly organized citizen or special interest group opposition during that planning phase. The private sector is not limited by NEPA and can become a forceful advocate for one or more build options during the planning phase and help counter the narrowly focused opposition groups. This is a unique aspect of the P3 approach.
Whether for the direct project benefits or indirect public policy benefits, the creative use of P3 programs as a new tool in the fight to control growing urban congestion can be a major benefit to the public.
RSS: Roads & Bridges Articles
