Where it glides past a farm pond, a new toll road through rural Austria outside Vienna is flanked by a curb-like concrete barrier just higher than a frog can jump. The purpose is to keep frogs from hopping into harm’s way on the toll road. Along the tollway there are wide, unpaved overpasses simulating a woodlands environment so deer can graze on the greener grass without being splattered on the grill of a semi. The mainline lanes are depressed below grade to allow the deer a gentle incline. One narrow overpass has no connecting roads; it simply allows an 85-year-old farmer to drive his father’s 1937 Deutz tractor out to pasture. The otherwise bucolic views are peppered with futuristic windmills, their monolithic fan blades rotating at Ferris-wheel speed a hundred feet above the green pastures. This Austrian toll road is to greenfield projects what the Stradivarius is to violins.
Back on the tour bus, I pondered the benefits of the frog fence. Is it worth the cost? The Austrians are funding sustainable transportation projects by leveraging future toll revenue—an old trick with a new twist. The new toll roads will prevent the oncoming scourge of local traffic congestion being fueled by the hot European Union economy. Austria’s old roads pass truck traffic through the main streets of small villages, and the Austrians will not tolerate all the new international truck traffic on local streets. They formed a national “corporation” owned by the Austrian government to enter into public-private partnerships to build toll roads. They are happy to let the truckers from neighboring countries pay high tolls to traverse their homeland, provided the new toll roads don’t compromise the environment—good news for frogs.
In America we tend to believe we are ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to transportation. I love America and would not want to live in Austria just because it is pristine and beautiful and you don’t have to sit in traffic congestion two hours every day. Unfortunately, like an NFL referee I have to call it like I see it, and at least throw a “delay of game” flag on Uncle Sam after seeing transportation in Europe. It hurts me to admit we have fallen behind.
If the Austrian approach sounds strange, consider that due to the feared evaporation of the Highway Trust Fund, some state governments are quietly starting to act like self-sustaining corporations—seeking transportation funding from other sectors, including foreign equity capital. To date, Austria’s most important exports to the world have been Mozart and the governor of California. Although the “Governator” is a national hero in Austria, his congested freeways would be considered a disgrace in his homeland.
How green should we get in the U.S.? The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) changed how we plan transportation projects but not how we design and build roads. NEPA was used by true environmentalists and antitransportation masqueraders alike, leaving many planners with a bitter taste. The Westway megaproject in New York died on behalf of the Snail Darter—a little fish hearty enough to thrive in the grey waters of the Hudson River but supposedly unable to reproduce near anything but an old wooden pier.
The “do-nothing alternative” advocates of the post-1960s era have left us with severe traffic congestion. NEPA has protected wetlands but increased urban air pollution.
One of the keys to the fledgling ITS congestion pricing program in New York City is that it is packaged as one of many measures in a comprehensive program to improve quality of life. The public wants sustainability. ITS deployment in the U.S. has been seen as environmentally friendly and has been associated with battling air pollution. Many ITS programs around the country have been deployed with Congestion Management Air Quality funds.
One of the by-products of the transportation funding crisis is that the true spirit of NEPA may be resurrected through economic practicality rather than social responsibility. Sustainable projects are the most likely to be built. ITS and traffic management are already seen as important elements of sustainable projects. As we continue to build user-financed infrastructure in the next 50 years with the ample equity capital awaiting good projects, we will see green highways being designed and built that are truly sustainable and context sensitive. Kermit the Frog sang, “It’s not easy being green.” He was right in 1975, but in the future, being green may be the easiest ticket to mobility.
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