By: Stephanie Harris, Associate Editor
When Hanna-Barbera’s cartoon hit “The Jetsons” first aired in September 1962, the interstate decade was in full swing with more than a quarter of the new interstates already built. President Eisenhower’s vision of an immaculate interconnected superhighway system was becoming a reality, and pop culture was beginning to look ahead to a time when we would fly our cars to our offices in the sky and fold up our vehicles to the size of a briefcase.
This year marks the interstate system’s 50th anniversary, just as the U.S. population hits the 300 million mark. With infrastructure aging on a system that was never designed to carry the heavy traffic loads it does today, and funding that is about to run dry, a realistic look ahead to the future of transportation in the U.S. could be very bleak if something is not done about it soon.
This year marks the interstate system’s 50th anniversary, just as the U.S. population hits the 300 million mark. With infrastructure aging on a system that was never designed to carry the heavy traffic loads it does today, and funding that is about to run dry, a realistic look ahead to the future of transportation in the U.S. could be very bleak if something is not done about it soon.
All about the money
Since the interstate system began construction in the mid-1950s, vehicle-miles traveled on highways has increased five times from 600 billion to 3 trillion. Although last year’s passage of SAFETEA-LU allotted nearly $300 billion for surface transportation, it is not enough money to maintain all current roadway projects and to begin constructing new projects that would expand lane capacity and provide congestion relief.
Funding from SAFETEA-LU will likely run out by 2008, which is short of the 2009 reauthorization, according to Harold Worrall, president of Transportation Innovations Inc. With funding falling short and the possibility of reauthorization being delayed by a year or two, the U.S. will most likely have to face two or three years without any money to fund our transportation systems.
“There’s a shock about to occur on top of the desperate condition of the roadways,” Worrall told Roads & Bridges. “I just hope that’s going to shock the federal and state officials and electorates to understand that we have to start putting some serious bucks into transportation.”
One solution to the lack of funding is privatization, a practice common in Europe but nearly foreign in the U.S. until the recent sales of the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road. “We have to have a lot more privatization and concessions,” said Worrall. “People are coming from all over the world wanting to get in on the concession act in the U.S. We’re so desperately far behind, [that] needs to happen to get caught up.”
More innovative methods of financing also will be needed in order to maintain the surface transportation system, David McKee, director of member services and technical assistance, American Traffic Safety Services Association, told Roads & Bridges. He suggested methods such as a flat-tax income tax, or a user-fee per miles driven, which could require a mileage report to be handed into the IRS with our taxes every April.
Pricing roadway use through the use of tolls also will remain a necessity throughout the future. “I believe in tolls for two reasons,” Worrall said. “One, it generates revenue that can be used for multiple modes of transport, and two is in terms of affecting [driving] behavior.”
Congestion pricing and the use of high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes are already growing in the U.S. and will continue to do so in the future. On SR-91 between Riverside and Los Angeles in Orange County, Calif., tolls are adjusted throughout the day based on congestion levels. During peak hours, motorists are already willing to pay $.85 per mile to drive on a 10-mile segment of roadway. “People will spend a great deal of money to drive the automobile,” said Worrall. “We need to start using that as a revenue stream.”
Growing threats
With the lack of funding and rapidly increasing levels of congestion, the road conditions are quickly deteriorating. The average traveler in the U.S. today spends 48 hours per year in traffic delays. Based on current trends, by the time the U.S. population is projected to reach 400 million in 2043, the average motorist can expect to spend 160 hours each year in traffic delays, a recent American Road & Transportation Builders Association study showed.
Congestion will continue to grow and the infrastructure will continue to buckle beneath it. With much of the interstates having been first constructed during the 1950s and ’60s, many of these roadways are already reaching their design lives. If they are not repaired in the near future, “it’s not going to be a case of minor resurfacing and repair; it’s going to be a case of reconstruct and repair and that’s big dollars,” Worrall said. “If we let it go too far, it’s going to be near unrecoverable. I’m surprised that more policy people are not more aware of it.”
If the transportation industry is going to get the funding it needs to maintain a system that works, it is going to have to have more support from elected officials and the general public in the future.
“Each elected official only finds the right issue to get re-elected again,” said Worrall. “The election cycle is so much shorter than is the cycle for infrastructure development that [politicians] never just bite the bullet because it’s not in their best interest to do so.”
The interstate system was designed to move goods and people throughout the country, but if the system is crumbling, congestion time is growing and government funding is lacking, goods will not be moved as fast as they need to in order to support our economy. “Our surface transportation system drives this economy,” McKee said.
A recent Department of Transportation statistic shows that 87% of all the value of the freight in the U.S. moves on a rubber tire. “For example,” said Worrall, “if we take the interstates away tomorrow, 87% of the value of economic goods in the U.S. would not move.”
As the condition of roadways continues to become a growing threat to the U.S. economy, an even larger threat is evolving half a world away: China. Since 2001, China has spent more on transportation infrastructure than in their previous 50 years. Expressway mileage grew 65%, from 15,350 miles to 25,480 miles between 2001 and 2005, and it is expected that China’s expressway mileage will approach 53,000 miles by 2020.
“China is going to replicate the process we used for economic growth, which is based on the rubber tire for passenger and freight,” said Worrall. “They’re going to be using a lot of steel, cement, bituminous, fuels and energy, and they’re going to have a huge effect on our supply and demand system.”
With high energy and material demands in China, Worrall believes, fuel will continue to get more expensive in the U.S.; vehicles will become smaller; and there will be more hybrids and cars with turbine engines, which can burn different types of fuel.
As China’s surface transportation system continues to grow at a rapid pace, its economy will thrive and it will not be long until the country becomes a global power. At the recent American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials Annual Meeting, futurist Michael Gallis tackled this issue in his keynote address, warning that the U.S. must realize that its transportation infrastructure must be rethought and upgraded to allow this nation to compete more effectively in the global economy. Gallis presented data indicating that China will surpass the U.S. as the world’s most powerful national economy within a few years.
Technologically advanced
If the U.S. is going to compete effectively in the global economy, it is going to have to embrace new technologies to improve our transportation system. “We’re on the cusp of wonderful technologies to maintain a world-class transportation system, which is burgeoning to our economical system,” McKee said.
McKee believes that in the future, automobile technology will advance, and transmitter devices will eventually control cars electronically. He also believes that more electronics will be integrated into vehicles, so that motorists will be able to watch movies, download music and check e-mail while traveling.
According to McKee, the highway system will need to be over-engineered in the future as a means to improve roadway safety. “We must over-engineer every aspect of the roadway system so that 100 years from now, there will be no highway fatalities,” McKee said. “If you over-engineer, surface transportation will be the safest mode of transportation in the future. We’ll have to take away human error.”
Worrall agrees that the future will bring about an automated-vehicle highway system, especially for long hauls and in urban areas. “It’s going to happen. We just have to get past this liability question,” Worrall said, “but it’s something we need to do; there’s great promise there.” The future of automated vehicles is already upon us with new models such as the 2007 Lexus LS sedan, which offers an advanced parallel-park-assist function. ITS technologies such as vehicle warning systems already exist, which detect and warn drivers of travel condition problems, but have not yet found a place on the market.
Although the future of transportation in the U.S. may appear to be bleak as infrastructure ages and funds dwindle, with public support and the embracing of new technologies the future holds the potential to grow our transportation system and the economy in unimaginable ways.
One-hundred years from now it is certain that vehicles will be drastically different. It is hard to say whether we will be flying our cars around in the sky, but we never know what the future may hold.
