Congestion Charge, Commuter Tax and Metro

(Rerun - Originally posted Nov. 17, 2007) Last week a Washington Post reader named Bill Suffa wrote a letter to Dr. Gridlock in which he suggested that:
1) a congestion charge is essentially nothing more than a commuter tax and,
2) that Metro would be incapable of handling the extra ridership that would be created if a congestion charge for the district (or a portion of it) were enacted.

On point 1, I suppose he's essentially right, although "commuter" would include anyone who enters the congestion zone regardless if they are a resident of DC or not. My personal opinion is I don't see a problem with that. If the District wants to charge people for using its infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) then why not? Would it be good policy? Personally I think it would be, but others will disagree. There would be trade offs between raising money and driving away business, maintaining and improving infrastructure and irking suburban commuters, environmental advantages to reducing car traffic and other benefits and costs. I don't pretend to know what the right balance for the District would be, but I do maintain that they should have the right to decide for themselves, and I would suggest that if Fairfax County or any other jurisdiction wanted to charge for the use of its infrastructure, too, it should have that right.

On point 2, the challenges facing Metro have been written about a lot. Just recently it was reported that ridership has grown by 70,000 riders per day over the last 5 years (WMATA press release). Crowding on the system is getting worse despite new rail cars and eight-car trains being introduced. Mr. Suffa has experienced this himself, as have thousands of other riders. I doubt anyone would disagree with the statement that Metro service can be improved and capacity needs to be increased.

London put #'s 1 and 2 together. A significant part of the reason London was able to enact a congestion charge was that they simultaneously invested more money into buses and trains to make it easier to travel in London without having to drive in. It was part of the plan.

We can take a lesson, too, from the new Nationals Stadium. DC was able to float more than $600 million in bonds to finance the stadium from taxes that haven't yet begun to be collected and will continue for many years. London collects an estimated $244 million per year from its congestion charge and estimates for DC start at $60 million per year. Using similar financing rates to the stadium deal (and assuming between $60 million and $244 million per year were collected), if the congestion tax were dedicated to WMATA, bonds could be floated for between $900 million and $4 billion--money that could be put to work immediately to make significant improvements. Using the stadium strategy would allow for starting the improvements in advance of instituting the congestion charge, increasing the capacity needed before it is required.

We're #2. Do we do it to ourselves?

Today's Washington Post reported on the annual congestion rankings put out by the Texas Transportation Institute, and the DC area tied for 2nd with an average of 60 hours of congestion for peak period commuters.

What caught my eye, though was this tidbit:

"You feel helpless," an Arlington resident was quoted, who drives between Rosslyn and his job in downtown Washington.

Huh? Helpless?!? He DRIVES from Rosslyn to his office on 15th St. NW! I guess that's his prerogative (maybe), but then he has no right to whine about the traffic and claim that he's "helpless." He could freaking WALK to his office in 45 minutes or less. It's at most a 15-minute bike ride--maybe less. He could squeeze on a metro train for 6-7 minutes from Rosslyn to McPherson Square. He could also get a Metrobus to Farragut Square and walk a couple of blocks.

He complains, but he is also actually part of the problem. Remember, when you are sitting in traffic, you ARE the traffic, too. He's doing both himself and everyone else a disservice by not figuring out all his choices, which are many.

What more can we do? Here's a guy with half a dozen options who still chooses to sit in traffic for a 3-mile commute. No one's going to build a new bridge between Rosslyn and DC, nor add any more roads between the river and his office. Widening I-66 won't make any difference to him. The only thing that would improve his drive is if fewer people were driving. But if he's unwilling to get out of his own car, how can he expect everyone else to stop driving, too? He's his own enemy.

HOT Lanes Getting Started Up

Today's Washington Post article announcing that work on the N. Virginia HOT lanes will start up early next year is bound to create a lot of "traffic" here, on other blogs and in forums of all types. I think it's great that so many people are really thinking about how to deal with the undeniable problem of traffic congestion in the DC area. And clearly there are differing opinions, which--at least here on the CommuterPage blog--I hope we can express with mutual respect and thoughtfulness.

Problems with traffic congestion are not unique to Washington. One of the great things about our big ol' US of A is that we are big; we have 50 states; we have scores of metropolitan areas. What that means is that we can try different things in different places and learn from those experiences. I'm sure that other metro areas will be watching to see what happens here. "But I don't wanna be the guinea pig," I can hear from some. That's NIMBYism writ large: put it somewhere else; let someone else try it first; make them pay for it. . . .Take that attitude universal and nothing ever happens anywhere at all.

Is this model perfect? I doubt it. Should we allow private ownership of a public good? There's definitely some validity to that point. Will the new HOT lanes be completely fair for all users? It's impossible to be completely fair (and definitions of fair are not even consistent). Will the money get inappropriately used, politicized or even wasted somehow? Um. . .this is DC. Do we need to do something? Absolutely.

I'm excited to see our leaders taking action on something innovative and even controversial with the potential for some real gains. If only they would take a similar attitude towards the tunnel in Tyson's corner--bold and innovative instead of trapped in a bureaucratic morass. Maybe that's the real lesson of these HOT lanes. Look how fast they went from crazy idea to implementation. And how long have we been pursuing that rail line?

Mary Peters: The Folly of Higher Gas Prices

Today's (Saturday, August 25) Washington Post included an op-ed by US Dept. of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters (who was just mentioned for other reasons on this blog the other day). Her key point is that raising gas taxes to improve transportation infrastructure (which has been raised in the public's consciousness since the bridge collapse in Minnesota) is the wrong strategy. She cites a couple of reasons:

1) Because the money is deposited into a federal trust fund, its allocation becomes politicized, and Congress is apt to skew the priorities for its use. I would tend to agree with this point.

2) It does little or nothing to reduce traffic congestion, because it does not dissuade people from driving during congested times or on congested roadways. I partially agree. Large gas taxes would push people towards smaller cars and also get them to think about using them less, but it wouldn't necessarily affect congestion. Small increases in the gas tax would probably make little difference.

I am in favor of raising gas prices, but for different reasons and in a different way. Burning gasoline creates environmental damage. Gas taxes could be used more appropriately to offset the damage caused by their use by being used for environmental protection. A better strategy in my mind is that gas taxes could replace wage taxes. The taxes collected would be used to reduce wage taxes. This works well for progressivity of tax policy, because rich tend to buy more gas and poor pay more in wage taxes.

Her key point is that we currently provide virtually all of our roadways for free. Any free good will tend to be overutilized. The infrastructure itself should be priced rather than the gas. I completely agree with this point. If people and businesses were charged for the use of the roads--more during congested times; possibly more for larger, more damaging vehicles--then they would start to make decisions based on their use. That's the idea behind congestion pricing (another recent blog): charge people for their use. If we tolled every road then a lot more people would choose to take the train or bus or ride their bike or otherwise think a bit harder before hopping in their car and driving.