City Observatory recently republished their commentary on a report (released earlier this year) called Who Pays for Roads. I missed their original post, so this is new to me.

The report and commentary are all about the mispricing of roads/driving and the fallacy that “user fees” (gas taxes, tolls, and so on) are enough to completely cover the costs associated with driving.

I have been a vocal supporter of road pricing and/or congestion charges here in Toronto, and so I’d like to share two pieces from their commentary.

The first is this paragraph, which talks about how mispricing leads to demand issues (i.e. traffic congestion):  

The conventional wisdom of road finance is that we have a shortfall of revenue: we “need” more money to pay for maintenance and repair and for new construction. But the huge subsidy to car use has another equally important implication: because user fees are set too low, and because, in essence, we are paying people to drive more, we have excess demand for the road system. If we priced the use of our roads to recover even the cost of maintenance, driving would be noticeably more expensive, and people would have much stronger incentives to drive less, and to use other forms of transportation, like transit and cycling. The fact that user fees are too low not only means that there isn’t enough revenue, but that there is too much demand. One value of user fees would be that they would discourage excessive use of the roads, lessen wear and tear, and in many cases obviate the need for costly new capacity.

And the second is this chart, which shows the cumulative net subsidy to highways in the US from the late 1940’s:

The point of all this is that when you subsidize something it’s because you’d like to see more, not less of it. So why then are we even surprised by the crippling traffic that plagues our cities? We are doing a lot to encourage exactly that.

Sunset by liu han-lin on 500px

https://500px.com/embed.js

Last year The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), which is based out of Chicago, published a report called, The 2014 Freeways Without Futures. It listed the top 10 freeways across North America that are in need of removal, replacement, and revitalization. You can download the full PDF report by clicking here.

Here’s an introductory snippet from the report:

The 2014 Freeways Without Futures Report lists the top opportunities in North America for replacing aging urban highways with boulevards or avenues that connect to the networks of streets. They are presented in no particular order of rank. As in previous reports, the criteria for the 2014 list is based on a number of factors: the age and design of structures, redevelopment potential, potential cost savings, ability to improve both overall mobility and local access, existence of pending infrastructure decisions, and community support.

And here’s the list of freeways without a future:

1.  I-10/Claiborne Overpass, New Orleans
   

2.  I-81, Syracuse, New York
   

3.  Gardiner Expressway, Toronto
   

4.  Route 5/Skyway, Buffalo
   

5.  Inner Loop, Rochester New York
   

6.  I-70, St. Louis
   

7.  I-280, San Francisco
   

8.  I-375, Detroit
   

9.  Terminal Island Freeway, Long Beach
   

10.  Aetna Viaduct, Hartford
    

Not surprisingly, the Gardiner Expressway is on the list. CNU is in agreement with the “remove” option currently being contemplated by Toronto City Council and will be doing their part to support the Gardiner East petition that Stephen and I created. Thank you for that :)

A few days ago I wrote a post talking about what happens when you demolish an urban highway. It was a link to an article giving 5 examples of cities that have removed their urban highways and benefited.

After I wrote the post, a number of people responded on Twitter. Some thought it was a great idea and gave examples of other cities, such as Detroit, that are thinking about doing the same. But others responded and said that I was out of line. And that while it might work in some cities, it simply isn’t a viable option in cities like Toronto.

So as somebody who believes we should be taking down the Gardiner Expressway, I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit the topic and provide a bit more information.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting we remove the Gardiner and replace it with nothing. My belief is that we should replace it with a broad surface street that would still move lots of cars, but that would make our waterfront much more open and accessible to everyone.

So how is this feasible?

Again it comes back to the concept of induced demand. Back in 2009, two economists from the University of Toronto and University of Pennsylvania – which are actually both of my alma maters – published a study called The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion.

In it they discovered something really fascinating: there’s a near perfect relationship between new roads and highways built and the total number of miles driven. In other words, as cities increased road capacities (during their study period of 1980 to 2000), the amount of driving went up just as much.

What this should tell you is that trying to build your way of out road congestion is usually a losing proposition. That’s why every large city has a traffic problem. Try and think of one that has solved this. And as much as it might seem intuitive to tell people at cocktail parties that your city simply needs to build more roads and highways, it’s typically not that simple. (In my view, the solution is road pricing.)

The other really interesting thing that this study revealed is that it works both ways. When you reduce road capacity, drivers start to disappear. People choose to live closer to where they work. People choose transit. People go into the office at different times. People make all sorts of different decisions in response to this road change, just as they do when there are more free roads available to them.

So within a reasonable band (obviously you can’t remove all roads), there is no perfect amount of road capacity. If you added another lane to your highway, it would be full. If you took away a lane, it would end up equally full. That’s why removing the Gardiner Expressway isn’t lunacy.

Instead, it actually makes a lot of sense:

• It’s the cheapest solution (compared to repairing it or burying it)

• It would free up money for transit and other mobility solutions

• It would make our waterfront more open and accessible

• It would beautify our downtown

• It would increase land values all along the waterfront

And since we’re still in the early days of developing our eastern waterfront, now is the time to do it. The longer we wait, the harder it’ll get and the more expensive it’ll get.

So I hope that the leaders in this city will think long and hard about this as opposed to immediately assuming we need an elevated highway to keep this city moving. The last time I checked, it doesn’t work so well in its current state.

Images: Before and After the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco (via Gizmodo)

City Observatory recently republished their commentary on a report (released earlier this year) called Who Pays for Roads. I missed their original post, so this is new to me.

The report and commentary are all about the mispricing of roads/driving and the fallacy that “user fees” (gas taxes, tolls, and so on) are enough to completely cover the costs associated with driving.

I have been a vocal supporter of road pricing and/or congestion charges here in Toronto, and so I’d like to share two pieces from their commentary.

The first is this paragraph, which talks about how mispricing leads to demand issues (i.e. traffic congestion):  

The conventional wisdom of road finance is that we have a shortfall of revenue: we “need” more money to pay for maintenance and repair and for new construction. But the huge subsidy to car use has another equally important implication: because user fees are set too low, and because, in essence, we are paying people to drive more, we have excess demand for the road system. If we priced the use of our roads to recover even the cost of maintenance, driving would be noticeably more expensive, and people would have much stronger incentives to drive less, and to use other forms of transportation, like transit and cycling. The fact that user fees are too low not only means that there isn’t enough revenue, but that there is too much demand. One value of user fees would be that they would discourage excessive use of the roads, lessen wear and tear, and in many cases obviate the need for costly new capacity.

And the second is this chart, which shows the cumulative net subsidy to highways in the US from the late 1940’s:

The point of all this is that when you subsidize something it’s because you’d like to see more, not less of it. So why then are we even surprised by the crippling traffic that plagues our cities? We are doing a lot to encourage exactly that.

Sunset by liu han-lin on 500px

https://500px.com/embed.js

Last year The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), which is based out of Chicago, published a report called, The 2014 Freeways Without Futures. It listed the top 10 freeways across North America that are in need of removal, replacement, and revitalization. You can download the full PDF report by clicking here.

Here’s an introductory snippet from the report:

The 2014 Freeways Without Futures Report lists the top opportunities in North America for replacing aging urban highways with boulevards or avenues that connect to the networks of streets. They are presented in no particular order of rank. As in previous reports, the criteria for the 2014 list is based on a number of factors: the age and design of structures, redevelopment potential, potential cost savings, ability to improve both overall mobility and local access, existence of pending infrastructure decisions, and community support.

And here’s the list of freeways without a future:

1.  I-10/Claiborne Overpass, New Orleans
   

2.  I-81, Syracuse, New York
   

3.  Gardiner Expressway, Toronto
   

4.  Route 5/Skyway, Buffalo
   

5.  Inner Loop, Rochester New York
   

6.  I-70, St. Louis
   

7.  I-280, San Francisco
   

8.  I-375, Detroit
   

9.  Terminal Island Freeway, Long Beach
   

10.  Aetna Viaduct, Hartford
    

Not surprisingly, the Gardiner Expressway is on the list. CNU is in agreement with the “remove” option currently being contemplated by Toronto City Council and will be doing their part to support the Gardiner East petition that Stephen and I created. Thank you for that :)

A few days ago I wrote a post talking about what happens when you demolish an urban highway. It was a link to an article giving 5 examples of cities that have removed their urban highways and benefited.

After I wrote the post, a number of people responded on Twitter. Some thought it was a great idea and gave examples of other cities, such as Detroit, that are thinking about doing the same. But others responded and said that I was out of line. And that while it might work in some cities, it simply isn’t a viable option in cities like Toronto.

So as somebody who believes we should be taking down the Gardiner Expressway, I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit the topic and provide a bit more information.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting we remove the Gardiner and replace it with nothing. My belief is that we should replace it with a broad surface street that would still move lots of cars, but that would make our waterfront much more open and accessible to everyone.

So how is this feasible?

Again it comes back to the concept of induced demand. Back in 2009, two economists from the University of Toronto and University of Pennsylvania – which are actually both of my alma maters – published a study called The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion.

In it they discovered something really fascinating: there’s a near perfect relationship between new roads and highways built and the total number of miles driven. In other words, as cities increased road capacities (during their study period of 1980 to 2000), the amount of driving went up just as much.

What this should tell you is that trying to build your way of out road congestion is usually a losing proposition. That’s why every large city has a traffic problem. Try and think of one that has solved this. And as much as it might seem intuitive to tell people at cocktail parties that your city simply needs to build more roads and highways, it’s typically not that simple. (In my view, the solution is road pricing.)

The other really interesting thing that this study revealed is that it works both ways. When you reduce road capacity, drivers start to disappear. People choose to live closer to where they work. People choose transit. People go into the office at different times. People make all sorts of different decisions in response to this road change, just as they do when there are more free roads available to them.

So within a reasonable band (obviously you can’t remove all roads), there is no perfect amount of road capacity. If you added another lane to your highway, it would be full. If you took away a lane, it would end up equally full. That’s why removing the Gardiner Expressway isn’t lunacy.

Instead, it actually makes a lot of sense:

• It’s the cheapest solution (compared to repairing it or burying it)

• It would free up money for transit and other mobility solutions

• It would make our waterfront more open and accessible

• It would beautify our downtown

• It would increase land values all along the waterfront

And since we’re still in the early days of developing our eastern waterfront, now is the time to do it. The longer we wait, the harder it’ll get and the more expensive it’ll get.

So I hope that the leaders in this city will think long and hard about this as opposed to immediately assuming we need an elevated highway to keep this city moving. The last time I checked, it doesn’t work so well in its current state.

Images: Before and After the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco (via Gizmodo)