Below is a photo of Interstate 95 near Miami, which, for the record, I myself did not take while driving.
The two empty lanes that you see are the “Express Lanes.” The price for using these lanes varies based on demand.
During periods of low demand, the toll could be around $0.20 per mile.
During periods of high demand, such as during rush hour, it might be $1 per mile.
And during unusually heavy periods, like when there’s an accident, it could be more.
We used these lanes while driving around the Miami area on this trip. The pricing always seemed reasonable and the lanes were never congested.
I think the above picture is a good demonstration of how dynamic road pricing can be used alleviate traffic congestion.
That’s why many cities, such as Portland, are exploring it as a solution. I wish Toronto would do the same.
Joe Cortright of City Observatory recently published an interesting post on HOT lanes (high-occupancy toll lanes) and cited a research paper by Austin Gross (University of Washington) and Daniel Brent (Louisiana State University). The paper looked at the behavioral response of drivers to dynamic HOT lane pricing.
They way HOT lanes work is simple: when traffic is light, the price dynamically decreases; when traffic is heavy, the price dynamically increases to ensure a minimum level of service. That is, the price increases until enough cars leave the lane and driving speeds increase to some minimum threshold. In this case, it’s 45 mph.
The key takeaway from the report is that “value of reliability” appears significantly more important to drivers than “value of time”. Put differently: it’s less about the time I’m wasting in traffic and more about the uncertainty of not knowing when I’m going to arrive at my destination.
It’s for this reason that HOT lanes are used more frequently in the morning (when you’re running late for that meeting) than in evening (when you’re just on your way home from work).
Gross and Brent estimate that the spread is about 7.5x. The typical driver values saving time at about $3 per hour and reliability improvements at about $23 per hour! This is fascinating because we tend to focus a lot on time. But arguably what people really want to buy is greater certainty.
I can tell you that it’s definitely one of the things that I love about walking to work, or for that matter cycling somewhere. I always know how long it’s going to take.
Three months ago when Toronto City Council voted not to remove the Gardiner Expressway East (which in my view was a mistake), it did so with a commitment to look at tolling options for both the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway (which in my view is a positive thing).
Last week a preliminary report was released discussing some of those tolling options. If reading dry city reports is your thing, you can do that here.
The Coles Notes version (CliffNotes for you Americans) is that a $3 flat toll on both the Gardiner and the DVP – the same cost as riding transit in this city – would be expected to reduce vehicles on the highways by 9% and 12%, as well reduce end-to-end travel times by 3 minutes and 5 minutes, respectively. There’s obviously a lot more in the report, but these figures stood out for me.
Given how monumental the 3 minute delay was in the Gardiner East debates, it will be interesting to see whether people treat a 3 minute time savings in a similar way. I suspect they won’t. The cost will be the larger issue.
I’ve been a vocal supporter of tolls and road pricing on this blog. One of the main reasons for that is because I view the demand for highways as being largely inelastic and therefore a potentially great source of transit funding.
The discouraging part of the above report is that its primary goal is to explore tolls for the purpose of “offsetting capital, operating, and maintenance costs.” The primary goal is not to come up with sustainable sources of transit funding.
Having these costs paid for by user-fees as opposed to general taxes is still a good thing in my view. But an even better thing would be to help fund mobility solutions that we know will be far more effective at getting people around this region as millions more people move here in the coming decades.
The other discouraging part of the report is that near the end it explains that while the City of Toronto Act of 2006 allows for toll highways, they cannot be implemented without the Province passing regulation.
It’s a reminder that our governance structures do not reflect the current urban reality of this country.