Tag: road pricing

• Why dynamic road pricing is inevitable

  

  The Economist recently published an article called: How and why road-pricing will happen. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that there’s been lots of talk and support

  over the years

  on this blog for dynamic road pricing.

  It’s politically unpopular, but it’s an incredibly rationale way to deal with traffic congestion. 

  In Singapore – home of the world’s first congestion charge zone (1975) – they constantly monitor traffic congestion. As soon as average speeds drop over a three-month period, they simply raise the charge. Congestion gone.

  We know this works, but for many reasons road pricing is highly divisive. According to The Economist, there are a few reasons why this is going to become a bit more politically palatable.

  For one, the take from gas taxes and vehicle duties has been declining in Britain over the past couple of years. Electric vehicles will only exacerbate this trend. So governments are going to be forced to look elsewhere for money.

  Secondly, traditional tolls and congestion charges are becoming increasingly ineffective. Today in central London, private-hire vehicles are said to make up about 38% of all car traffic – almost double the share of traditional black taxis. 

  These are cars circling around the city, picking up passengers. Blunt charges based on suburbanites entering the city in the morning and leaving in the afternoon is simply not capturing the way that many of us move around our cities today.

  In other words, urban mobility is undergoing dramatic changes and the revenue and congestion management tools are going to need to adapt. If you’re interested in this topic, check out the full article here.

  Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

  2017.08.16

• Autonomous vehicles will strengthen the case for road pricing

  

  Joe Cortright of City Observatory recently published a post about the types of policies that cities should be looking to adopt in response to autonomous vehicles. It’s called: Pricing roads for autonomous vehicles.

  Many have argued, including urban economist Edward Glaeser, that autonomous vehicles are going to be positively disastrous for cities. Once you remove the labor costs associated with the driver and the overall price per kilometer plummets because of pooling/technological advances, we are going to see an huge surge in demand – well beyond the capacities of our roads.

  Of course, there are solutions. We can accurately price the roads, which is something that more cities should be doing today even before autonomous vehicles arrive. Here is an excerpt from Cortright’s article:

  “With modern electronics, and especially with autonomous vehicles, position and speed is monitored with great precision. There is no reason why they [drivers] should not pay for exactly the amount of roadway that they use. And we know that the cost of the city’s roadway varies substantially across space and over time. Use of road capacity in less dense neighborhoods at off-peak hours imposes nominal costs on the city’s road budget. In contrast, peak hour use of city streets and arterials, particularly in and near the city center, imposes huge costs on the city and its residents. Those who use the system at peak hours in congested locations should pay the costs associated with creating, maintaining, and where necessary expanding that infrastructure.”

  This isn’t a novel concept, which is why when Toronto was looking at a flat road toll I argued here on the blog that it was a step in the right direction but that it was too blunt a tool. 

  It’s a moot point now because sadly the province ended up pandering and rejecting the plan, but we should have been considering something that could achieve the above objectives. It needed more finesse.

  But in all likelihood our cities will have to face that reality sooner rather than later.

  2017.06.18

• Free ice cream

  I was out for dinner this evening and the topic of road tolls (road pricing) came up. All of us at the table agreed that this was a missed opportunity for Toronto. Yes we proposed it, but then we got cold feet and backed away.

  Why might this be a good idea?

  City Observatory did a good job explaining this with their post about free ice cream day at Ben & Jerry’s. They argued that this sort of promotion actually provides a great crash course in transportation economics. Nobody is paying, but the lines are real long.

  Here’s an excerpt:

  Substitute “freeway” for “free cone” and you’ve got a pretty good description of how transportation economics works. When it comes to our road system, every rush hour is like free cone day at Ben and Jerry’s.  The customers (drivers) are paying zero for their use of the limited capacity of the road system, and we’re rationing this valuable product based on people’s willingness to tolerate delays (with the result that lot’s of people who don’t attach a particularly high value to their time are slowing down things for everyone).

  What we are talking about is simple, but apparently it’s not easy to execute on.

  2017.04.07

• We’re still on road pricing

  

  The New York Times recently argued that self-driving cars can’t cure traffic, but that economics can. Here is the key soundbite:

  “Maybe autonomous cars will be different from other capacity expansions,” Mr. Turner said. “But of the things we have observed so far, the only thing that really drives down travel times is pricing.”

  The argument here is that capacity expansions – such as additional lanes – never solve the problem of gridlock. Yes lane widening projects increase capacity, but the latent demand is so strong that the problem never gets solved. Even in places like Houston.

  We talked a lot about this phenomenon on the blog a few years ago when Toronto was embroiled in debate over the Gardiner Expressway East. But it’s interesting to think about self-driving cars as simply another incremental capacity expansion.

  I have no doubt that this technology will make more efficient use of our roads. Carpooling will be a lot easier – as is already the case. Cars will be able to drive closer together. We’ll be able to stop abrupt breaking and swift land changes, which actually create systemic traffic problems for everybody else.  And the list goes on.

  But there will still be limits to how many people can be efficiently moved on a particular strip of road. Exactly how there are limits to how many people can be efficiently moved via a particular subway tunnel, streetcar line, and so on.

  So if latent demand continues to outstrip available capacity, which has historically been the case, then we are once again back to the politically unpopular idea of pricing away congestion. As much as people criticize it as regressive, I believe that’s where we’re headed.

  2017.03.11

• Province rejects Toronto’s proposed road toll plan

  

  Earlier this week I was in an Uber heading up to Charles Street and the driver made a comment to me. He said that since he moved to Toronto in the 90′s, traffic has gotten progressively worse every single year. He continued on to say: and yet we continue to build, build, build.

  My response won’t surprise anyone who reads this blog. I said that Toronto has become a far more exciting city since the 90′s because of intensification (though 1992 and 1993 were pretty awesome) and that the problem is our mental model. We haven’t moved beyond the car as the perceived solution to urban mobility.

  A perfect example of this is what just happened with the province vetoing Toronto’s proposed road toll plan. 

  Firstly, I fully agree with Marcus Gee of the Globe and Mail that this is both an act of cowardice (the province gave every indication that they initially supported the plan) and an act of arrogance (we are talking about roads owned by the city, not the province).

  I also find it incredibly frustrating that Toronto cannot control its own destiny. This is a mistake and it needs to change if we – and the rest of the cities in this great country – are to continue competing at a high level in this urban century.

  But to my initial point, the problem with this move is that it signals a status quo mental model. It is a clear reluctance to make any sort of bold moves to move Toronto in a new direction. I guess we are happy with the current trend line. More traffic.

  We shouldn’t be.

  2017.01.28

• Toronto mayor proposes road tolls, finally

  When I wrote yesterday’s post about road tolls, it hadn’t been announced that Toronto Mayor John Tory was going to call for road tolls on both of the highways coming into downtown. That didn’t leak until late in the evening. So I was just writing another post on a topic that I care about.

  Today, however, that announcement was made and the proposal is a flat $2 toll on both the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway. It is expected that this could bring in close to $200 million a year in new revenue for the city – all of which would be dedicated towards transit and roads. Good.

  First, I want to applaud the mayor for coming out in support of road pricing. I didn’t agree with him on the Gardiner East, but I agree with him on this – mostly. It is a bold move.

  The reason I say mostly is because I hope that we don’t simply default to a fixed and blunt road toll. There are more sophisticated options out there, such as variable pricing models that change based on demand/congestion levels.

  Here’s a post that explains how that works and why I think it’s a good model.

  With this approach, it becomes more of a congestion charge rather than a toll. It also gives commuters the option of driving during off-peak times to save money. And if we implemented something like this, I am sure that we would see employers and office hours adapt. More on this in the above post.

  Still, I absolutely believe that it’s a step in the right direction for this great city. So thank you Mayor Tory.

  2016.11.24

• Revisiting road pricing

  Following the Toronto Transit Commission’s approval of a 10-cent fare hike, Cherise Burda of the Ryerson City Building Institute penned an article titled: It’s time for Toronto to consider road tolls.

  I am a big supporter of road pricing and I have written a lot on this topic over the years. There’s even a guest post by Darren Davis on this blog – he is a transport planner with Auckland Transport. 

  I don’t have much to add right now, but I did want to help promote Cherise’s post and I did want to link back to all of my previous posts (including Darren’s). Click here for a list of posts tagged with “road pricing.”

  There’s a mental model in Toronto, and many other cities, that remains centered around subsidized roads and artificially low residential property taxes. Because, well, that’s the dream.

  Nobody wants to pay more for anything – I get it. But I think we can all agree that this region has not solved the traffic/mobility problem. In fact, it’s one of our biggest weaknesses. 

  So what are we going to do about it? I reckon the answer is something other than the status quo.

  2016.11.23

• Toronto exploring road pricing on downtown highways

  Road pricing is on the table in Toronto. (Somebody has to fund the expensive Gardiner Expressway East rebuild.) On March 11, 2016, the City issued a Request for Proposal for: “Options for Establishment of Toll Facilities on F.G. Gardiner Expressway/Don Valley Parkway.”

  As a vocal supporter of road pricing, I am happy to see us headed in this direction. And I bet that today’s post will just be the beginning of my ruminations on this topic.

  Because naturally, it raises a lot of questions:

  Should the pricing be fixed or variable? Similar to how Uber’s surge pricing model is intended to ensure that there are always enough drivers on the road, should our road pricing model strive to eliminate traffic congestion by increasing the price of the road as demand rises beyond road capacity? I like the idea of a “congestion charge” rather than just a road toll. There’s something very efficient about it.

  Who should pay? Should anyone and everyone who uses the road pay? Or should it just be be non-Toronto residents who aren’t already paying property taxes in the city? I would imagine that this latter scenario would be easier for Toronto politicians to get behind, since there will obviously be a segment of people who flat out don’t want road tolls/pricing. But if we stick with the principle that it’s a “congestion charge”, then everyone should pay. It doesn’t matter where you live when you are demand trying to exceed the available supply of road.

  (I’m running a Twitter poll right now with this exact question. At the time of writing this post, “everyone should pay” is winning.)

  Should electric vehicles be exempt from the road tolls or congestion charges in order to help accelerate our transition away from fossil fuels? With Tesla getting ready to announce its mass market Model 3 (price $35,000), I’ve been thinking lately that the car I currently own may very well be the last gasoline car I ever own.

  It’s still early days for road pricing and our mayor doesn’t seem to be a fan. So who knows how far we’ll get with this RFP. But I for one hope that we find the courage to make the difficult decisions and that this new revenue stream is leveraged for the purpose of building more sustainable forms of urban transport in this city. 

  Let’s make a 50 year decision and not an election cycle decision.

  2016.03.16

• How to encourage traffic congestion in your city

  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.

  2015.10.26

• How to save 8 minutes on Toronto’s highways

  

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

  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.

  2015.09.15