New Paradigms to Address Southwest Floridas Mobility Challenges

1
New Paradigms to Address Southwest Floridas
Mobility Challenges

• by
• Robert W. Poole, Jr.
• Director of Transportation Studies,
• Reason Foundation
• www.reason.org/transportation

2
Congestion is a huge national problem

• Congestion threatens to strangle our urban areas.
• Transit can help, but is not the answer.
• Innovative highway investments will be key to
  addressing these problems.

3
Congestion could strangle Southwest Floridabut
its a solvable problem

• Under current plans, congestion will get
  worseand the cost of congestion is far more than
  you think.
• Expanding highway capacity is essentialbut can
  also facilitate better transit.
• The benefits of this approach are far greater
  than the costs.

4
Lee Countys congestion picture

• Travel time index now 1.18 nearly 50 higher
  than average for small urban areas.
• Projected TTI in 2030 1.36, same as Tampa
  today worse than Orlando today (1.30).
• Annual congestion cost now 46 million, 2.7
  million hours of delay.
• By 2030, cost would be several times higher.

5
Congestion hurts all kinds of businesses (1)

• Deliveryfrom pizza to parcels
• Wasted gas
• Paying people to sit in traffic
• Cement business
• Sat deliveries. Pay overtime

6
Congestion hurts all kinds of businesses (2)

• Blue collar
• Plumber
• Landscaper
• Air conditioning repairman

7
Congestion hurts all kinds of businesses (3)

• White collar
• Real Estate Agent
• Salesman
• Staffing headaches
• High Tech
• Accounting

8
Congestion Shrinks the Pie
Your Job Choices
Your Potential Partner
Your Customers
9
Congestion slows emergency care

• 67,000 deaths from savable cardiac arrest.
• 6 min.
• Not just ambulances, not just heart attacks

10
True national cost of congestion much higher than
usual estimates

• Jack Wells, chief economist, US DOT
• TTIs time/fuel cost, 86 cities63.1B
• Add other cities of 50K 12.8
• Add productivity losses 38.0
• Add unreliability 38.0
• Add cargo delays 3.8
• Safety environmental costs 12.8
• Total annual cost 168.3B
• (More than 2.5X TTIs 63B figure)

11
Lee Co. transportation planning is better than
most

• Pioneer in value pricing (on bridges)
• Have invested in capacity nearly matching growth
  (past 2 decades)
• Plan to continue doing so . . . but problems
  loom
• Serious lack of freeway/expressway lanes
• Inadequate, overburdened arterials
• 4 billion funding shortfall thru 2030

12
Why the transit/smart growth model doesnt reduce
much congestion

• Southwest Floridas density is far too low for
  transit to be viable for most trips.
• Jobs are increasingly in the suburbs, not the
  central business district.
• Most commuting today is suburb-to-suburb (see
  Commuting in America III).

13
Comparative population densities in 46
metropolitan areas
14
Transit mode share vs. density
15
How do we reduce congestion?

• Incident-related congestion (about half)
• Faster response and clearance of incidents
• Video cameras, telecommunications
• Freeway service patrols
• Legal changes
• Better management of work zones

16
Recurrent congestion (about half)

• Better system management operations
• Ramp metering on freeways
• Arterial signal timing
• Bottleneck removal
• More lane capacity

17
More capacity does reduce congestion
18
Where can we add new capacity?

• Go outwiden existing roadways
• Go upadd elevated lanes above existing freeway
• Go underbored tunnels under sensitive areas
  (e.g., for missing links)
• Re-use untraditional ROW for new routes
• Rail lines
• Flood plains
• Power line corridors

19
Tampas elevated express toll lanes
20
Elevated Tollway with Sound Tube (Melbourne)
21
Rail ROW for LAX-to-Downtown Express Toll/BRT
Lanes
22
Express Toll Lanes

• Variable pricing
• Keeps traffic moving
• 65mph vs 20mph
• Electronic Toll Collection
• 50 greater throughput at rush-hour
• Popular
• Equitable

23
Priced Lane Projects, 2008
24
Synergy of priced lanes and Bus Rapid Transit
(BRT)

• Value-priced lane is virtual equivalent of an
  exclusive fixed guideway.
• Pricing limits vehicle flow to whats compatible
  with LOS C conditions.
• Reliable high speed is sustainable long-term,
  thanks to pricing.
• Houston implementing first such project on Katy
  Freeway managed lanes.

25
Advantages of rubber-tire transit in 21st-century
metro areas

• Can use all of existing highway infrastructure
• Highway system is a network, with many network
  benefits
• Links every origin to every destination
• Much greater potential for single-vehicle trips,
  nearly door-to-door
• Less vulnerable to breakdowns, damagelike the
  Internet, can route around trouble
• Can adapt and change as land uses change.

26
Network benefits

• Network of priced lanes facilitates region-wide
  express bus/BRT service.
• But that means construction of new lanes and
  flyovers.
• Hence, toll revenues needed for major capital
  costs.

27
Applying these ideas to Lee County

• Add more capacity
• Express toll lanes on I-75
• Express lanes/queue jumps on major arterials
• Improve system operations
• Ramp meters on I-75
• More signal timing
• Better incident response (cameras and service
  patrols)

28
Increase transportation funding

• Toll new lanes on I-75 and on major arterials,
  wherever possible.
• Bond toll revenues, to raise up-front sums for
  construction.
• Consider area pricing, countywide.
• Look into other funding sources (local-option gas
  tax, transportation sales tax, etc.).

29
Improveproject delivery

• Mega-projects (e.g., express toll networks) are
  costly and high-risk.
• Could we afford a Big Dig fiasco in Southwest
  Florida?
• New alternative can raise large sums and shift
  risk to private players.

30
Long-term concession model

• Private sector finances, designs, builds,
  operates, and maintains for long period (e.g. 50
  years).
• Used for decades in Spain, Italy, France,
  Australia.
• Used for existing US toll roads (Chicago Skyway,
  Indiana Toll Road).
• Now being used for major new projects in Texas,
  Virginia and Florida (Miami port tunnel, I-595
  express lanes, Jacksonville beltway).

31
Advantages of long-term toll road concessions

• Large-scale source of new highway funding
• New capacity in place many years sooner
• Faster project delivery
• Transfers construction risk and revenue risk to
  investors
• Changes design incentives
• Design it to be buildable.
• Design it for lowest life-cycle cost.
• Dont cut corners.

32
Concessions can raise more funding from a given
toll revenue stream

• Traditional toll agency finance
• 30-year tax-exempt bonds
• Stringent coverage ratios
• Global toll finance model
• Equity
• Bank loans
• Taxable long-term debt
• Depreciation benefits

33
Federal encouragement via SAFETEA-LU

• Companies in PPP deals can now use tax-exempt
  toll revenue bonds, same as state toll agencies
• Two pilot programs for building/rebuilding
  Interstates with tolls
• Continuation of Value Pricing Pilot Program (15
  states)
• New Express Toll Lanes pilot program (15
  projects, any state)
• No limits on converting HOV to HOT
• TIFIA and SEP-15.

34
Conclusion

• Congestion is not a scientific mystery, nor is
  it an uncontrollable force. Congestion results
  from poor policy choices and a failure to
  separate solutions that are effective from those
  that are not.
• Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation,
  2001-2006

35
Addressing South Floridas Mobility Crisis

• by
• Robert W. Poole, Jr.
• Director of Transportation Studies,
• Reason Foundation
• www.reason.org/transportation