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More Roads! Bigger Highways!
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Business New Haven
9/001/2003
By:
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The Connecticut legislature recently voted to increase motor vehicle-related fees to pay for transportation investments in order to alleviate congestion on the state’s highways. Collecting user fees and investing in transportation improvements has worked successfully for a long time.
A U.S. Department of Transportation study determined that for each $1 billion spent on highway construction nationwide, 42,100 jobs are generated annually. The study also showed that every dollar invested in the nation’s highway system yields $570 in economic benefits because of reduced traffic delays, improved safety and lower vehicle operating costs.
But this much-needed investment won’t meet its intended purpose if it ignores people’s wants and needs. Statistics show that demands on our highways have significantly outpaced investment. Diverting any investment away from roads and highways is a detriment to our society. The main transportation tools of our society are vehicles and the roads they travel.
A new phenomenon called "trip-chaining" foils the popular theory that investing in transit is the cure for traffic congestion. Today’s fragmented and dynamic lifestyles require workers to "trip-chain" in order to squeeze maximum efficiency out of every trip to and from work. They need flexibility in order to drop children at school or day care, pick up dry cleaning or groceries and get the kids to all sorts of recreational activities. People don’t make simple Point A-to-Point B commutes to work any more.
Other-than-work journeys now account for most of the recent increases in highway usage. Americans still choose their personal vehicle as the main way to travel. According to the 2000 Census, Connecticut commuters overwhelmingly use their personal vehicles as a means of travel to and from work:
o 80 % of work travel is by single-occupancy vehicle
o 91% of work commuting vehicles is single-occupant
o 96 percent of work travel is by car
o Two % of work travel is by rail
o Two % of work travel is by bus.
Adding trucks and buses to the personal vehicle equation underscores the need to invest in roads and highways over other options. The number of vehicles traveling on Connecticut’s three major highways outnumber transit riders 27 to 1 every day.
Traffic in Connecticut grew 11 percent from 1990 to 1999. It is projected that traffic will expand by 27 percent between 2000 and 2025. I-95 in Greenwich recorded average daily traffic volumes of 80,000 vehicles in 1985, increased to 130,000 daily vehicles in 2000, with 172,000 anticipated by 2020. Also, over the next decade it is projected that the number of tractor-trailers on the roads will nearly double as well.
The problem of highway usage outpacing investment becomes plainer nationally: Since 1980 U.S. population has increased by 24 percent, the number of licensed drivers has grown more than 30 percent, and the number of registered vehicles has increased more than 40 percent. This growth, multiplied by lifestyle changes, has generated an increase of 80 percent in vehicle miles traveled.
Over the same period highway lanes-miles grew by just four percent, road lane-miles by just two percent.
As highway demand continues to outpace supply and investment, diverting fees from vehicle drivers to invest in other things, such as rail cars, will not reduce the number of cars on the road to a point low enough to reach equilibrium with the capacity of Connecticut’s highway system. Transportation planners and politicians promoting such solutions as buying rail cars simply ignore the facts that changes in land use, economics, demographic patterns and the affluence of our society have and will continue to demand more personal travel.
It is obvious that diverting funding away from highway improvement and enhancement will cause immeasurable harm to the citizens and economy of Connecticut. Safe travel, our national defense highway system, noise and air pollution, the state’s economy and everyone’s quality of life are dependent on substantial investment in our roads and highways.
William J. Heubner
Avon
The author formerly was a reporter and editor for the Hartford Times as well as director of public affairs for the Connecticut Construction Industries Association.
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