While many interest groups are promoting increased federal spending on infrastructure on the grounds that it will spur economic growth, the Washington Post reports that the “benefits of infrastructure spending [are] not so clear-cut.” Yet there is a simple way to determine whether a particular infrastructure project will generate economic benefits.
Spending on transportation infrastructure, for example, generates benefits when that new infrastructure increases total mobility of people or freight. New infrastructure will increase mobility if it provides transportation that is faster, cheaper, more convenient, and/or safer than before.
In 1956, Congress created the Interstate Highway System and dedicated federal gas taxes and other highway taxes to that system. The result was the largest public works project in history and one of the most successful. Today, more than 20 percent of all passenger travel and around 15 percent of all freight in the United States is on the interstates.
Moreover, this is all new travel; the interstates didn’t substitute for some other form of travel, as other highway and airline travel) have also significantly increased in those years. (Rail passenger travel decreased, but that decrease was a lot smaller than increases in other travel.) The interstates were successful because they provided transportation that is faster, cheaper (because it saves fuel), more convenient, and safer than before.
For the past two decades or so, however, much of our transportation spending has focused on infrastructure that is slower, more expensive, less convenient, and often more dangerous than before. Too many cities have given up on trying to relieve congestion. Instead, they have allowed it to grow while they spend transportation dollars (nearly all paid by auto users) on other forms of travel such as rail transit. Such transportation is:
- Slower: Where highway speeds even in congested cities average 35 miles per hour or more, the rail transit lines built with federal dollars mostly average 15 to 20 mph.
- More expensive: In 2013, Americans auto users spent less than 45 cents per vehicle mile (which means, at average occupanies of 1.67 people per car, about 26 cents per passenger mile), and subsidies to roads average under a penny per passenger mile. By comparison, transit fares are also about 26 cents per passenger mile, but subsidies are 75 cents per passenger mile.
- Less convenient: Autos can go door to door, while transit requires people to walk or use other forms of travel, often at both ends of the transit trip.
- Less safe: For every billion passenger miles carried, urban auto accidents kill about 5 people, while light rail kills about 12 people and commuter trains kill 9. Only subways and elevateds are marginally safer than auto travel, at 4.5, but we haven’t built many of those lately.
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Not surprisingly, most transit projects lead to almost no new travel. Yet their backers claim this is a virtue. They have demonized the new travel generated by the interstates by calling it “induced demand.” They have celebrated transportation projects that generate no new travel but merely get people to shift from one mode to another, usually more expensive, mode as “sustainable.”
Even when cities spend money on roads, they often spent it making travel slower, less convenient, and more dangerous. Many cities are doing various forms of what planners euphemistically called “traffic calming,” meaning narrowing streets, putting barriers in roads, and turning one-way streets into two-way streets. The overt goal is to slow down traffic, and it often has the side effect of making it more dangerous for both auto users and pedestrians.
A very simple test can determine whether any particular transportation project will be faster, cheaper, more convenient, and/or safer than before: Will the users themselves pay for it? Users will pay for real improvements in transportation; they won’t pay for slower, more expensive, less convenient, and more dangerous transportation.
The Interstate Highway System was paid for exclusively out of user fees. Gas taxes aren’t a very good user fee, as there was no guarantee that the users who paid the taxes were driving on the interstates their taxes were building. As it happened, the interstates mostly were paid for by users, but there is no guarantee of that for future road projects. That’s one reason why it makes sense to shift from gas taxes to <a href=”http://mbufa.org”>mileage-based user fees</a> or tolls.
Yet there is a major push to increase gas taxes. A recent article in the Atlantic‘s CityLab argues that gas taxes should be increased by 70 cents a gallon because current taxes aren’t paying the “true cost of driving.” Yet the costs that the article says taxes aren’t paying–things like congestion and auto accidents–are nearly all paid by road users in other ways, so there is no reason why gas taxes should be increased to cover those costs or any reason to think that higher taxes will reduce those costs.
Our gas taxes are “underpriced,” CityLab argues, because taxes are higher in Europe. Yet the higher taxes in Europe aren’t spent on roads; they mostly go for non-road activities, and not for reducing congestion and other road-related costs.
Infrastructure is important. But throwing federal dollars at it won’t take care of the problems. Instead, infrastructure spending only makes sense if users are willing to pay for it. For the most part, that means infrastructure can and should be funded privately or by state and local governments out of user fees, rather than by the federal government.
“The overt goal is to slow down traffic, and it often has the side effect of making it more dangerous for both auto users and pedestrians.”
What evidence do you have that traffic calming measures make conditions more dangerous for both drivers/passengers and peds?
Since speed is often a contributing factor, this seems counter intuitive.
While “road diets” on arterial roads are dubious, certainly on neighborhood roads, traffic-calming measures can help increase safety both for peds and auto users.
Frank, evidence is not needed. Just think about it. By making traffic faster, pedestrians are discouraged from crossing roads. As a result they give up trying to walk and drive instead. The result is that everyone is safer.
Check the sidebar Frank, Seconds Count under Faithful Allies
http://www.calmingrisk.com/
Also, is it right to consider suicides the same as deaths suffered by those who wanted to live, say someone who crossed the street in a crosswalk with a light but was still hit by a driver who didn’t look. Or a driver and passengers on a highway hit by a drunk who took a ramp the wrong way? Statistics generally show those suicides to be a much larger proportion of rail fatalities than road fatalities.
“Check the sidebar Frank, Seconds Count under Faithful Allies”
There are some good points there in terms of emergency response vehicles. I get it. I also get that some measures may increase risk, as I’ve narrowly avoided collisions with people who don’t go the correct way around intersection traffic circles.
“is it right to consider suicides the same as deaths suffered by those who wanted to live”
We’ve discussed that here before. I also why the focus is on fatalities rather than injuries. Certainly millions are injured each year in cars. Per passenger mile, how does this stack up with transit?
I again think safety is a distraction from the most significant issue: subsidy.
The Antiplanner throws out some surprising numbers, especially with regard to transportation safety. I’d love to know the sources.
According to this page, which cites Bureau of Transportation Statistics, light rail is safer than private automobile.
There’s also this article, which cites research concluding that automobiles experience 7.28 fatalities per billion passenger miles while commuter trains experience 0.43 fatalities per billion passenger miles.
As for the gas tax, I think the Antiplanner is missing the main point of the Citylab article, which is that however you collect user fees it’s clear that what we’re currently collecting doesn’t even come close to covering the true costs of driving automobiles. The analysis gets even worse if you factor in the costs of pesky negative externalities from automobile use like deaths from road-related traffic pollution.
But even assuming that we could ever get automobile drivers to start paying their fair share, how does the Antiplanner propose that we get other infrastructure users to pay theirs? How about people who walk? People who bike? Children, the elderly, or the impaired who are incapable of driving? How do we get them to pay for the cost of their mobility?
“But even assuming that we could ever get automobile drivers to start paying their fair share, how does the Antiplanner propose that we get other infrastructure users to pay theirs? How about people who walk? People who bike? Children, the elderly, or the impaired who are incapable of driving? How do we get them to pay for the cost of their mobility?”
This has all been addressed here before. Use Bing (since Google isn’t indexing the site) and search this site. Seriously. Read those discussions. Other infra? Been covered. Walkers (not the AMC variety)? Claimed and covered. Bikers? Discussed but not resolved. Children? Please. Elderly? Did they not save enough to pay for their mobility? Shotgun argumentation? More, please!
The point is that drivers pay much more of their fair fare than transit riders. The AP and libertarians in general are opposed to subsidies in all forms. Certainly, there are negative effects of automobiles. What’s the price per passenger mile? And since we live in a “democracy,” since most people choose cars, then the minority who doesn’t directly benefit will should just have to deal with those externalities, right? Isn’t that how majoritarianism works?
The notion that all but a lucky few have any choice in how to get around in the USA is as laughable as private automobiles being called safer than commuter rail.
But yes, we do live in a democracy, and that’s why reading this site is so enjoyable. Because no matter how stupid or unfair the Antiplanner says it is for people to demand a choice other than the automobile, more and more people are doing so every day. This growing body of public opinion is firmly against the Antiplanner, at least for now, and the resulting fear and indignation that is manifest here is like sweet, tragic poetry.
Babies and old people need to get the heck out of the way of traffic. Having to slow down for them is causing enormous amounts of pollution.
This growing body of public opinion is firmly against the Antiplanner, at least for now, and the resulting fear and indignation that is manifest here is like sweet, tragic poetry.
This is laughable. People are finally waking up to the ridiculous rail boondoggles being promoted everywhere, not embracing these worthless toy trains. What Bizarro world do you live in?
The gas tax is not a user fee.
According to Delucci of UC Davis, the shortfall for road maintenance and spending is somewhere between 20 and 70 cents per gallon, or a shortfall
No one here, except myself and a few lone transit advocates, has EVER acknowledged that the cost of parking strictly belongs to the act of driving. Here is it how it works, for MetroF–ks and others who can’t grasp reality:
(1) All transportation modes require four things, vehicles, operating way, terminals. With railroads those are the railcars and locomotives, the railroad trackage itself, stations and railroad yards/shops. For ships, those are the boats, ships, the ocean and/or river & lakes, docks, and maintenance docks, drydocks, etc. For airplanes, those are the airplanes themselves, the sky, airports and hangars. For automobiles, those are the vehicles themselves, various kinds of roadways, PARKING areas including “at home” and at various destinations, and maintenance shops/owner garages, etc.
(2) Without parking, automobiles would be impractical. Also, parking would not exist as such without the need to park automobiles.
(3) Since parking would hardly exist without automobiles, ergo, the COSTS OF PARKING correctly are charged to the act of driving automobiles. Since something like 99% of parking is “free” to the user, the commensurate cost of parking belongs charged to automobiles. And thus the overall “structural subsidy” (sic) of driving is heavily subsidized, with the costs of parking DWARFING the cost of the road maintenance shortfall.
(4) No amount of libertarian ideological handstands such as “private business makes the choice to provide parking”or similar private vs. public nonsense changes the facts about parking on the ground. The same goes for the small percentage of costs covered by auto insurance, but that’s another post.
Delucci’s shortfall is around 2-3 cents per mile, not the penny often claimed by The Antiplanner and other automobile apologists.
For msetty, it always comes back to parking. What happened Michael, did a parking lot once refuse to give you a blowjob?
(3) Since parking would hardly exist without automobiles, ergo, the COSTS OF PARKING correctly are charged to the act of driving automobiles. Since something like 99% of parking is “free” to the user, the commensurate cost of parking belongs charged to automobiles. And thus the overall “structural subsidy” (sic) of driving is heavily subsidized, with the costs of parking DWARFING the cost of the road maintenance shortfall.
“Structural subsidy”? Let’s try this once more.
Automobiles don’t pay for parking. People do. Specifically, in most cases, auto users. When I go to the grocery store and buy the things I need, the cost of the parking is bundled into the cost of the goods I buy. Stated differently, I pay for it. There is no ‘structural’ subsidy.
The store owner could choose to charge for each parking space, but most do not. The reason is that he or she would have to expend large amounts of resources collecting the parking revenue. It just wouldn’t be worth the 5-15 cents per visitor that would be needed to recover the cost. It is the same reason grocery stores in general do not charge for the use of paper or plastic bags.
(4) No amount of libertarian ideological handstands such as “private business makes the choice to provide parking”or similar private vs. public nonsense changes the facts about parking on the ground. The same goes for the small percentage of costs covered by auto insurance, but that’s another post.
The only ideological handstand I’ve seen here is your pretzel logic of trying to pass off parking as a ‘structural’ subsidy. Notice how you even had to use the scare quotes around ‘free’. Like most ‘structural’ arguments it is not at all persuasive. I’ve just explained to you how parking provision works. You can either try to figure it out, or just keep burying your head in the sand and crying ‘subsidy’!
According to Delucci of UC Davis, the shortfall for road maintenance and spending is somewhere between 20 and 70 cents per gallon, or a shortfall
Let’s see a link for that one. By the way, it’s ‘Delucchi’, not Delucci.
Funny you should mention him, though. Here is what he had to say about parking:
“On the auto side of the ledger, there is some question as to whether “free” parking is a subsidy. I believe it is not, at least not entirely, because in perfect markets some (and perhaps most) parking would remain unpriced. Nevertheless, I have shown a high-end estimate that counts the cost of all unpriced parking as a subsidy.
It turns out, though, that it doesn’t really matter how one does the accounting. In virtually every case, the total subsidy to transit greatly exceeds the total subsidy to auto use, per passenger mile, in both absolute terms and relative to the prices users currently pay. Thus, the elimination of subsidies in accordance with a plan for MSC pricing (and optimal investment) would, on average, reduce, not increase, the use of public transit.” (emphasis in original)