Reauthorization of federal transportation funding, scheduled for 2009, will probably be delayed until 2010, says Senator Mark Warner. Apparently, Congress has too many higher priorities to take care of this year.
Congress historically authorizes transportation funding (most of which comes out of federal gas taxes) for six years. This gives it an opportunity to change direction and gives members of Congress opportunities to raise campaign funds from interest groups whose businesses depend on federal funding.
One reason for the delay, as reported in Congressional Quarterly (on-line version not available), is that the House Transportation Committee’s computer can’t handle all of the earmarks that members want to put into the bill. The computer keeps crashing.
It’s not hard to understand why. Congress first included earmarks in the 1982 reauthorization bill: ten of them. Since then, the number has risen exponentially (see table 1 on page 4), reaching more than 6,000 in the 2005 bill (which was two years late). At the historic rate of exponential growth, there would be nearly 30,000 in a 2009 bill, and nearly 40,000 if delayed to 2010.
A problem more serious than a computer glitch is that Congressional leaders want to spend far more money than they expect to collect in gas taxes — partly so that they can fund all those earmarks (or, as House Transportation Committee Chair James Oberstar likes to call them, “member high-priority projects”). One solution is to raise gas taxes, but that’s considered politically hazardous in the best of times, not to mention in the middle of the biggest recession in 70 years.
The real problem is planning. Prior to 1982, 100 percent of federal gas taxes went into highways and Congress was content to allocate the money to state highway departments and let them decide how to spend it. The engineers who ran those departments based their decisions on straightforward, quantitative criteria: safety, efficiency, speed, traffic flows, pavement smoothness.
There are tadalafil 20mg generic many other reasons because of which men are totally incapable of achieving and sustaining enough erection for satisfying intercourse. It reverses the aging effect and boosts memory. viagra professional price There are lots of companies are producing this viagra active by any company. Why bile discount cialis 20mg moves into the stomach? If we understand that, it may explain the healing actions in the bile reflux. Urban planners, however, said this wasn’t good enough, that transportation decisions should also take into account such things as land uses, pollution, and people’s sense of community. Some of these were quantifiable, many were not. Even counting only the quantifiable issues, there were too many for anyone to reasonably balance.
Between 1982 and 1991, planners slowly persuaded Congress to buy into this line of thought. This meant decisions once based on fixed, hard criteria were now based on ever-changing, fuzzy, and qualitative criteria. Since there is no easy way to make decisions in this way, the decisions become political.
“Control of road improvements through judging its relation to the general welfare is as debatable, as devoid of dependable benchmarks, as deciding the proper peacetime expenditure for national defense or the right quantity and quality of public education,” wrote University of Michigan transportation economist Shorey Peterson in 1950. “Controlled in this way, highway projects are peculiarly subject to ‘pork barrel’ political grabbing.”
This is one of the Antiplanner’s favorite quotes — I’ve cited it twice in this blog and in both of my last two books. For good reason: his prediction came true.
First, Congress put a few earmarks in the 1982 bill. Then, in that same bill, Congress abrogated the “trust” in “highway trust fund” when it began diverting gas taxes to transit — 10 percent at first, then 15.5 percent, then 15.5 percent plus an unlimited share of “flexible funds.” Next, Congress allocated the non-earmarked monies into an ever-growing list of funds, such as the Appalachian Highway System Fund, the Fixed-Guideway Modernization Fund, and the all-important Coordinated Border Infrastructure Fund.
For planners, perhaps, the most important is the Metropolitan Area Planning Fund, which is effectively urban planner’s full-employment act. It requires every metropolitan area to hire all kinds of planners to write long- and short-range transportation plans — and rewrite the former every four to five years and the latter every year. These plans are all paid for out of gas taxes, ironically allowing planners to wage a well-funded campaign against driving.
But there is another lesson to be learned here. If Congress has too much stuff on its plate to pass a bill whose deadline has been known since 2005 (when it passed the previous reauthorization two years late), then it is clear that government is too big. The federal government should get out of the transportation business, or at the very least out of the transportation planning business.
The engineers who ran those departments based their decisions on straightforward, quantitative criteria: safety, efficiency, speed, traffic flows, pavement smoothness.
There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your narrow-minded philosophy.
DS
“The engineers who ran those departments based their decisions on straightforward, quantitative criteria: safety, efficiency, speed, traffic flows, pavement smoothness.”
And right here we have one of the main reason why postwar suburbia was weighted solidly for the car, at the expense of other transport modes. All of the things you described here make travel by CAR easier, but make pedestrian and bicycle travel extremely dangerous. This has set up the situation we have today in many suburbs built during this period: no sidewalks, extremely large lane widths and generous intersections – good for cars to go much much faster than the posted speed limit, but a recipe for disaster if you are trying to dodge your way across the street or even along the side of it.
But of course, no one here would ever admit that something gave the car an unfair advantage.
The Antiplanner writes At the historic rate of exponential growth, there would be nearly 30,000 in a 2009 bill, and nearly 40,000 if delayed to 2010.
Interesting that such a projection when applied to say…carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might be considered by some here bad science.
The Antiplanner writes This meant decisions once based on fixed, hard criteria were now based on ever-changing, fuzzy, and qualitative criteria. Since there is no easy way to make decisions in this way, the decisions become political.
When a road is proposed to accomodate high speed traffic, this is a political choice. That the engineer designs it according to (semi-)fixed criteria is immaterial. A moral choice has been made before the AutoCad file is even opened. Efficiency? Efficient for whom? The trucking industry, surely. Safety? Safe for whom? Motor vehicles are responsible for more annual deaths in the US than firearms.
Just because calculating the radius of a super elevated curve may seem hard science to you, remember that the minimum radius is set by humans. It is a choice. And it is the result of a cost/benefit analysis: a wider turn requires more land but saves more lives. Establishing that minimum requirement does not come from a fixed number and to suggest as much is either deceptive or ignorant.
The writer is a civil engineer.
I find it interesting that both sides in this game of political football demonize the other when they use an argument that is not backed by quantitative data. Statistics are extremely crucial in how we as a society “plan” and make important decisions. The antiplanner is obviously peeved that “planners” want to take into account some unquantifiable criteria when making transportation decisions. It goes both ways. I remember when my team lambasted O’Toole for not liking a modern multifamily condo over a traditional single family house. The property owner and developer made a quantifiable returns after all. But here in Austin’s east side we are dealing with many gentrification pressures that have made the community hate “modern” or “post-modern” style buildings because of what they represent… them getting gentrified out of their neighborhood.
And then we have people around here that claim that nobody should post anything unless it is educational and factual. Translation: Show me the numbers! While numbers are extremely important, I think that it is utterly ridiculous that qualitative and even subjective arguments are not taken seriously by both teams. These arguments are important and educational for those whom have an ability to think compassionately. Without this ability we could just use the numbers to justify killing off the sick, weak, and poor. I mean the numbers make sense. So here I have approached where the Antiplanner v. Planner, or Libertarian v. Commie Bastard football game inevitably ends up. Where do we draw the line??? I mean neither side is going to kill anybody…
p.s. I’m with tg in #4. It is always interesting to me that what is behind the “hard numbers” is soft subjective political decisions or crazy assumptions. I’v seen two people on this blog use the same data set and come up with drastically different conclusions, because they use the numbers to do what they want them to do.
hkelly1:And right here we have one of the main reason why postwar suburbia was weighted solidly for the car, at the expense of other transport modes. All of the things you described here make travel by CAR easier, but make pedestrian and bicycle travel extremely dangerous.
ws:Exactly, if your mode of choice is precipitated on harming other transportation choices like autos do, you should have to pay in accordance to how much it impacts them. Streets were developed well before autos.
Secondly, there’s no reason for a federal gas tax anymore. Just let states control it.
Just do add to the pot while we’re on the topic, engineered roads are not always safe, in fact many case studies have shown more accidents and fatalities on highly engineered roads vs. roads that look unsafe but actually make the driver more alert of his or her surroundings.
Wide lane widths just mean more speeding, even if there is a posted speed limit.
engineered roads are not always safe, in fact many case studies have shown more accidents and fatalities on highly engineered roads vs. roads that look unsafe but actually make the driver more alert of his or her surroundings.
Yes, the wide roads engineered for throughput are often less safe, as the signals to the driver are for ‘racetrack’ rather than ‘slow down’.
The 4-lane collector/arterial behind our house is a good case in point, where the developer hired a cheap engineering firm and we have a racetrack now, where the cops are forced to sit and slow traffic down during school hours, and our trees and fences are common targets of autos.
DS
I grew up in a suburb with no sidewalks.
It was very safe to ride a bike and walk because it was a low density area and the roads were mostly empty.
The same area is not as safe today with the added bike lanes and transit, because there are 10 times more people.
Adding the density made it unsafe.
More people = more traffic.
The legal blog Voloch Conspiracy is debating urban planning … http://volokh.com/posts/1242170482.shtml
There are numerous false premises and weak argumentation in that blog entry. This sort of position is not going to get access for policy decisioning.
DS
I’ll admit that ever since the Democrats took over Congress, they’ve been giving the car an unfair advantage compared to previous practices, and look set to do it again. Otherwise what would you call transferring money out of General Funds for road construction, which happened both in the last transportation bill (2007) and in the stimulus package? They look set to do it again, with the excuse that a minority that couldn’t even block higher gas taxes might make a political argument against it.
But in general cars have not been given an unfair advantage by federal transportation spending. Drivers have subsidized other methods of transportation (based on claimed externalities.) Yes, more federal money has been available for roads, but that’s also because driving can support tax revenues and still be profitable. Yes, federal money has often subsidized rural roads from urban tax collections, or subsidized less-congested areas at the expense of more-congested, but that’s not a general subsidy to drivers. (Similarly, federal aviation spending has often subsidized rural small airports from spending at popular ones, or communications policy has subsidized rural phone lines.) I don’t care too much if local authorities want to use their share federal transportation money for other purposes, even though that does mean that their drivers are subsidizing their local transit riders.
True, zoning has encouraged the car in some places, but you’ll never get around that by strengthening the planning process. NIMBYs and others who like their low-density housing, even in the middle of an urban area, will almost surely capture the planning process. I’ve seen lots of planning authorities; they’re very good at stopping new exurban and suburban development, but very bad at actually encouraging high density development. Even when they want to encourage high density development, they make the planning and approval process take so long that the rate of housing stock increase slows anyway.
I have no problem that the road in front of my house isn’t operated on profit or loss basis and I have no problem that my local transit system isn’t operated on a profit or loss basis either!