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The "Highway to Nowhere"
This week, Mayor Bloomberg announced a revitalization program for the Bronx. Deemed the "South Bronx Initiative," the plan does not include the area around the Sheridan Expressway. Miquela Craytor, deputy director of Sustainble South Bronx, talks about the disconnect between city planning and community activism.
Raney, Elizabeth A., Patricia L. Mokhtarian, Ilan Salomon (2000) Modeling Individuals' Consideration of Strategies to Cope with Congestion. Transportation Research Part F 3 (3), 141 - 165
I-80 toll plans moving forward
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will take over operation of I-80 and turn the freeway into a toll road under terms of a 50-year lease signed late Monday.The lease with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was signed just before a midnight deadline set by the legislature. Tolls could be in place by 2010 if permission is obtained from the Federal Highway Administration.
The state's two highway agencies made formal application for that approval on Saturday. In the application, the turnpike agency said it planned to double the money available for I-80 repairs and upgrades over the next decade to $2 billion.
The state's plan envisions as many as 10 toll booths between New Jersey and Ohio, with an initial cost of about $25 for motorists to drive the entire 311-mile highway.
The I-80 tolls would be set at the turnpike's rate, which is anticipated to be about 8 cents per mile in three years, for cars. That would represent a 33 percent increase from the current turnpike toll rate, which now averages about 6 cents per mile. (Tolls would be 23 cents per mile for trucks weighing 30,001 to 45,000 pounds.)
Tolls on I-80 are part of a plan created last July by the legislature to raise about $965 million more per year over the next 10 years for highways, bridges and mass transit. The new law, Act 44, has been under fire from northern Pennsylvanians along the I-80 corridor who fear it will hurt the economy of the region.
Authors Cervero, R; Hall, P
Journal Title BUILT ENVIRONMENT information Vol. 15 No. 3/4
Description p. 176-184; References(14); Tables(1)
Abstract In the US there is a mismatch between demand for road space and supply. Each alternative solution results in bargaining with gainers and losers, and 'auto equalizers' have to be matched by transit incentives. But gridlock also occurs within institutions and political systems as well as on the road. Some of the ways of overcoming the institutional and political gridlock are: private investing in road building and maintaining; regional, rather than local planning; federal and state subsidies; and voter pressure to provide the political will to act.
The longest commute
A new breed of commuter is rising long before dawn to beat the rush, a lifestyle that can take a toll on family time and on infrastructure.
By David Peterson, Star Tribune
Last update: October 06, 2007 - 5:01 PM
MORA, MINN. - Two alarm clocks jolt Dawn Davis out of slumber in the countryside south of Mora at 4:15 a.m. One she winds by hand, just in case an overnight storm snuffs out her power.
For an hour, padding about in a fraying robe, sipping coffee from a bucket-sized mug, she forces herself awake. Then, in thick country darkness, she climbs into her miniature red Ford and heads south, racing 70 miles to her job in downtown Minneapolis.
By the time she returns home in the evening, she has about an hour of leisure before she hits the sack. An hour?
"That," winces the 58-year-old, "is what my friends say."
Davis is part of a rising tide of Minnesota commuters leaving home long before sunrise -- a group whose ranks are swelling by 10,000 people each year, new census figures show. More than 300,000 are out the door by 6 a.m., nearly twice as many as in 1990. It's a national trend, but one that's hitting Minnesota harder than most.
Vaughn Palmer
Vancouver Sun
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
VICTORIA - The B.C. Liberals have issued a comprehensive defence of their plan to widen Highway 1 and twin the Port Mann Bridge, saying it will bring almost $4 billion in benefits and have a "negligible" impact on regional air quality.
The government's case is set out in four volumes of material, released last week as part of an application to the environmental assessment office for approval of the project.
The Liberals propose to build the estimated $2-billion project via a public-private partnership, with five years of construction and a 35-year operating agreement all financed by tolls on the bridge crossing. The government submission argues the project will benefit the economy through improved movement of goods, commuters through reduced congestion, and the region through improved transportation.
It calculates a net benefit of $3.8 billion over the 35-year operating agreement, even after discounting the cost of construction.
While that cost-benefit analysis relies on a number of debatable assumptions, the most controversial part of the submission is likely to be the report on regional air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority is planning to widen the Turnpike between Interchange 6 in Mansfield Township, Burlington County and Interchange 9 in East Brunswick Township, Middlesex County. The roadway will be widened to 12 lanes with major modifications constructed at four interchanges.
Program Schedule:
Final design is currently underway. Construction is planned to commence during 2009 with project completion in early 2013.
TxDOT plan would convert some interstates to toll roads
Plan includes buying interstates and charging drivers a toll
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - The Texas Department of Transportation is pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing the state to "buy back" parts of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads.
The 24-page plan, outlined in a "Forward Momentum" report that escaped widespread attention when published in February, drew prompt objections Thursday from state lawmakers and activists fighting the spread of privately run toll roads.
"I think it's a dreadful recommendation on the part of the transportation commissioners here in Texas," said Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas.
"I feel confident that legislators in Austin would overwhelmingly be opposed to such an idea," he said. "The simple fact is that taxpayers have already paid for those roadways. To ask taxpayers to pay for them twice is untenable."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/327710_traffic16.html
I-5 closure shows we're adaptable
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Last updated 8:38 a.m. PT
By CARY MOON AND KAMALA RAO
GUEST COLUMNISTS
Whether you're surprised or not, the unfolding story of I-5 construction is remarkable.
The highway is usually so congested at rush hour we've come to think of its traffic as absolute, as a necessity of life. When repairs meant partial closure, hearts sank. But the Washington State Department of Transportation planned ahead and got the word out. It threatened nightmarish delays; it urged working from home and avoiding rush hour. It offered a discount on van pools, mapped alternative routes and reminded us of all the transit options.
A few days in, and so far so good: About half the 120,000 daily drivers have found other ways to get around. Hats off to the media for educating us on options, and thanks to all the conscientious travelers for doing their part.
But doesn't it blow your mind to see, in real time, how profoundly adaptable people are? Turns out we're not like dairy cows heading home to the barn. We survey the options and make choices: We can take transit, go early, go late, stay local, shop local, walk, bike, share rides. And the city and region keep right on working.
Our collective "need" for highway capacity is about as certain as our "need" for bottled water.
I-5 is mostly flowing smoothly on reduced lanes. Surface streets aren't clogged. Traffic on the Alaskan Way Viaduct is fine. Transit is full, but not overwhelmed -- without any increased Metro bus service. Freight is moving. Funny, the only place where there seems to be a problem is on I-405, where people don't have as many real alternatives.
Transportation planners say I-10 not intended for local trips
Despite some Tallahassee area residents' calls for more access ramps to Interstate 10, transportation planners say there are no plans to add any on existing roads.
Furthermore, they say, the interstate isn't intended for local trips.
That was the answer given by Harry Reed, the executive director of the Capital Region Transportation Planning Agency, to residents' questions during this week's Direct Access Forum on Tallahassee.com. Two people wanted to know why ramps aren't planned for Olson, Centerville, Miccosukee, Meridian and Mission roads.
Reed said planners want more interconnecting roads throughout the region to limit commuters using the interstate as a local road.
"The more you add to (the interstate)," Reed said, "the more it's going to get clogged."
Traffic counts conducted on I-10 showed that an average of 50,500 people drove past a point near U.S. 27 (Monroe Street), a mid-point through town, every day in 2006. Far fewer were counted at the city limits: 37,500 west of Capital Circle Northwest and 28,000 near U.S. 90 on the other side of town.
"A lot of locals are using I-10," said Tommie Speights, a spokesman for the department. "That's what's causing the congestion."
That's not what interstates are for, Reed said.
By Jeremy Rogoff
Inquirer Staff Writer
Maria Moyer has lived with the pounding din of the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Northeast Extension for seven years.
Her two-story Colonial on Boone Way is so close to traffic that the Towamencin Township resident has seen the grisly results of fatal crashes.
With the Turnpike Commission scheduled to add a third lane in each direction between the Mid-County and Lansdale interchanges, Moyer lives in dread.
The $250 million to $300 million expansion will upgrade the most heavily traveled four-lane stretch of turnpike in Pennsylvania. Turnpike officials have warned Moyer that she could lose almost her entire backyard - up to 25 feet - in the expansion, set to begin in earnest in 2011.
Remote Sites in Subarctic Canada Depend on Rigs Plying Hazardous, Heavily Traveled Winter Road
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 27, 2007; Page A10
ON THE ICE ROAD, Northwest Territories -- Elden Pashovitz eased his big truck and 28 tons of aviation fuel onto the ice of Tibbitt Lake and set out in low gear for his destination, dozens of ponds and lakes away.
Ahead, the scene was bleak, white and flat. The temperature was minus 10. The ice crackled under the 30 tires of his tandem rig.
Pashovitz moved his vehicle to its place in a caravan of heavy trucks, one of many processions now crawling across frozen tundra and iced-over lakes in the grip of the Canadian winter. Their mission is to deliver a year's worth of supplies to remote sites -- mines and drilling rigs and small native villages -- that depend on the ice road for all their needs.
Spinning toll roads' asphalt into gold
Pennsylvania and New Jersey are considering leasing them to firms. The states could get billions. But at what cost?
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
What is a turnpike worth?
The answer to that billion-dollar question is critical in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where venerable state-owned toll roads now are being viewed less as ribbons of commerce than as streams of revenue.
Political leaders in both states are considering leasing the toll roads to private operators. What the states receive is clear: lots of cash. What they lose is the subject of intense debate.
Estimates of the roads' value vary wildly - from $2 billion to $30 billion for the Pennsylvania Turnpike and from $12 billion to $38 billion or more for the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. Because there are few examples to look to for guidance, the two states are essentially guinea pigs in their own experiments.
In 1989, a 7.1 earthquake struck the Bay Area which severely damaged many of its elevated highway structures. The Embarcadero Freeway - an ugly, double-decked highway - was replaced with a grand boulevard which emphasizes access to the waterfront and provides people with transportation options like walking, mass transit, and bicycling instead of an emphasis personal vehicle use. In this 12 minute mini-doc, you'll see some of the dramatic changes and how all users benefit when planning takes a pedestrian and people-first attitude.
The Defeat of the Mt. Hood Freeway (Portland, Ore.)
In Oregon, a battle raged for nearly twenty years over the construction of a highway project known as the Mt. Hood Freeway. If approved, the Freeway would have removed more than 1% of all housing stock in Portland. In the mid 1970s, after the proposal's defeat, the city opted to build a mass transit infrastructure. The result is a more pedestrian-friendly and livable city.
TOPP videographer, Clarence Eckerson Jr., takes us to Portland to see the results and posits that his own neighborhood in Brooklyn might have benefited from similar forethought during the planning phase of the Robert Moses-designed Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
An urban success story: Octavia Boulevard an asset to post-Central Freeway area
John King
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
November 26, 2006
By 2043, we're being told, there won't just be 300 million of us -- there will be 400 million. With the roadways around our metropolitan regions increasingly clogged, how will we ever stay mobile?
Depending on the tea leaves you choose, some vividly contrasting futures emerge.
Vision No. 1 is ``stay the course.'' Keep driving as we have. In 1980, 64.4 percent of us drove to work alone; in 2000 it was 75.7 percent, according to the Transportation Research Board's recent ``Commuting in America'' survey by Alan Pisarski.
...
This is the hottest new trend, discussed intensely by governors, state transportation officials and state legislators. Multibillion-dollar roadway investments by private financing firms are increasing fast. We've reached what transportation expert C. Kenneth Orski calls a critical ``tipping point.''
...
But still, says Thomas Downs, president of the Eno Transportation Foundation, politicians will have to face deep public doubts about selling off public assets or explaining why they condemn peoples' property to build for-profit roads.
...
So is there a Vision No. 3? Yes, there's a set of tea leaves that says so -- the vote of many Americans earlier this month to support new and expanded public transit. Transit proposals with cumulative value of $40 billion were approved from Rhode Island to Minnesota, Missouri to Utah to California.
My next column will ask: Is Vision No. 3 a sentimental throwback, or a powerful alternative for this century?
Hollywood plots freeway coverup
Those proposing what they call Hollywood Central Park will reveal preliminary details tonight when leaders of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency meet with local business executives in an effort to raise $120,000 for a project feasibility study.
When the study is completed, local leaders say, they will be able to seek federal funding for the estimated $209 million that the freeway retrofit and park construction could cost.Backers say other densely populated U.S. cities have undertaken similar projects to carve out hard-to-find recreation space.
Urban Outlook
A City’s Waterfront: A Place for People or Traffic?
By KEITH SCHNEIDER
SEATTLE. ThE din along this city’s waterfront does not come only from the procession of cars and trucks on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated highway over Elliott Bay that carries more than 105,000 vehicles a day. It also comes from the tumultuous civic dispute over a multibillion-dollar repair project involving the highway and the shoreline.
In February 2001, Seattle was struck by the 6.8-magnitude Nisqually earthquake, which severely damaged the 53-year-old viaduct and the seawall holding it up.