National Road Pricing Conference

Proceedings
Welcome and Opening Remarks

Bob Arnold, Federal Highway Administration

I would like to open the conference with a discussion about what the future for transportation might look like. The first example is what car makers thought future cars would look like. The GM Firebird 3, was designed with the future in mind. It was driven by jet engines and did not have a steering wheel but a control stick like in a jet plane. This was a real working car that went about 100 mph. There was even a promotional video that depicted an air traffic control like system for ground cars. Instead of a fast, jet powered car, we have SmartCars with a three cylinder engine and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) that to some is just a "magic black box" that shows us where to go.

When looking at the future, people tend to project what exists now into a future space. In order to think of what will happen in the future, people need a whole new way to project out into the future. We won't capture the future looking at today's technologies and systems then projecting forward. We have to look forward (not at what is going on right now) to see something that changes the world. It may not be a product that changes the way transportation is achieved; it may be a social change.

Adam Smith in his book "The Wealth of Nations" had a premise of the "division of labor" which stated that it would affect productivity. Transportation allows us to create this division of labor in things like manufacturing and even the entertainment business. Due to this division of labor, jobs can be scattered and elements produced at the most efficient manner; then brought together for final assembly. But this premise goes beyond manufacturing, as an example you do not find amusement parks in every city because people can drive to them. This has created fewer but larger amusement parks and businesses providing an economy of scale.

Another thought I had was on the emerging topic of livability and sustainability. So what are the definitions of livability and sustainability? I look at it like a Monet painting. "It's pretty, but it's not quite sharp." There is a need to sharpen up these definitions to make them understandable. I keep changing the definitions until I finally finds the correct ones that everyone agrees. Livability: "when I get to where I'm going, I'm not agitated." The drive was a pleasant and fruitful experience. Sustainability: "all externalities have been included in the decision making and the cost of the trip." When I'm 80 years old, I can afford to get where I'm going. These definitions must be understood by transportation professionals but they should be definitions that the public will also understand and embrace.

I've calculated the cost of owning my vehicle at 28.7 cents per mile with 1.25cents of that being the user fee or gas tax. This is about 4 percent of the cost of running the vehicle. Since the basic cost of using the road is a very small portion of operating my vehicle any alternative method of collection beyond at the pump will have to have a low administrative cost to be effective in raising revenue or the public will just see it as bureaucratic inefficiency not contributing to providing better transportation. Unfortunately, some of the current schemes have a high administrative cost, some in excess of 2 cents per mile; however this is just projecting our current technology into the future.

Lastly I'd like to tell a little story, when I first started working my wife asked "what do you do?" When I started to explain she quickly became bored and told me that she just wanted me to "make my car fold up like a briefcase", similar to what George Jetson had in the cartoon. Years later when I got my position in Washington DC she asked how the fold-up car was going. I told my wife that she already had a briefcase sized transportation because she had a laptop. A laptop can be put in your briefcase. I suggest that a laptop is a means of transportation much like a car because you can go to work, shop, get an education with online courses, and even go sightseeing on it. A laptop remotely lets you conveniently do actions you would normally have to get into a car and go out to do. Now you can see out into the world without leaving home.

Futurists just projected out what they already had, cars. They did not know that the transistor or the microchip would occur. Nor did they dream of the worldwide internet for worldwide communication. That is what transformed the concept of a fold-up car into a laptop.

Delvin Dennis, Texas Department of Transportation, Houston District

Many took advantage of technical tours yesterday on I-10 and US 290. The tour went on I-10 first which is Houston's most recent major construction effort. The second part was on the US 290 HOV lane to go west. The HOV lane moved during the tour but often times it does not move. Ginger Goodin suggested that if she had to do it over again, she would have taken the tour on US 290 first to show what I-10 used to look like.

The I-10 construction cost several billion dollars. The project reconstructed 23 miles of interstate highway, added general capacity lanes and added four lanes of managed traffic, which are called the managed lanes. Here in Houston, managed lanes are the code name for toll. Key to I-10 was the added capacity in general use lanes, as well as the four added managed lanes. The project opened in October of 2008 and has been steadily ramping up. People at first were afraid to get in the managed lanes but more and more people are using them each month.

Harris County Tollroad Authority (HCTRA) operates and maintains the facility that is technically in a TxDOT right-of-way. Harris County collects the tolls and keeps the revenue. HCTRA purchased this privilege for $237.5 million dollars in an agreement that was brokered 7-8 years ago.

The problem with this type of project is that it can be researched over and over and sometimes you just have to put it on the ground and see how it works. So now that the managed lanes have been implemented, they have been found to be working in Houston, Texas.

The managed lanes in Houston were developed through a partnership between TxDOT, Houston METRO and HCTRA (under Harris County). Houston can be a researcher's dream or nightmare. So far, Houston hasn't shied away from trying something new. Currently, Dallas – Ft. Worth has a very robust program that Houston is watching but the situation was reversed 6-7 year ago.

The biggest challenge in transportation right now is funding. We all know it. I was in a legislative briefing with congressmen and senators the day before and it was about the lack of funding for the US 290 project.

US 290 is Houston's next mega-project which will:

• Cost around $4.6 billion.
• Add general purpose capacity.
• Relocate the HOV lane and managed lanes to Hempstead Highway which runs parallel to US 290. These lanes would be owned and operated by HCTRA.
• Create high capacity transit element (commuter rail) on the existing Union Pacific (UP) corridor. UP is interested in discussions of sharing the right-of-way. UP discussions will probably be long but they are at the table.

Currently, the Dallas-Fort Worth area has a lot of different things going on: LBJ, North Tarrant Expressway (NTE), Public Private Partnerships (PPP), toll roads and managed lanes. On paper the NTE will offer an HOV in-line declaration lane and there will be a peak period 50 percent discount. Well, all of this looks neat on paper, but I want to see how they will sign it, how it will work and I advise the DFW area that the first three weeks will be horrible (confusing for motorists).

In reference to Mr. Arnold's funding slide: Houston in general, is trying to catch up with public transportation. Houston realizes that it can never build itself out of congestion, so we will have to look at smarter ways to control congestion. While looking at these new opportunities, the most important thing is to make sure to educate the public and elected leaders.

Mr. Dennis provided the following calculation:

• State gas tax: $.020 a gallon
• Federal gas tax: $0.184
• Drive a car that gets 20 miles to the gallon
• Drive 20,000 miles per year
• You would buy 1,000 gallons of gas in year.
• You only pay $384 in tax a year. $32 a month. $1 a day.

Some people think that's a lot. Well what do you pay for your cell phone bill in a month? I pay a lot more than that. Cable? More. Transportation is taken for granted. Drivers expect to pull out in the morning and have a decent facility to drive on, in a reliable manner that is maintained and so far transportation authorities have always provided that. Going forward it is going to get harder as funding is slim. The gas tax is a broken funding system. Congressmen do not expect anything to come out of congress until at least next year. Congress has added almost $35 million to the highway fund from the general fund to keep it from going broke. Someone will have to figure a new way to fund our highways.