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Road-Pricing for Dummies

Bern Grush

congestion pricing advocate www.grushhour.com

mobility advocatecar, bike AND transit

biased toward pay-as-you-go transportation

inventor of technology to address congestion

www.SkymeterCorp.com

Transit

Advocates

TorontoTransit Camp 2008

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Congestion is transit’s enemy

..but cars would become transit’s

biggest ally…

…if drivers paid fairly for road use instead of pay-by-fuel-tax,

pay-by-property-tax and pay-by-vehicle-registration-taxes

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Fixing transit without fixing

how we pay for road use is

unsustainable

Congestion traps buses in crawling

traffic

…keeping cars as the preferred mode

…which reserves transit “for the poor”

…thereby minimizing transit in the political

process

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Surface transportation

has three problems

[too much]

Congestion

[too many]

Emissions

[not enough]

Funding

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You cannot build your way

out of congestion

Building roads to solve congestion…

…is like buying bigger pants to solve

obesity

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Congestion hurts transit

Buses go slower

making transit less desirable

which makes cars more desirable

…causing more congestion

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Congestion hurts everything

motorists

transit users

taxi users

pedestrians

bicyclists

productivity

anyone still breathing

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Focus on congestion as

the central issue for road

pricing

Emissions are addressed when you reduce congestion

(…and different vehicle types can pay different congestion charges)

Funding is addressed by adjusting prices

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Focus on congestion

NOTemissions

People talk green, but are unwilling to

pay for green

Emissions get addressed when you price for congestion

[the rest is acleantech problem]

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Focus on congestion

NOTfunding

People think congestion is government’s

problem…

“…not my problem”

Funding gets fixed when you price

properly for congestion

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Money from congestion

pricing needs to address all of transportation

roads

transit

bicycling

walking

keep a balance

…you saw what happens when it gets out of balance

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Myth:

“Fuel taxes pay for the road”

Only partially…

…property taxes and general funds pay

half of it

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Avoidance:

“Just raise the fuel tax, then”

Fuel tax is insensitive to congestion

It causes “all you can drive roads”

Flat taxes encourage consumption

Fuel tax is a flat tax relative to congestion

in the sense that it does not vary with

congestion

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Avoidance:

“Then use a cordon charge

as London does”

Cordon charges have limited and temporary

effects

They are just another form of flat tax

Once you have paid, you can drive around

all you like

Avoid cordon charges

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Myth:

“Transit is not ready”

Transit will never be “ready” ahead of time

Borrow money; add buses on the same day charging starts

Use charging revenue to repay loan and provide

more transit

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Myth:

“Tolling is not acceptable”

Tollingbecomes acceptable when mobility improves:

congestion reduced

transit improved

bicycling improved

quality of life is improved

Every study shows this

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Myth:

“Road-Pricing hurts the poor”

Road pricing helps the poor

The poor use transit far more often than the rich; transit gets

stuck in traffic

The rich pay far more road charges than

the poor

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Myth:

“Tolling is not safe”

Partially true

When high-speed tolled roads are beside smaller

untolled roads, tolls may reroute trucks

causing safety issues

Solution: toll them all

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Excuse:

“We already pay too many

taxes”

You are paying the WRONG taxes

Ask to pay for the road instead of

higher property taxes and higher gas taxes

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Excuse:

“We are tolling for the wrong

reasons”

Design a road charging program to reduce congestion

Let funding and emissions goals fall

into line

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Excuse:

“Cordon charging is a

tax grab”

A simple entry fee does not discriminate between a motorist driving 1 mile from

one driving 10

Use time, distance and place charging for greater fairness and better pricing

signals

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Excuse:

“Tolling is not environmentally

friendly”

This is true if a pricing program

encourages cars to leave a highway and

drive through neighborhoods

Toll wide areas, not just isolated roads

that can be avoided

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Excuse:

“Tolling is too expensive to implement

everywhere”

True until now

“Tag & Beacon” systems require expensive

infrastructure

Manhattan proposed to spend about $300-500M

just on that

New GPS-based systems take that major cost to zero

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Excuse:

“My city is different”[than Singapore,

London, Stockholm]

Yes, it is

But it is still congested

And it is full of humans who respond far more to economic stimuli more than to green admonitions

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Myth:

“I will be tracked”

GPS tolling systems can be made

“location anonymous”

At least one company provides a fully

anonymous, pre-paid system

You will not be tracked

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Avoidance:

You have to toll everywhere to get rid of the

gas tax

True.

…so let’s start somewhere

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Avoidance:

We can’t afford to toll

everywhere

False.

Infrastructure-free, reliable, cheap,

private GPS metering is now available

It handles every imaginable form of

road pricing, parking pricing and pay-as-you-drive insurance

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“Congestion is Un-American”

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Imagine a payment

service that included

parking and insurance discounts,

driver rewards

A payment platform with sufficient

additional value to the motorist would be able to toll all roads at the cost of Visa

transactions

That technology has been built in Canada and will be released

in July 2008

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Time, Distance and Place Road

Pricing

Pay for how much you drive, depending on how congested it

is when you drive

This is the fairest, safest, most flexible and most extensible approach available

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Ticketless Parking

Escalating Rates

Park & Walk-away; return and drive off

when you want

If you stay over the maximum allowable time your per-minute

parking fee might double or quadruple

You are immune from parking tickets for meter violations

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Pay-As-You-Drive Insurance

Drive less – payless premiums

…with nicer bus and bike arrangements and more road and parking payments, you probably will

drive less!

Could this mean road-pricing saves

me money?

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Distance-based taxi plating

Life-time or annual plating means an

owner/operator needs to keep that taxi moving 24 hours

…hence, too few taxis during peak hours and

too many otherwise

…leading to idling, circling, low-wage jobs,

poor commuter service

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Driver Rewards for non-use

Don’t move your vehicle between 7:30

and 9:30 am

Don’t move your vehicle between 3:30

and 6:30 pm

$2 parking credit each time

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Emission-based pricing

Use pricing weights:

Smart Car or hybrid:normal charge x 0.5

Hummer or cube van:normal charge x 1.35

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Parking Loyalty

Monthly parking is a flat tax and generates

car trips

If you paid $150 for a downtown parking spot for June, would you

take the bus?

Instead, “park 10 times get one free”

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Courier Zones

Stop ticketing couriers (they ignore

them anyway)

Charge by the hour for a vehicle to be

delivering in congested zones, charge variably to allow city logistics

operators to optimize

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HOT StreetsHigh Occupancy or Toll

Toll a few inner arteries (no

infrastructure, remember);

add BRT and bike lanes

paid for courtesy of the motorists who

elect to use the tolled HOT streets

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Summary:

We pay the wrong way

We pay for road use through congestion-insensitive fuel and

property taxes

This is a root cause of congestion; These taxes

provide no economic signals that we should

travel at a different time, or with a different modality

Paying for roads on the basis of time, place and distance, sends those

signals

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Summary:

The solution is available

Private, GPS-based road-, parking- and insurance

meters are ready

They can do a lot of useful congestion-busting now

They will soon enable replacement of the fuel tax

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Fight for Road Pricing

Urban mobility depends on it

Your mobility depends on it

Transit depends on itThank you!

Toronto

Transit Camp

2008