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Adding the Capacity Needed

The Capacity Crisis

Travel on the U.S. highway system has increased five-fold over the past 50 years from 600 billion vehicles miles traveled (VMT) in 1956 to 3 trillion VMT in 2006. The amount of highway mileage built during that period was substantial, but the increase in travel has been so great that most of the capacity and redundancy planned when the system was built has been used up. Even if the current rate of VMT growth could be cut by 50 percent over time, at a minimum VMT by 2055 will have grown to 4.5 trillion. To support the growth that has taken place and the growth expected, additional highway, transit, and rail capacity will all be needed.

Expanding Transit Capacity

To meet the growing need for public transportation, two things need to happen. Where transit service is already available, it will need to be expanded. Where it is not yet available, it will need to be provided. Forecasts show that the U.S. population will grow from 300 million to 435 million by 2055. Over 80 percent of that growth is expected to take place in our metropolitan areas. A 2005 Bureau of Census survey found that only 54 percent of American households have access to public transportation. One goal recommended is that within 15 years, public transportation service should be in place in every metropolitan region in the country. Recently there has been a dramatic increase in the demand for paratransit services in rural areas as well.

To help reduce congestion and to meet the demand for public transportation, another goal recommended is that transit ridership should at least double by 2030. Between 2030 and 2055, transit ridership should double again. All of this will require additional capacity.

Bold Strategy to Add Transit Capacity. A bold strategy is recommended to add needed capacity.

  • Modernizing Existing Systems. Subway systems and commuter-rail systems in major markets need to be modernized and expanded. New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, are among the systems which need to be modernized to meet growing travel demands.

  • New Starts. Of the 264 projects deemed eligible for preliminary engineering in 2007, as many as possible should receive Federal funding and be built.

  • Bus-Rapid Transit. Many communities will enhance their bus operations through innovative improvements to system design and performance. Low floors and multiple-doors will be used to speed up passenger loading, while dedicated lanes will make it possible for trips to be made by bus, faster than would be possible by private automobile.

  • Paratransit Services for Older Persons and Persons with Disabilities. The aging of America is creating a huge demand for both fixed-route and paratransit services. Improved paratransit services will be needed in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Connecting rural America with medical and other services will be especially helpful.

  • Intercity Bus Needs. Additional funds will be needed to expand intercity bus services to rural communities. Demand for over-the-road charter bus services will flourish for tours and tourism as the Baby Boom generation hits retirement. As airport capacity and airspace become strained, viable alternative service for trips of 300 miles or less will be provided with great success using inter-city buses and intercity passenger rail.


EmX traveling through downtown Eugene, Oregon, is an example of the innovative design used in bus rapid transit systems.

Using Land Use Strategies to Reduce Travel Demand

A major reason transit ridership is expected to grow so significantly over the next 20 years is that a change is taking place in where most development takes place. Because of cheap oil, the housing development pattern of the past 50 years was to “move further out.” With more expensive oil on the horizon, the development pattern of the future for many is expected to become, “move closer in.” Approximately one-third of housing and commercial demand may be met through infill development in central cities and older suburbs. Another one-third may be met through new, mixed-use, transit-oriented development and compact single-family subdivisions. This may come about not because government tries to force change, but because the market is demanding a change. As Shelly Poticha of Reconnecting America pointed out, “All the demographic groups that are increasing in size in this country—older, smaller households, and singles—are the same groups that have historically preferred urban living and that do use transit.” What government does have to do is improve the coordination of transportation, housing and land use policies. Local governments need to adopt supportive policies such as allowing the densities required.


In North Carolina, Charlotte Lynx light rail starts operations in 2007.

The Jersey City Comeback—An Urban Infill Development Success Story

As described in an April 2007 issue of USA Today, in the 1960s Jersey City, New Jersey hit hard times, its railroads went broke and many of its factories closed. In the 1970s alone it lost 14 percent of its population and 10 percent of its jobs.

Today it has come back. It is clean, green, and growing. Urban planners see it as an example of how the nation can accommodate some of the additional 100 million Americans expected by 2040, without paving over farms and open space. Many of its residents live in apartments and attached houses near shops, offices, and mass transit. Smart Growth America ranks Jersey City as the second “least sprawling” city in America. Over the past 25 years, the city has gained 30,000 residents, 27,000 jobs, and 18 million square feet of prime office space. New Jersey officials concluded that a light rail system would do wonders for refurbishing the waterfront commercial district across the Hudson River from Manhattan. The line running along Essex Street in downtown Jersey City alone has spawned 3,000 residential units in five years. According to Ben Jogodnik, a vice president of Toll Brothers, better known for building big houses on large lots in the suburbs, his company formed a division to focus on locales like Jersey City, “because that’s where our customers are going.”

 


The Hudson-Bergen lightrail transit line helped the rebirth of Jersey City, New Jersey.

Highway Capacity

Highway capacity is needed in three areas: to serve new growth, meet metropolitan needs, and to build a freight network to connect us to the global economy. In part, the need for capacity should be met through additions to major thoroughfares on the Interstate and National Highway Systems. Just as important, however, are additions to the network of state and local arterials and collectors which connect individuals and goods carried on those thoroughfares to their ultimate destinations.

Table 1. Highway Capacity Needs of a Growing America

Revenue Alternatives Will Be Needed for New Capacity

Preservation is expected to use up nearly all of the resources that can be generated through increased Federal assistance and the additional revenues generated at the state and local level through traditional forms of taxation and user fees. In order to add new capacity many states and local governments will have to look for alternative sources of revenue. This is expected to be especially true for rapidly growing metropolitan areas.

  • Tolls. Between 2000 and 2006, 30 percent to 40 percent of the approximately 150 miles of new expressways built nationally each year were financed through tolls. By 2030, the percentage of new arterials in metropolitan areas financed through tolling may increase to nearly 50 percent.

  • Premium Service, High Occupancy Toll (HOT) Lanes. HOT lanes have proven to be an effective way to add capacity in metropolitan areas, provide congestion relief for the system and superior service to the customer. The concept was pioneered in a variably-priced demonstration project in San Diego in the 1990s. Drivers of single-occupant vehicles were allowed to pay a toll and use an eight-mile stretch of an HOV lane. Thousands of customers from all walks of life and levels of income purchased the transponders needed to use the HOT lanes. San Diego County plans to expand its initial eight-mile segment to a hundred-mile system that will not only pay for the new lane capacity but generate funding for transit as well. It is the concept of “customer choice” which has made this approach to pricing acceptable to the public.

Where to Put New Highway Capacity? Over, Under, Around, and Through


Photo courtesy of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority. The reversible lane bridge built in Florida by the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority illustrates an option for expanding highway capacity.

A challenge almost as great as generating the revenues needed to fund additional highway capacity, is where to build it. Acquiring rights-of-way in heavily developed urban areas is extremely difficult. Before attempting to do so, transportation agencies generally exhaust all the alternatives possible—expanding transit capacity, and maximizing throughput through the use of aggressive traffic management techniques and advanced ITS technologies. However, when adding highway capacity still proves necessary, states, cities, counties, and toll authorities have found ways to get the job done. Among the innovative alternatives used have been elevated expressways to go up, entrenched expressways to go under, and the acquisition of rights-of-way using abandoned railroad corridors and along side drainage channels.


An example of an entrenched expressway is Fort Washington Way (I-71), a 0.9-mile downtown connector paralleling the riverfront in Cincinnati.


Trinity River Project plans to use the fl oodway of the Trinity River alongside Dallas’ central business district to locate a new tollway reliever route.

  • Elevated Expressways. One of the most outstanding examples of a modern elevated expressway is the Reversible Lane Bridge built in Florida, by the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority. The project provided three lanes inbound and three lanes outbound with a footprint a mere six feet wide.

  • Entrenching. A good example of an entrenched expressway is Fort Washington Way (I-71), a 0.9 mile downtown connector paralleling the riverfront in Cincinnati. A late 1990’s rebuild of a 1954-vintage near-surface expressway, the new entrenched roadway has eight travel lanes, modern ramps at the ends, and architect-designed bridges and other aesthetic touches. It was built to allow for later “lidding” or decks to be built over it by the city or developers.

  • Acquiring Rights-of-Way. Using abandoned railroad corridors and building along the sides of drainage channels are two viable options. The latter was done in downtown Dallas, where the Trinity Parkway toll road was built in the Trinity River flood plain. The six-lane toll road formed flood levee walls on the eastern bank, and the project included new playing fields, walking trails, lakes, and wildlife areas.

 

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