Discouraging Driving
Download 196.57 Kb.
|
| Discouraging Driving
U.S. cities have traditionally been supportive of driving as a primary means of mobility for the population, and charges associated with driving developed primarily to recoup construction and maintenance costs. More recently, several cities have focused on the costs of driving in terms of both environmental degradation and reduced quality of life in the city. Any city hoping to become more sustainable will need to manage automobile use. To do this, cities must adopt both carrots and sticks: improving mobility via other modes, such as mass transit, biking, and walking, while discouraging automobile use through pricing and regulation. Such a shift in modes must be part of broader changes in land-use planning to encourage transit-oriented development that promotes walkable access to local services and public transit. This memo focuses on the challenge of discouraging driving, while other sections of the report look at improving non-automobile mobility and land-use changes. Typically efforts to discourage driving involve increasing the cost or reducing the availability of driving inputs such as road space, parking, or fuel. Although there are a wide range of programs, this document focuses on several prominent types: Tolls or congestion fees to increase the cost of using a particular road or set of roads including high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes Gasoline taxes Parking taxes & subsidies The Costs of Driving Americans’ heavy reliance on the automobile undermines efforts by U.S. cities to become more sustainable. Driving imposes severe environmental costs that are not reflected in markets, including greenhouse-gas emissions, local and regional air pollution, runoff from roads, noise pollution, and a range of other costs associated with the construction of cars and roads. Taken together, transportation sources accounted for 29 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2006; what’s more, transportation is the sector with the fastest-growing emissions, accounting for 47 percent of the increase since 1990 (EPA). In addition cities that develop to support extensive automobile use are spread out because they devote additional land to roads and parking. This spreading has created a vicious circle in which residents have become even more dependent on cars to travel between their homes and other destinations within the city. Low-density development, especially when associated with extensive paving, also reduces the land available for wildlife habitat and ecosystem functions. And it increases the amount of energy required for heating and cooling. Driving imposes a number of other social and personal costs that reduce quality of life and can threaten sustainability. Driving poses a significant safety hazard: U.S. motor vehicle accidents account for roughly 40,000 deaths each year (NHTSA 2009). In addition, driving has a negative impact on personal health and fitness when compared to other forms of transit that involve some walking. Road construction and maintenance consume significant public resources, and while these are partially repaid through tolls and gasoline taxes, the value of the land used for roads often is not accounted for. Finally, importing oil has serious geopolitical costs. Automobile use can be particularly problematic in urban areas, where density leads to congested streets and reduces quality of life. Traffic congestion wastes time, both for drivers and also for users of other modes such as buses that share the roads. These delays reduce the attractiveness of buses, create logistical issues, and increase operating costs. Furthermore, each trip on a congested road consumes more fuel and creates more pollution. Congestion also increases the cost of doing business in the area, in turn reducing employment and increasing the cost of goods and services. More subjectively, congestion reduces the quality of life in the congested area by making walking more difficult and filling streets up with car noises and fumes. Mechanisms for Reducing Driving In short, driving creates a host of negative social and environmental impacts that are not paid for by the individual driver. The most effective solution to this problem is to try to reduce the amount of driving, either through increasing the price or instituting regulatory measures, or both.1 Tolls Tolls traditionally have been viewed primarily as a revenue source, particularly to recoup capital investment on roads; only more recently have they been employed to improve environmental outcomes. Even now, few cities overtly discourage driving. That said, tolls have been used in some places to discourage (or at least charge for) driving on a particular stretch of road, typically due to congestion and traffic bottlenecks. Tolls are efficient because they discourage bad behavior, whereas other taxes may reduce efficiency.2 Tolls tend to have a relatively small impact on the overall amount of driving in a city: they reduce driving in a particular place but spread it to other areas. The direct environmental benefit of tolls comes through reducing congestion in the tolled location, since congestion increases the environmental footprint of a given trip. The environmental implications of the toll are likely to be a smaller order of magnitude than the time savings to drivers (Evans 1992; Komanoff 2010). Still, tolls can generate revenue that can be devoted to improving other modes, so a comprehensive congestion-pricing program can contribute a great deal to a city’s efforts to become more sustainable (City of New York 2007). One relatively recent development is the High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lane, an evolution of the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane. An HOV lane is typically a limited-access lane on a highway that only allows multiple-occupant vehicles to use the lane at certain peak times. These lanes provide an incentive for carpooling and allow greater speeds for buses using the highway. The HOT lane allows single-occupant vehicles to use the lane as well, but to do so they pay a toll. Typically this program coincides with adding more lanes to the limited-access program. The idea is that single drivers in a hurry can opt into the toll, an approach that may be more politically acceptable than congestion pricing. The environmental benefits of HOV or HOT lanes come through increasing the speed of buses, reducing congestion, and encouraging carpooling. From this perspective, a HOT lane is most likely inferior to an HOV lane, but if the HOT concept is able to convert more highway lanes, it may be beneficial overall. There are also technical challenges associated with enforcement, as monitoring the number of people in a vehicle and tolling can be difficult, especially if the toll is taken at highway speeds. Although many cities have tolls on at least some of their major highways, bridges, and tunnels, few of these are explicitly geared toward reducing congestion. Further, tolls and HOV/HOT lanes are typically controlled by the state government or a state-level transportation agency, so a city that wishes to use them to improve sustainability may be forced to lobby state government for the change. That said, a few cities have developed inventive tolls programs to address congestion: Denver uses high-speed tolling systems on several state roads. The tolls are charged via transponder or a photo of the license plate and billed via U.S. mail. State highway E-470 has five high-speed toll plazas, and charges roughly $0.31 per mile (E-470 Public Highway Authority). I-25 features a HOT (High-Occupancy/ Toll) lane. The HOT lane is free for cars with multiple occupants or single drivers can pay to use the lane. The charge varies by time of day, ranging from $0.50 to $3.50 (Colorado DOT). Both tolling programs are run by state agencies and revenue is used for operation and maintenance of the roads and tolling program (Colorado DOT). Route 73 outside of Los Angeles has rates that vary based on time of day. The current rates are $5.50 peak, $4.75 off-peak, and $4.50 weekend to use the entire 73-mile length of the road. The Orange County Transportation Authority owns and operates express lanes on I-91 which charge as much as $9.90, or approximately $1 per mile, to use the lanes. The charge is waived for vehicles with three or more occupants, except those traveling eastbound from 4-6 p.m. on weekdays, when the charge is cut in half. The tolling is done on open road via transponder (Orange County Transportation Authority 2010; Orange County Transportation Authority). New York City has the highest-revenue tolling system in the United States (Samuel 1999), and the majority of the revenues are redirected to fund mass transit. The western crossings into Manhattan are all tolled at $8, or $6 for off-peak EZ-pass users. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge has an $11 toll in one direction. Eastern and Northern access into Manhattan is less consistently tolled due to the political difficulty of tolling access to Manhattan from the outer Boroughs. Major eastern crossings including the RFK (Triboro), Whitestone, and Throgs-Neck bridges and the Brooklyn-Battery and Queens-Midtown tunnels each have a toll of $5.50 (Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2009). Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, also presented plans to implement a cordon toll in Manhattan in 2007. The toll would have charged $8 for driving into the central business district between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on a weekday. The proposal failed to make it through the state assembly in 2008, but it is still an active idea (Lisberg 2009). Table 1: Metropolitan Area Tolls: 
(Illinois Tollway), (Texas Department of Transportation) Gasoline Taxes Like tolls, gasoline taxes have traditionally been used as a revenue instrument. The national gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon is primarily devoted to the Highway Trust Fund, which maintains the Interstate Highway System. All 50 states have a state-level gasoline tax as well, ranging from 8 cents per gallon in Alaska to 32 cents in New York (American Petroleum Institute 2005). Some states also have local gasoline taxes. For instance New York and Florida have county-level taxes in addition to state and federal taxes and Chicago has a surcharge or 12.75 cents per gallon for purchase in the city. The effectiveness of a gasoline tax as an instrument to discourage driving depends the sensitivity of consumer demand for gasoline. If demand is not sensitive to price, then a tax is relatively effective as a revenue instrument but relatively ineffective as a means to discourage driving. Conversely, if demand is sensitive to price, then a gas tax would have a large effect on driving. This sensitivity in turn depends on a several factors. First, the size of the jurisdiction is very important (Chouinard and Perloff 2004): in a smaller jurisdiction, it is easier for consumers to move their purchases outside of the area to avoid the tax. Second, the impact of a gas-tax increase depends on the time frame (Dahl and Sterner 1991; Hughes, Knittel, and Sperling 2006). In the short run, consumer response to a price increase is limited to behavioral changes such as taking transit to work, driving more conservatively, or reducing the number of discretionary car trips. In the long run, however, consumers can adjust by buying new cars and relocating to areas with less automobile dependence. In the very long run, land-use patterns can change to reflect the increased costs. Econometric analysis of U.S. gasoline demand has traditionally concluded that a one-percent increase in gasoline prices would be associated with roughly a 0.24 to 0.31 percent decrease in consumption (Dahl and Sterner 1991).3 More recent research finds that driver responsiveness to fuel prices has declined in recent years, with a one percent increase in prices only causing a decrease of 0.034 percent to 0.077 percent in consumption (Hughes, Knittel, and Sperling 2006). The long-run relationship between price and consumption is more difficult to estimate because of lack of data and business-cycle effects.4 Dahl (1991) surveys a number of studies and finds that a one percent increase in gasoline prices is associated with a decrease in consumption of 0.58 percent to 1.02 percent. In sum, cities may have some success using the gas tax to discourage driving, but the effect will manifest itself over a long time period. Drivers may undermine the program by buying gas in another jurisdiction; for example, commuters from the suburbs could opt to buy gas at home instead of in the city center. Therefore, to be effective, gasoline taxes generally need to cover larger areas, such as states or metropolitan areas, to have a discernible impact on driving. Ideally, multiple jurisdictions would work together to impose higher gas taxes or lobby the state for a statewide increase. In the very long run, however, the gasoline tax could be a strong partner to transit- and pedestrian-friendly land-use planning. Parking Parking policy is one of the most effective tools a city has to reduce driving by its residents or to its destinations, although it may not have much effect on through traffic. Government involvement in parking policy tends to take three general forms: direct provision of parking on city streets or municipal lots, land-use or zoning regulations detailing the provision of parking by businesses or residents, and taxes on private parking. Traditionally parking policy has sought to provide parking to attract residents and enable business, and policy designed to discourage driving has been limited to dense cities where land and road space is limited. As with any policy to discourage driving, the success of parking restrictions depends on the size of the charge and the availability of alternative modes of transportation. In addition to discouraging driving and directly encouraging cities to be more sustainable, these policies generate revenue that can be used for anything from street improvements to transit funding. Municipal Parking – Most cities provide on-street parking and/or municipal lots at below-market rates. This approach has several drawbacks. First, it subsidizes driving by under-pricing parking. Second, it spreads out downtown development, making walking more difficult. Third, it encourages drivers to searching for free parking, which increases traffic congestion and emissions. Ideally cities would set higher street parking rates that vary throughout the day and ensure occupancy rates around 85 percent (Weinberger, Kaehny, and Rufo 2010). Underpriced street parking is a pervasive problem in cities, as it leads to congestion and pressure to maintain parking requirements in zoning laws (Shoup 1997). San Francisco’s recently adopted SFpark Program sets variable parking rates based on demand for 6,000 metered spots. The rates will be set using wireless sensors to maintain availability of on-street parking. Hourly rates will range from $0.50 to $6.00. The City is slated to launch a two-year pilot program during the summer of 2010 (San Francisco MTA 2010). Zoning – Traditionally zoning has been a major enabler of driving because municipalities have zoned to ensure that free parking is always available for most uses (Shoup 1997). Most cities adopt minimum parking requirements so that businesses or venues have enough parking to meet their peak requirements.5 Such policies are designed to reduce the burden on street parking that is provided cheaply by the city. Since municipal parking is purposefully underpriced, however, it is overused. If businesses are not required to maintain sufficient parking for their own customers, the overflow will lead to shortages of municipal parking and wasted time and resources as drivers circle to look for spots. Parking lots impose general costs, however, since they increase construction costs and force businesses to spread out, thereby further encouraging driving. Shoup (1997) therefore advocates increasing the cost of municipal parking rather than mandating overprovision of parking by businesses. In an effort to curb driving, cities have begun adopting smart-growth or transit-oriented development policies that reduce requirements or incentives to provide parking. Such policies include: reducing parking requirements for developers; optional fees for developers in lieu of providing parking, parking districts that use the in-lieu fees to fund parking or transit improvements; allowing shared parking facilities between developments; increasing allowed building height/density, requirements for developers to provide transit incentives/amenities, such as bike racks, free transit passes, or rideshare programs; and specific city plans to coordinate reduced driving (Wilbur Smith Associates 2007). Employer Incentives – An effective approach some cities have implemented is requiring employers to provide employees with the option to accept a cash payment in lieu of a parking spot at work. The basic logic is that employers feel the need to provide free parking to employees, but this policy subsidizes driving with respect to mass transit. By providing the optional cash payment, employers remove the subsidy for driving and many employees will shift to carpooling or mass transit. The impact of these policies is greatly dependent on local factors, but studies show that they can reduce the number of employees driving to work by anywhere from 19 to 81 percent (Willson and Shoup 1990). Ninety percent of employees who drive to work receive employer-paid parking, so this is a major area to explore for cities. Taxes – [to do: info on the impact of parking taxes, use of revenues] For example, Manhattan charges a tax of 18.375 percent for rental parking, though residents can be exempt from 8 percent for their own cars in a long-term rented space. Table 3: City Parking Policies: 
[seattle hot lane http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/SR167/HOTLanes/] Bibliography American Petroleum Institute. 2005. Gasoline Tax Rates by State. gaspricewatch.com. January 13. http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgastaxes.asp. Chouinard, Hayley, and Jeffrey M. Perloff. 2004. Incidence of federal and state gasoline taxes. Economics Letters 83, no. 1 (April): 55-60. doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2003.10.004. City of New York. 2007. planyc. April 22. http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/downloads/pdf/full_report.pdf. Colorado DOT. I-25 HOV Express Lanes-CDOT. Colorado DOT. http://www.coloradodot.info/travel/tolling/i-25-hov-express-lanes. ———. About the Lanes. Colorado DOT. http://www.coloradodot.info/travel/tolling/i-25-hov-express-lanes/about#Revenue. Dahl, Carol, and Thomas Sterner. 1991. Analysing gasoline demand elasticities: a survey. Energy Economics 13, no. 3. Energy Economics: 203-210. E-470 Public Highway Authority. E-470. E-470. http://www.e-470.com/. EPA. Transportation and Climate / OTAQ / US EPA. http://www.epa.gov/OMS/climate/index.htm. Evans, Andrew. 1992. Road Congestion Pricing: When Is It a Good Policy? Journal of Transport Economics and Policy 26, no. 3: 213. Hughes, Jonathan E., Christopher R. Knittel, and Daniel Sperling. 2006. Evidence of a Shift in the Short-Run Price Elasticity of Gasoline Demand. SSRN eLibrary (September). http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=931375. Illinois Tollway. Tollway. Illinois Tollway. http://www.illinoistollway.com/portal/page?_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&_pageid=133,1495185. Komanoff, Charles. 2010. With Congestion Pricing, Saving Time Trumps Reducing Pollution. Streetsblog. January 6. http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/01/06/with-congestion-pricing-saving-time-trumps-reducing-pollution/. Lisberg, Adam. 2009. Mayor Bloomberg predicts that MTA funding crisis will lead to congestion pricing, bridge tolls. NY Daily News, December 15, Online Edition edition, sec. Local. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 2009. MTA Bridges and Tunnels. July 12. http://mta.info/bandt/traffic/btmain.html. NHTSA. 2009. FARS Encyclopedia. http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx. Orange County Transportation Authority. 91 Express Lanes. http://www.91expresslanes.com/. ———. 2010. Toll Schedules. January 1. http://www.octa.net/91_schedules.aspx. Samuel, Pater. 1999. No. 94 The Illinois Tollway: An Opportunity for Reform. The Heartland Institute. December 1. http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/9436/No_94_The_Illinois_Tollway_An_Opportunity_for_Reform.html. San Francisco MTA. 2010. SFpark. http://sfpark.org/. Shoup, Donald C. 1997. The High Cost of Free Parking. Journal of Planning Education and Research 17, no. 1 (September 1): 3-20. doi:10.1177/0739456X9701700102. Texas Department of Transportation. Texas Tollways. Texas Tollways. http://www.texastollways.com/. Weinberger, Rachel, John Kaehny, and Matthew Rufo. 2010. U.S. Parking Policies: An Overview of Management Strategies. Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, February. http://www.infrastructureusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/itdp_parking_fullreport.pdf. Willson, Richard, and Donald Shoup. 1990. Parking subsidies and travel choices: Assessing the evidence. Transportation 17, no. 2 (February 28): 141-157. doi:10.1007/BF02125333. 1 Almost all of the issues associated with driving are negative externalities. The cost of driving to the individual is well below the cost to society. Transit subsidies fall under what economists refer to as the theory of the second best (Lipsey and Lancaster 1956). If one good is mispriced in a market, it may be beneficial to also misprice other goods. In this case, driving is underpriced, so the common approach is to also subsidize transit. The problem with this approach is that it leads to a general overconsumption of the more general good, mobility. A city that both underprices driving and subsidizes transit will likely end up being overly spread out as residents opt for longer commutes than would be efficient. People will also be less likely to telecommute. From an economists’ point of view, the “first-best” solution to this problem is to try to reduce the amount of driving towards a more efficient level, either through price increases or regulatory measures. 2 There is a substantial academic literature advocating the use of tolls or congestion fees to reduce congestion in crowded areas. Tolls can be seen as Pigouvian taxes. A Pigouvian tax internalizes an externality, or in other words, charges the user for the difference between the personal and social costs for an activity (Pigou 1932). Since the charge is tied to a particular place (and sometimes a particular time), tolls directly address congestion externalities. They allocate road space more efficiently among drivers. Still, as a result of the charge, drivers would generally be worse off as a result of the toll (Evans 1992; Glazer 2000). 3 These are estimates of the demand-price elasticity. 4 Business-cycle movements can obscure the relationship between gasoline consumption and price. An elasticity estimate tries to estimate the shape of the demand curve by assuming price changes are due to changes in supply while demand stays fixed, so a time series of market conditions are observations of different points along a single demand curve. If the demand curve shifts (e.g. due to changes in the business cycle) during the sample period, the observations will be biased and won’t accurately represent a single demand curve. 5 Minimum parking requirements tend to be less common in dense central cities, especially those that pre-date the automobile, because the city structure is unsuitable to parking requirements. Directory: cron -> Backup -> project -> urban-sustainability urban-sustainability -> Mit-dusp urban Sustainability Evaluation Green Infrastructure: Urban Tree Planting Download 196.57 Kb. Share with your friends:
|