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to MTA! Maryland and Virginia to collaborate in Beltway studies Peter Samuel November 9, 2005 It is good news that Virginia and Maryland are collaborating in planning studies for the Beltway. Maryland will lead the study Georgetown Pike over the Legion Bridge to the I-270 spur and up I-270 to I-370 in Gaithersburg, while Virginia will study the southern part of the Beltway from the Springfield Interchange to the Wilson bridge and across into Maryland as far as MD5 (Branch Avenue). These will fill missing links in studies already under way for enlarging capacity and - more important - managing it with modern technology and pricing. And making it financially self-sufficient and user-pays, so taxes aren't needed. Virginia has its own plans for the Beltway from the Springfield Interchange to Georgetown Pike - four extra premium service lanes to be financed by investors in Australia (Transurban) in collaboration with Fluor Corp under a toll concession. The Virginia lanes will be so-called HOT lanes (High Occupancy vehicles free, others Tolled). Maryland favors Express Toll Lanes (ETLs) to HOT Lanes. ETLs are candidates for the Beltway between the I-270 spur and I-95 and on I-270 north of I-370. In both cases these can only provide premium service if they are managed to prevent overloading and breakdown in flow - a free flowing lane carries 2,000 vehicles per hour at 60mph whereas a stop-&-go broken-down flow lane only carries 1,000 to 1,500 vehicles at an average speed of perhaps 25mph. That's a measure of the huge waste of free unmanaged roads. The fairest and best way to manage roadspace for free flow is to vary the toll rate so the available space for a guaranteed fast ride is allocated to those trips that are most important as measured by willingness to pay. This principle is successfully applied on a daily basis in the 91 Express Lanes and on I-15 in southern California and now on I-394 in Minneapolis MN. Tolls are paid electronically via a windshield mounted E-ZPass style transponder or by video enforcement for cars without a transponder. Maryland's ETLs would allow transit buses free rides but cars with passengers would have to pay the toll just like those with a driver only. Virginia by contrast wants to continue to provide free ride privileges for cars with passengers. I think Maryland wins this argument. High occupancy privileges are of dubious community benefit because most of the people who benefit will drive together anyway - they are husband and wife, father and son etc. The idea that any significant number of people will "form car pools" is old-fashioned and unreal. It may have made some sense in the old days of one car per household and huge factories or offices when the whistle blew and everyone knocked off work together. Today work hours are flexible, most adults have their own car, people are busy, and won't wait around for car poolers to assemble. Furthermore HOV lanes are a bear to enforce, especially now with highback seats and tinted glass. There is no automatic technology that can count vehicle occupants so troopers in police cruisers have to take off after them, try and look in and count, and pull them over. They get it wrong too often, and disrupt traffic. HOV doesn't work. Virginia is just wrong on this one. HOV privileges should be dumped and the existing HOV Lanes there turned into managed ETLs. Where Virginia is getting it right and Maryland doesn't get it at all is on financing. The Ehrlich administration has given lipservice to the notion of getting investors involved, but continues on with the ICC and other toll projects under the mantle of the old debt-issuing state authority model with all the slow bureaucracy, inflexibility, high costs, and political patronage that that entails. Financing and managing expensive urban roadspace needs modern entrepreneurs who can go to the capital markets and have a financial stake in the success or failure of the enterprise. Look at Virginia. That state happily has five bids from investors for taking on the business of the Dulles Toll Road. It also has multiple contenders to invest in I-95/395, in I-81, in Hampton Roads Crossings as well as the Beltway. No taxpayer money neded at all. It's time we got with it engaging the private sector in Maryland. Hopefully the joint studies and collaboration between the two states will allow us to pick the best of both approaches and work out ways of harmonizing toll lane operations throughout the larger metro area. Peter Samuel publishes www.tollroadsnews.com and is a senior fellow with the Reason Public Policy Institute - see www.rppi.org. He works out of Frederick MD. Contactable at petersamuel@mac.com
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