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A sort of road-pricing for dummies, but biased to new, infrastructure-free GPS-based metering.
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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
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