16 ms·

$40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

136 points by duck 9y ago

iaw 9y ago
> "The real reason there's sticker shock is that the real cost of road transportation is hidden from most voters. Gas tax money goes to states and the US Department of Transportation which flows back as what seems like free federal money to build a lot of roads. Meanwhile, every transit project has to scrimp for funds..." "...estimated that tolls would have to be at least $41 to pay off the costs of construction." A lot of people take for granted the Eisenhower interstate infrastructure.
- sergers 9y ago
  Recent new bridge in BC, Port mann bridge, was tolled. But due to lack of ridership, and overhead tolling, they were never going to pay off the bridge. It's now taken from taxes, everyone in the province pays.
- jessriedel 9y ago
  Large public construction projects are vastly more expensive (in real dollars) today than in Eisenhower's.
  - mfgmfg 9y ago
    Will they last proportionally as long?
    - jessriedel 9y ago
      No idea and I'm certainly not claiming that. The reasons for the dramatic increase in costs in the US is not well understood by academics.
      - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
        It's a simple answer and no clue how to actually fix it. It's because the US is being bifurcated into a 1st world and 3rd world in the same country. Both use significant corruption in very different ways to get things done. The price increases you're seeing is the response to the various types of corruption used. How do you fix it? Go back to many of the Socialist policies from the '40s that were enacted then, and maintained until the Capitalists chipped at them one at a time. In other words, reign in the Capitalists, and protect the working class. That's a solid way to reduce corruption. It wont happen immediately. It'd likely take a Great Depression style event, ousting of many Capitalists, and laws passed like they were in the 40's. If it doesn't happen, the Capitalists will just loot more and use their bought out govt regulation to claim legality. And the working class will cheat the capitalists because they wouldn't be able to get back to where they used to be if they didn't. And, the Capitalists need the workers. Not enough people on the rich end to actually do the hard work needed.
- mjevans 9y ago
  A lack of urban planning. * Not enough family sized units in the city (drive down cost with supply). * Insufficient quality of life in building codes. (Noise, smell, clean air, green spaces) * Lack of vertical density; This is begging for Cave of Steel like results complete with indoor parks and atriums.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    There's not a lack of urban planning; there's an urban planning (and popular) consensus "lack of vertical density" == "quality of life."
    - CPLX 9y ago
      That set of values is certainly not a consensus opinion.
      - closeparen 9y ago
        It’s the set of values that controls nearly all land use policy in the United States. YIMBYism exists, and I am one, but I recognize that pro-skyscraper or even pro-mid-rise is a fringe position.
    - Demoneeri 9y ago
      Density =/= high rise. Lots of 3-5-story building mix with townhouses creates the density you need with a human-size feel.
      - gji 9y ago
        Cambridge (MA) is like this, but housing prices are still pretty unreasonable. You definitely need taller buildings.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  An interesting contrast is Japan, where the highway system was totally privatized, and to get almost anywhere you have to pay tolls. A 300 km (280 mi) drive can cost you 6000 yen ($50) in tolls. Of course in Japan there are usually alternatives. Not always any cheaper though. The bullet train for the same route as above costs 9000 yen, but is 3x faster than driving.
  - megablast 9y ago
    This is fantastic, and as it should be everywhere.
Someone1234 9y ago
Ignoring the morals for a second, with tolls that high and difficulty identifying which vehicles qualify for a HOV exemption, I wonder how many days of tolls a single ticket is and likelihood of being caught? Let's say a ticket is $150. If the toll is $6 then you're likely better off paying the toll as you're likely to be caught at least once every 25 days. At $40 they'd need to catch you at least once a week for you to lose money. The $150 amount is fictional, I don't know what the ticket would cost, more just a thought experiment. In any regard, when tolls are this high, you have to consider issues like this. What works for a $4-6 toll doesn't scale to $40 unless the tickets also scale.
- mnm1 9y ago
  I think the likelihood of getting caught is close to 100% each day. HOV policing is an extremely high priority in the DC area and because of dedicated highways like this, also extremely easy and profitable for police. Also, I believe fines start around $250 and quickly move to $1000. There is a whole informal system of carpooling called "slugs" that works with the system. That'd be your best bet. Or, at $70 round trip, you can literally hire someone to wait around for 8 hours on minimum wage and still get off cheaper. $7.50 x 8 = $60.
  - EGreg 9y ago
    What if you have dummies in your car? :-D Haxor News - had to ask
    - omgbananas 9y ago
      https://www.google.com/search?q=dummy+hov+lane https://www.google.com/search?q=dummy+hov+lane
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    > hire someone to wait around for 8 hours on minimum wage and still get off cheaper. $7.50 x 8 = $60. Hah. If slug lines wren't a thing, it would be a startup idea - "hire a perma-slug". They go to work with you, file papers and bring you coffee or maybe they get to hang out in museums during the day. Then you go home in the evening with them.
olympus 9y ago
I don't think people are being unreasonable by being unhappy with a $40 toll. The way the article words it, solo drivers all of a sudden saw a $40 toll where they previously had no permission to drive at all. What actually happened was that people were expecting to see a $6 toll be put in place and instead saw a $40. Imagine going to McDonald's where your friend told you that you could get a Filet o' Fish for $1 but when you get there you find out that McDonald's was charging $5. You'd be mad. You still have the option to not buy the sandwich, but it went contrary to your expectations. So the article is correct, but I don't think they fully accounted for the fact that people had already been told to expect something else. The article mentioned it, but then goes and talks like people are being unreasonably frustrated for tolls that were completely unexpected.
- AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  where they previously had no permission to drive at all. I think this is where it's getting hung up. The signage and all other road markings on I-66 did not give a solo driver the overwhelming impression that they did not have "permission" to drive on those roads. Compounding this is that it was/is only during certain portions of the day. As an example, if I go onto the Dulles or Loudoun county toll roads, it's explicitly clear with toll booths etc... that YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ON THIS ROAD WITHOUT PAYING. Similar around the country on other toll roads. If all access is just as easy as any other road and there is no enforcement mechanism (save the odd example of someone you know getting a ticket) or overbearing signage (like on the 495 EZPass lanes) then naturally people would assume it's just like any other "free" highway. I think DC has a unique driving culture around this and slugging that unless you are just a total stickler for the rules is largely a grab bag game.
  - olympus 9y ago
    Definitely unique. I've never lived in DC but visited a few times for work and was flabbergasted when I heard about slug lines (I still am). It's a bad driving situation when you'll voluntarily get into a stranger's car, and drivers will just let random strangers in their car. That doesn't happen in any of the cities I've lived in.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
I guess I'm at a loss here because I've lived in DC almost 6 years now and it never occurred to me that I-66 was HOV only during certain portions of the day. I know I am not alone in this because I see similar conversations happening elsewhere. Additionally, many comments say that single traveler HOV use is forbidden however I frequently see single drivers in the HOV lanes on 66 and elsewhere un-restricted. As a computer vision engineer, I know that DC doesn't have the capability to build camera systems that can infer a single/multi passenger drivers and the number of police that are 1. available and 2. can discern as much are simply not there. Are they now mailing toll charges to everyone who does not have the EZPass system? What they effectively did was permit free use of I-66 virtually unimpeded, through lack of enforcement of the intended laws, for years and then rapidly and expensively enforce the system. So the question I have is, how is it that they can go from a minimally (at best) enforced HOV policy to a high toll rate system effectively overnight, and expect that driver behavior will change without outrage? It seems like it will certainly decrease the road users, IF one of two things happen: they can identify and charge (or overcharge) drivers based on occupancy (I argue they technologically can't) OR rely on self-policing of behavior from drivers.
- rayiner 9y ago
  The other day I was driving along 50 to Annapolis, where the left lane is always HOV for 8 miles after 495, and was passed by a dozen cars in the HOV lane, all single riders. This sort of behavior is a cancer that will destroy America, mark my words. As to enforcement, in my experience the I-66 HOV is pretty aggressively enforced. They’ll park cop cars in major exits during the toll period pulling people over. I’ve gotten tagged that way when I’ve accidentally taken the road during toll hours when I left work earlier than usual.
  - AndrewKemendo 9y ago
    I’ve accidentally taken the road during toll hours when I left work earlier than usual. This is exactly the point. If you can accidentally take a road without impedance that is supposed to be "off limits" then it's not really "off limits."
- 9y ago
pcurve 9y ago
If the road was already pretty full during rush hour when no solo driver was allowed, how is this new rule going to help by adding even more drivers? Sounds like a major fail to even have that kind of rule in first place.
thisisit 9y ago
> To many drivers' surprise, though, the tolls during rush hour were high, hitting $34.50 Monday morning and reaching $40 Tuesday. Is this like "surge pricing" on tolls? I thought most of the tolls are fixed to allow people know in advance what they must pay. If it increases based on demand, I think people will get mad. I think the psychology, if any, need not go towards the two choices. But rather what people thought the "dynamic pricing" will be and that was $5-$6 on average. People get mad at ride sharing companies for their "surge pricing" so this seems in the same mold.
- fosco 9y ago
  Yes, this is not the first private toll road whose price fluctuates by demand in northern VA. They are also on the behest themselves and probably higher areas by now...sometimes 2 miles being 6-8 dollars...however it can easily save 45 min and therefore to many completely worth it. Many use the savings to also justify the dulles toll road as well as a normal commuting road. The hov restriction makes committing difficult during normal hours. When I lived there I wished they would improve the metro system, pricier than NY and not as frequent however much cleaner...
- ShabbosGoy 9y ago
  Not sure how it works in VA. I know in SoCal, you are metered by distance, and you can calculate your own tolls. It has nothing to do with traffic congestion.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    Tolls on parts of the 91 change with traffic congestion. Probably some others too, but that's the one I'm familiar with.
- smacktoward 9y ago
  These tolls are part of the new-ish "Express Lanes" system, which have tolls set dynamically based on demand: http://www.66expresslanes.org/about_the_lanes/default.asp http://www.66expresslanes.org/about_the_lanes/default.asp Express Lanes were rolled out a few years ago on I-495, aka "the Beltway" that rings DC. Now they've been extended to I-66, the main artery that links the Virginia suburbs to DC's west.
joeax 9y ago
> Which would you prefer in general: Being forbidden from doing something at all, or allowed to do it at high cost? This is market economics at its best. If you don't like the $40 toll go back to alternative routes you were using before they introduced the toll. I also find it ironic that "free market" Republicans are suddenly stamping their feet and demanding either price controls at $6 or reverting to the old system.
- rayiner 9y ago
  It’s nuts. Reasonable people can differ about the accuracy of economic predictions on the large scale, but market mechanisms are great for things like this (and surge pricing, etc).
philsnow 9y ago
> Last week, only people in carpools with two people or more, drivers with an exempt hybrid vehicle, [...] during peak times. > This week, [...]. Hybrid folks and Dulles users also lost their privileges, [...] If I bought a home on the far end of this road thinking I could buy a hybrid or electric car and use it on the toll road, and then suddenly they take that away and start charging $30 each way, I'd be really upset. Whether the expectation that this road would remain open to hybrid cars is a _reasonable_ one is an interesting question. I'm not aware of similar changes (hybrids losing their exemption) in other road systems, but I don't exactly read transit-hawk blogs.
- GVIrish 9y ago
  The hybrid car exemption for HOV was supposed to be temporary but it kept getting extended for years. New hybrids couldn't get the special license plates but if you got in before the cutoff you could keep the license plate and keep transferring to whatever new hybrid or electric car you bought. I can imagine a lot of the people with the alt fuels tags are angry, but at the same time their exemption was never supposed to last this long.
- sliverstorm 9y ago
  California was the same way, hybrids were only supposed to get HOV access for a little while. It was written into the original law. (Don't know if that ever changed)
  - ddinh 9y ago
    It's supposed to expire at the end of 2018: https://arb.ca.gov/msprog/carpool/carpool.htm https://arb.ca.gov/msprog/carpool/carpool.htm Whether or not it will be extended again is an open question.
zeveb 9y ago
The article quotes a legislator: > which is why I called charging the highest toll in the country what it is: price gouging. No, no, no it's not price gouging: it's charging what the privilege of driving in the fast lane is worth. The problem in northern Virginia is that there are too many people commuting. Fortunately, there's the entire rest of the country that they can move to. 'Not located in northern Virginia, New York or California' is a very real marketing edge for a potential employer.
JauntyHatAngle 9y ago
I mean, one of the problems with tolls is that it is another form of taxing that has a bigger impact the lower income you have. Without getting into an ideological discussion, having surge pricing on tolls would contribute to a minor divide in class. In Australia this is a current topic, as (in Sydney specifically) there was a recent controversial highway widening which has been funded by tolls and constructed by a private company, which will own the road and tolls for the next 100 years or so. This highway leads to/from the CBD as a work commute for everyone coming from the west part of the city (the poorer part usually..) and so has direct influence on people's pockets in an already high expenses city on people choosing to live further away in a cheaper part of the city. This perhaps does not directly apply to this specific instance, but I do think it illustrates that this is slightly more of a complex issue and has more implications than the simplification of the issue the article author wrote - if you introduce a toll but allow people to use it, that does have an impact on overall equality in society, even if you can debate the merits & size of the impact.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  China has this big time. Almost all of the infrastructure built out in the current book was privately financed and is heavily tolled (definitely by western standards, it is much worse by Chinese standards). This is part of the reasons chinese logistic prices are so high, but also why there are 8 day traffic jams (because the non-toll option went under construction) and why much of the infrastructure isn’t usable by local farmers.
  - OkGoDoIt 9y ago
    Yeah, I just spent a week driving to a few different cities throughout China, and the tolls are unbelievable! Just one leg of my trip cost a $50 toll for a half day of driving (not sure about the exact distance). And that’s US$50, which is a lot of money by Chinese standards. You can stay at a decent hotel for two nights for US$50, or buy several nice meals at least.
- divanvisagie 9y ago
  Ive seen multiple sources say that widening roads only makes the problem worse yet in this article and in your comment it seems like the "solution" people are going for. That leaves me wondering; Are these sources not sound or are the people in charge of transport morons?
dannyw 9y ago
Is everyone else missing the fact that this may be a bug in the algorithm? Read the update to the article, tolls are “surging” despite the road being almost empty.
rdtsc 9y ago
I understand the psychology of it as far as the high price goes, I think also people are appalled that there are others who can afford such obscene prices too, not just that the prices are so high. And well the two counties funneling traffic into this road Fairfax and Loudon are the richest counties in US, I have no doubt they'll be enough people who will pay the $40. But what most people are upset about is that the hours when the whole highway becomes HOV-2 only have been expanded. So solo drivers who were getting up early, could have made it into the city before the restrictions kicked in, now won't be able to, and will have to funnel to secondary roads.
maxxxxx 9y ago
My main concern is that with tolls that high that only people with a lot of money can afford them (I make six figures but I doubt I would ever pay $40 for a toll. I would need much more money). These are also often the most influential people so they may think that everything is OK because they can afford the toll and never suffer in traffic. I think the same is happening with health care. Most people in Congress have enough money and get a nice insurance plan so they don't even understand how bad the US health system is for people in the lower incomes. They think it's perfectly fine and no need to change anything. It's very problematic when in a society the people at the top never experience life the same way regular citizens do.
- freetime2 9y ago
  I'm curious how they use the money from the $40 toll. If, for example, they used the money to improve roads and other public transportation options so that everyone on average gets where they need to go faster, then that ought to make everyone happy. Or else just divide up the revenue and mail everyone in the state a check at the end of the year. That would make me less angry about the fact that other people are able to afford the $40 toll.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    Money is fungible. Even if the toll goes to transportation they will just cut that amount from the regular budget. Sending out a check to everybody would be fine but that ain't gonna happen...
    - eru 9y ago
      And, alas, sending back a check to everybody would probably just drive up rents.
  - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
    > "I'm curious how they use the money from the $40 toll." The article says that it is being used to fund new construction: "This is what transportation costs!" "The real reason there's sticker shock is that the real cost of road transportation is hidden from most voters. Gas tax money goes to states and the US Department of Transportation which flows back as what seems like free federal money to build a lot of roads. Meanwhile, every transit project has to scrimp for funds and deal with constant sniping from critics calling it a boondoggle."
ravar 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_theory I believe in the context of these road discussions its important to understand the math behind the usage of roads. Roads become less efficient, in terms of people per hour, the more people use them. While restricting access may be unfair it also creates value by getting cars off the road faster than what would have happened otherwise.
nwrk 9y ago
Can it be cheaper if you drive faster ? ie. 45mph = $40 ie. 80mph = $30 ie. 100mph = $6 (for contrast) et cetera ? That would make traffic flow and people happy ? Not US driver, don't know the US speed limits. On oposite side, Germany doesn't have speed limits on some tolls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn
- CodesInChaos 9y ago
  Keep in mind that the safety distance you have to the preceding driver increases with speed. Additionally the large speed differential between cars leads to more frequent lane changes, acceleration and breaking, etc. Which hinders the flow of traffic, reducing throughput. In Germany it's common to use electronic signs to limit speed when the highway is (moderately) congested to help traffic flow more smoothly, increasing throughput (typically to 100 or 120 km/h).
  - nwrk 9y ago
    Valid points. Thank you. Was just stupid 'why not' late night thoughts.
pishpash 9y ago
Tolls change routing decisions. If you can't gauge a toll until you are at the road because it keeps changing, that's a risk. Dynamic tolling asks people to take a risk; that will never work unless they do like Uber and fix the price at the time you leave. It's only fair that the planning risk should fall on the central traffic manager, as they have the most information and capabilities.
syphilis2 9y ago
"The government could theoretically go back to the 20th century model of taxing more and building more free transportation, but voters haven't shown much appetite for raising their taxes." This is the author weaseling out of addressing the reality that most Americans want higher taxes on the rich. Not taxes raised on everyone, not funds raised through purchasable perks. http://news.gallup.com/poll/208685/majority-say-wealthy-americans-corporations-taxed-little.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/208685/majority-say-wealthy-amer... "A significant majority of Americans believe that upper-income people and corporations pay too little in taxes, supporting other research showing that well less than half of Americans -- 38% -- agree with a proposal to cut corporate income taxes, and that the majority favor heavier taxes on the rich."
- simonh 9y ago
  Which would make voting in a president that openly campaigned in a platform to massively cut taxes on corporations and the rich unthinkable, right? You can often predict reasonably well what individual segments of the voting public will vote for, but they overlap with each other so divining the will of the voters as a whole is really hard. Unless you just promise everyone the earth without any regard to the cost. That can work.
bambax 9y ago
> Which would you prefer in general: Being forbidden from doing something at all, or allowed to do it at high cost? Under standard economic theory, the latter should always be better. In the first scenario, you have one option: don't do it. In the second, you have two options, including the same option as before. This is not how the human mind works. One part is obvious: would you rather starve, with no options, or starve in front of a beautiful cheesecake, just out of reach? Or worse, in front of a cake out of reach to you, but with other people feasting on it? This is not just "envy", it's loss, in the second case we're losing out and we're extremely loss adverse. The other part is less obvious but no less real: we average the cost of options. A set of 11 plates with one of them broken is worth less to buyers than a set of 10 good plates, because the average value of 1 plate in the first case is less than in the second one. This has been demonstrated many times. When you go from one option at no cost (slow lane) to one free option + one paying option, then the perceived value/cost of the "free" option isn't free anymore, it goes up because people average the cost. (That said, tolls are probably the best possible solution; but the transition is always going to be painful).
- im3w1l 9y ago
  Even fully rational people can prefer less options. According to game theory you're better off without a steering wheel in "chicken". And while credible threats may be uncommon, removing the possibility of defection for a group of people seems like a very common potential for gain.
  - eru 9y ago
    Another interesting example of pre-committing to less options: sending an agent to negotiate for you. Eg the company service rep you are talking over the phone can play the 'good cop' all day long and be nice and polite; but to make any decisions they have to call their manager, who can play the 'bad cop' or defer to 'company policy'. (Not very relevant to the road charging example here, though.)
- lgbr 9y ago
  > One part is obvious: would you rather starve, with no options, or starve in front of a beautiful cheesecake, just out of reach? Choices made when consequences are so extreme, especially in life or death scenarios, are often different than everyday decisions. A life or death decision would have zero risk tolerance. For example, in a work environment, one strategy people like to choose is to never say that something is 'impossible', but rather that something has a particularly high price. People are much more comfortable hearing that the effort/costs of doing something aren't for them, rather than feeling like they have no choice at all.
sharpercoder 9y ago
We have the best road system in the world with high quality roads over the whole country. Most roads are "rain-resistant", meaning heavy rainfall does not affect road conditions negatively. We don't have any toll roads. We do pay a relatively high tax for it though. The article is spot on that tolls are the consequence of public not willing to increase their taxes.
- beobab 9y ago
  Where are you?
  - eru 9y ago
    Perhaps Singapore? (Though high taxes wouldn't fit. Perhaps Germany?)
  - sharpercoder 9y ago
    The Netherlands.
    - PhantomGremlin 9y ago
      It's OK to be proud of "the best road system in the world". As you point out, you pay taxes to support it. However, it's easier to solve certain types of transportation problems when your population density is as high as it is in The Netherlands. Consider that 41 out of 50 US states have a larger land area than The Netherlands. Consider that only 4 out of 50 US states have a larger population than The Netherlands. We in the USA need to build and maintain a lot of roads. And our lower population density means that mass transit isn't nearly as viable, except in the largest metropolitan areas, as it is in most of Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
11235813213455 9y ago
good idea, and reward cyclists, and promote remote work
cmurf 9y ago
The true cost of a trip is masked behind sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, various state fees unrelated to roads, insurance, rent/mortgage for the cost of space for the car, the loan for the car, etc. The technology exists to toll everyone for the actual cost per mile, with higher fees for higher weight (trucks wear roads way faster than cars), and congestion. It incentivizes more investments in cycling and pedestrian lanes, would affect how and where housing is built, and how much investment is made in public transit and where it's located. Congestion fees are used by at least Long Island Rail Road, it's roughly 50% higher during peak times. So it can be applied to public transit as well. In fact a chunk of automobile transport is public transit because the biggest cost in the whole system is the infrastructure which is publicly owned and maintained, typically without direct user fees that relate to usage. Gasoline taxes only approximate a person's usage.
jlebrech 9y ago
they should fund public transport proportionally to a tax applied to fuel. that way more cars also means more buses (or well maintained if people insist on using cars) every year crank up the fuel tax and you'll see more people using busses.
rjmunro 9y ago
When the price algorithm goes above some unacceptable amount, they should just change it to "Carpool only", as it was before, and there would then be no reason for people to complain. If they made the "Carpool only" have some sort of fine for violations, say $100, paid the same way as the toll would have been, people could still use it in real emergencies. It sounds like the calibration of the toll amount is a bit off, and can probably be adjusted over time as the systems get experience managing the demand of the road. If they'd launched with an $8 toll, and ended up with gridlock on the road, would that have been better?
- nikanj 9y ago
  With a $40 toll and a $100 violation, it pays off to break the rules if you only get caught every third day(!) Incidentally, I've NEVER seen anyone get pulled over for driving solo on the car-pool lane.
OliverJones 9y ago
I'm a guy with a long commute and a dislike of traffic jams. I've shifted my work hours to get me to work by 6:30 am at the latest. I'll take the toll route (Boston's Tobin Bridge, $1.50) or the free route (I-93) without considerating cost because I've taught myself that time is worth more than money. But if the Tobin toll abruptly went up to $20, my loss-aversion anxiety would spike (cf. this year's Nobel Memorial winner Richard Sunstein, for behavioral economics) and my behavior would change in ways that weren't exactly rational. This already happened on the Tobin Bridge when the tolls were first introduced. People from the neighborhoods near the Tobin used alternate routes and clogged them. The government response was wise: issue special toll tags to neighbors giving them a discount on the Tobin. The wisdom was that it countered loss-aversion with a special privilege. It worked. (Of course, this being Massachusetts, there's a small but thriving black market in those special toll tags for wiseguys wanting to save a couple of bucks a day. But so what?) In a place like the DC area, people react to loss anxiety by attacking public projects as well as by changing their behavior, so this experiment may not last too long. I hope they can get some skilfull behavioral economics people to work with them before the whole thing gets shut down hard by fake-angry politicians. If the goal is really to increase vehicle occupancy, the highway needs stations named for Tom and Ray Magliozzi's Russian chauffeur (Pickup Andropoff) near the exits. Getting more people into cars has proven very difficult. Understanding this kind of peak-load pricing, and how to apply it effectively, will help all sorts of future projects in our overcrowded metroplexes.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
An individual car might not be a mass transit system but a highway is (albeit inefficient). I think it's just as absurd to use demand pricing for highways as it would be to use them for subways. (I support HOV lanes though) The main issue I see with a non-HOV toll option on an HOV road, toll lanes, etc. is that it gives the wealthy an option that others do not have. If there isn't enough commuting capacity (regardless of medium) we need to provide more. The state should not give the rich an option to make their commutes tolerable because that's easier than solving the problems (because we all know that when the rich and powerful have problems with how the state is running things that's when they change). The wealthy have to wait on the same subway platforms as the poor. The national parks don't have a "skip the line if you're rich enough to justify the insane price" option. The wealthy should have to sit in the same traffic jams as the rest of us. Congress should have the same healthcare options as the rest of us. The worst part about toll lanes and the other demand based pricing for necessities is that they reduce the incentive to increase supply. If it were independently verifiable that any given implementation of surge pricing was optimized for bandwidth (people-miles over the time period surge pricing applies) rather than latency (average speed) or revenue I might feel differently but considering how pretty much every other traffic control rule turns into a revenue source of some sort (tolls on I90 in MA were only supposed to last long enough to recover the construction cost) I quite frankly don't trust any government to do it that way unless it's 100% in the open.
sageabilly 9y ago
I live in Northern Virginia, and the statement "People who were totally banned from a road now could now use it at its busiest time" is false. People were already driving on I-66 solo during HOV-only hours, they were just counting on super lax enforcement and the law of probability falling in their favor for not getting caught. When riding in the metro in the mornings (which runs parallel to I-66 into DC for a time) you saw lots and lots and LOTS of solo commuters during HOV times. I imagine now people are just switching their EZPass (toll transponder) to "HOV" and still driving solo, which I imagine is even harder to enforce. Traffic into and out of DC to and from Northern Virginia SUCKS, it's always sucked, and it will continue to suck probably indefinitely. There need to be more roads and more bridges across the Potomac river but there's no logistically possible way to do so.
- jonstewart 9y ago
  Have you ever heard of induced demand? More roads and bridges are not the answer, especially since the associated capital costs could go a long ways towards fixing Metro and thereby provide greater utility. Northern Virginia has some of the absolute dumbest land use policies and traffic planning of anywhere in the nation. It's reaping what it's sown with traffic congestion. This is a big step in the right direction. (I live in DC, because I can't stand Virginia.)
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > Have you ever heard of induced demand? That is not what happens. The effect they're measuring is that a road gets congested, the congestion suppresses the natural demand, and if you expand the road to reduce the congestion then more of the natural demand comes back and there is still more congestion than you expected. But the same applies to any of the alternatives. If you build more housing in the metro area then there are less cars, which reduces congestion some, but not very much because as soon as there is less congestion for any reason, more people drive. The only way to eliminate the congestion is to satisfy the entire demand. You can do that by expanding the roads, you can do that by making it less expensive to actually live in the city, but it's often more effective to do both. A much worse choice is to suppress the natural demand with tolls, which will certainly reduce congestion, but will also screw up your city even worse because people are severely punished for living in the suburbs even though there still isn't enough urban housing. So urban housing prices go up, commuting costs go up, and everyone in the city becomes poorer (except the landlords and toll companies).
balabaster 9y ago
Even for the honest ones, I would wager you'll find that most people fit into one of three categories: 1. The ones that won't pay at any cost for whatever reason. 2. The ones who will pay only if it's an emergency or they're in a rush and it's the difference between being on-time or late. 3. The ones who will pay just so they don't have to sit in traffic. Either the money is meaningless to them or they'd rather be happy than rich. I'm reasonably frugal, generally speaking, but I'm still category 3. My sanity is worth more to me than the $40. Even if it costs me some percentage of my daily pay. I'd rather spend all my money on things that remove friction from my life so I have more time for fun than spend my time dealing with one frustration after another. My happiness is worth way more to me than money. I would say that a fair portion of my time and pay cheque every month is spent on removing friction from my life. What would be interesting is if (as I predict) the majority of people fall into categories 1 and 2. If too many fall into category 3, I'm going to need to rethink my strategy.
soheil 9y ago
I find these types of articles massively deceiving, if there is a simple explanation for something, a complicated explanation isn't required, ie. the human psychology. Here is one reason why the drivers reaction makes sense, when previously people were disallowed to use the toll road it wasn't about money when you charge them $40 it is all of a sudden a question of money. Previously people were perhaps understanding of congestion problems and it's natural when you have so many cars on the roads that the government should disallow some and they understood that otherwise the traffic wouldn't move. Now when you make it about money, it's no longer arbitrarily decided who gets to ride in the toll road, it's about who can afford to ride on the toll road. (or to the extend that it was arbitrary before)
gm-conspiracy 9y ago
So, in the article, the author says (as the 2nd of 3 possible options): Add lanes, which Arlington doesn't want and there's no money for (or would require high tolls to fund); or Does adding lanes alleviate anything? I have seen multiple studies indicate adding lanes does not help w/ traffic, and actually makes things worse. Is it simply assumed that more roads = less traffic?
drelihan 9y ago
Let's assume that overall, this does not make the road any more or less efficient ( i.e. the same # of product, i.e. people and goods, still pass through the highway stretch per hour ). For those whose $time_saved_in_traffic > $40, they now have a more economical option. Imagine a business that bills out labor at $100/hr and offers to pay the $40 toll + $10 extra per day if the employee can and is willing to bill another 30 minutes. Employee is better off ( they effectively spend the same amount of time "at work" plus and extra $10 and likely slightly less gas money ). Employer bills out an extra $50, assuming 20% of that is markup over labor cost, this is an extra $10 in their pocket. The government gets an extra $40 (minus whatever the base toll is) to reinvest elsewhere. The downside is that the remaining lanes ( those who cannot justify the cost of the fastlane ), will end up paying more in slightly longer commute times if the remaining lanes are now more congested. What society should be paying attention to is how the efficiency of the road overall improves. If there is open ( i.e. wasted ) capacity in the HOV lane, opening HOV lane to more traffic will improve efficiency in the road overall. If the additional revenue can be reinvested to improve efficiency, this should improve things for everyone overall. If there are no ( or negative ) efficiency gains, then those forced to ride in the mainstream lanes will bear the net cost. tl;dr; Focus on improving the overall efficiency of the road.
ppeetteerr 9y ago
It's not about the price, it's about expectation. The shock comes from people thinking, you've just opened a road for the rich, not for the every man. Roads have not, historically in the US, been excluded to a certain group of people. Of course people will react harshly. Some economists need to get their heads out of their asses and live in the real world for a bit.
dmix 9y ago
> Which would you prefer in general: Being forbidden from doing something at all, or allowed to do it at high cost? There are plenty of government policies or state run services that prevent or completely avoid this dynamic in the name of pseudo 'fairness'. When usually it more often restricts options for more people rather than makes it more fair. It's easy to see why from a populist perspective, look at the outrage on Twitter: >> I don't have to use it, but it's effing outrageous. Armed robbery. $34.50 for 10 miles? New tolls on I-66 kick off with some high rates. https://twitter.com/andreas_adriano/status/937723170739707904 https://twitter.com/andreas_adriano/status/93772317073970790... ... he admits he never even uses it but he still finds it unfair 'highway robbery' regardless. And it's not just a policy helping the wealthy as it would be using the service to maximal efficacy rather than below capacity. It's a net gain for average users. As there will never be a high number of people willing to pay that fee, not slowing down existing traffic. Plus the additional revenue gained could otherwise be used to improve the operation, go back into the economy via employee income or spending, etc. It's a net gain.
mariojv 9y ago
I wonder if this will increase demand for "ride sharing." Anyone who takes an Uber/Lyft will automatically have at least two people in the car, allowing them to use this highway for free. I suppose this probably depends on how long the commute is and whether the ride would be <$40 (or <$40 + gas + car depreciation).
neves 9y ago
This is kind of a joke, but imagine this scenario: If I illegally immigrate to USA, how much I would make just to take a ride with people? I believe I could charge US$20 per trip. One trip early morning, go back by public transportation (it is just 10 miles!), and get another ride. The same at rush hour in the other direction. It would me about 80 * 22 = $1760 each month. Nothing bad. Better than a minimum wage of $1,150 per month. This is a kind of job that exists in a lot of places: https://gizmodo.com/10-transportation-related-jobs-that-only-exist-in-certa-1565635360 https://gizmodo.com/10-transportation-related-jobs-that-only...
- moftz 9y ago
  There are plenty of slug line commuter parking lots around the area that you can find people that will ride for free in your car so everyone can take advantage of HOV lanes. It's definitely a thing in some places where the passengers have no real need to be going anywhere in DC, people are just trying to get to work.
- marginofterror 9y ago
  Why would you pay someone when we already have a mechanism in place here to pick up additional people for free? See http://www.slug-lines.com/ http://www.slug-lines.com/ for more information. Edit: Didn't notice the comment below, that's what I get for not refreshing the page...
loudouncodes 9y ago
There is an important point lost here. People are saying 'people who couldn't use the road before now have the option to', but they are ignoring that the restricted hours were increased by 90 minutes in the morning and evening. I used to have an option to get to work super-early, or work till 7pm then head home on a road that was no busier than the rest of the regions traffic. Those options are now off the table. What was legal, fair, free, and without congestion is now blocked by a toll that is pushing early morning traffic onto roads not built for commuter traffic.
beamatronic 9y ago
Stuck in traffic, you might as well be stuck in prison. Say your loved ones are counting on you to be somewhere. When you are stuck , you're letting them down! Suddenly you have an option when there were no options previously. Now $40 looks pretty cheap in the face of fighting a spouse, disappointed children, etc.
- carlmr 9y ago
  If I drove there twice a day I wouldn't need to go to work anymore, because it would (almost) cancel out my salary. Granted I don't work with an American salary, but they're not THAT much higher. I don't know if that's what you call cheap.
johnm1019 9y ago
Consider that taxpayers fund and build airports. Available seats on an airplane are priced using demand based pricing. Taxpayers provide land and (sometimes) fund rail infranstructure. Most long distance rail uses demand based pricing (the last seat costs more than the first). Taxpayers also (sometimes) provide/pay for land and the costs to build roads. Until now, we haven't seen demand based pricing (the last slot costs more than the first), but it actually fits well with other modes of taxpayer funded transportation. This approach also considers the cost and value of a road network in a congested area. This could possibly fund other new transport in the area if it really is such a valuable commodity.
jonstewart 9y ago
This is a decent follow-up noting that the average toll is well below the peak toll. Of course, it doesn't talk about the median. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/12/08/forget-the-infamous-40-toll-heres-what-the-i-66-tolls-are-averaging/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/12/0...
fuzzfactor 9y ago
Seems like toll roads are always simply rent-seeking or exclusivity-seeking behavior by entities having greater-than-average resources compared to ordinary individuals. On private property, toll regulation according to a market seems fair enough under a free-enterprise system. On public property, toll roads are always unfair unless the toll rate is virtually insignificant to all potential users. Any other explanation does appear deceptive, whether intentional or not. Therefore it is usually just destructively extractive for the average users to fund roads on public property exclusively by tolls alone. When the public tolling entity is under the jurisdiction of electable officials in a working democracy, the proper response is for a disruptive candidate to campaign on a platform of eliminating toll roads altogether. With public support this could include public purchase of private toll roads according to eminent domain if a price affordable to the citizens can not be negotiated. Other things being equal, this type candidate should be able to prevail in cases where toll rates are particularly significant to the citizens in general. Assuming of course free enough enterprise and democracy working well enough . . .

136 points by duck 9y ago

iaw 9y ago

> "The real reason there's sticker shock is that the real cost of road transportation is hidden from most voters. Gas tax money goes to states and the US Department of Transportation which flows back as what seems like free federal money to build a lot of roads. Meanwhile, every transit project has to scrimp for funds..." "...estimated that tolls would have to be at least $41 to pay off the costs of construction." A lot of people take for granted the Eisenhower interstate infrastructure.

sergers 9y ago
Recent new bridge in BC, Port mann bridge, was tolled. But due to lack of ridership, and overhead tolling, they were never going to pay off the bridge. It's now taken from taxes, everyone in the province pays.
jessriedel 9y ago
Large public construction projects are vastly more expensive (in real dollars) today than in Eisenhower's.
- mfgmfg 9y ago
  Will they last proportionally as long?
  - jessriedel 9y ago
    No idea and I'm certainly not claiming that. The reasons for the dramatic increase in costs in the US is not well understood by academics.
    - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
      It's a simple answer and no clue how to actually fix it. It's because the US is being bifurcated into a 1st world and 3rd world in the same country. Both use significant corruption in very different ways to get things done. The price increases you're seeing is the response to the various types of corruption used. How do you fix it? Go back to many of the Socialist policies from the '40s that were enacted then, and maintained until the Capitalists chipped at them one at a time. In other words, reign in the Capitalists, and protect the working class. That's a solid way to reduce corruption. It wont happen immediately. It'd likely take a Great Depression style event, ousting of many Capitalists, and laws passed like they were in the 40's. If it doesn't happen, the Capitalists will just loot more and use their bought out govt regulation to claim legality. And the working class will cheat the capitalists because they wouldn't be able to get back to where they used to be if they didn't. And, the Capitalists need the workers. Not enough people on the rich end to actually do the hard work needed.
mjevans 9y ago
A lack of urban planning. * Not enough family sized units in the city (drive down cost with supply). * Insufficient quality of life in building codes. (Noise, smell, clean air, green spaces) * Lack of vertical density; This is begging for Cave of Steel like results complete with indoor parks and atriums.
- closeparen 9y ago
  There's not a lack of urban planning; there's an urban planning (and popular) consensus "lack of vertical density" == "quality of life."
  - CPLX 9y ago
    That set of values is certainly not a consensus opinion.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      It’s the set of values that controls nearly all land use policy in the United States. YIMBYism exists, and I am one, but I recognize that pro-skyscraper or even pro-mid-rise is a fringe position.
  - Demoneeri 9y ago
    Density =/= high rise. Lots of 3-5-story building mix with townhouses creates the density you need with a human-size feel.
    - gji 9y ago
      Cambridge (MA) is like this, but housing prices are still pretty unreasonable. You definitely need taller buildings.
kalleboo 9y ago
An interesting contrast is Japan, where the highway system was totally privatized, and to get almost anywhere you have to pay tolls. A 300 km (280 mi) drive can cost you 6000 yen ($50) in tolls. Of course in Japan there are usually alternatives. Not always any cheaper though. The bullet train for the same route as above costs 9000 yen, but is 3x faster than driving.
- megablast 9y ago
  This is fantastic, and as it should be everywhere.

Someone1234 9y ago

Ignoring the morals for a second, with tolls that high and difficulty identifying which vehicles qualify for a HOV exemption, I wonder how many days of tolls a single ticket is and likelihood of being caught? Let's say a ticket is $150. If the toll is $6 then you're likely better off paying the toll as you're likely to be caught at least once every 25 days. At $40 they'd need to catch you at least once a week for you to lose money. The $150 amount is fictional, I don't know what the ticket would cost, more just a thought experiment. In any regard, when tolls are this high, you have to consider issues like this. What works for a $4-6 toll doesn't scale to $40 unless the tickets also scale.

mnm1 9y ago
I think the likelihood of getting caught is close to 100% each day. HOV policing is an extremely high priority in the DC area and because of dedicated highways like this, also extremely easy and profitable for police. Also, I believe fines start around $250 and quickly move to $1000. There is a whole informal system of carpooling called "slugs" that works with the system. That'd be your best bet. Or, at $70 round trip, you can literally hire someone to wait around for 8 hours on minimum wage and still get off cheaper. $7.50 x 8 = $60.
- EGreg 9y ago
  What if you have dummies in your car? :-D Haxor News - had to ask
  - omgbananas 9y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=dummy+hov+lane https://www.google.com/search?q=dummy+hov+lane
- rdtsc 9y ago
  > hire someone to wait around for 8 hours on minimum wage and still get off cheaper. $7.50 x 8 = $60. Hah. If slug lines wren't a thing, it would be a startup idea - "hire a perma-slug". They go to work with you, file papers and bring you coffee or maybe they get to hang out in museums during the day. Then you go home in the evening with them.

olympus 9y ago

I don't think people are being unreasonable by being unhappy with a $40 toll. The way the article words it, solo drivers all of a sudden saw a $40 toll where they previously had no permission to drive at all. What actually happened was that people were expecting to see a $6 toll be put in place and instead saw a $40. Imagine going to McDonald's where your friend told you that you could get a Filet o' Fish for $1 but when you get there you find out that McDonald's was charging $5. You'd be mad. You still have the option to not buy the sandwich, but it went contrary to your expectations. So the article is correct, but I don't think they fully accounted for the fact that people had already been told to expect something else. The article mentioned it, but then goes and talks like people are being unreasonably frustrated for tolls that were completely unexpected.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago
where they previously had no permission to drive at all. I think this is where it's getting hung up. The signage and all other road markings on I-66 did not give a solo driver the overwhelming impression that they did not have "permission" to drive on those roads. Compounding this is that it was/is only during certain portions of the day. As an example, if I go onto the Dulles or Loudoun county toll roads, it's explicitly clear with toll booths etc... that YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ON THIS ROAD WITHOUT PAYING. Similar around the country on other toll roads. If all access is just as easy as any other road and there is no enforcement mechanism (save the odd example of someone you know getting a ticket) or overbearing signage (like on the 495 EZPass lanes) then naturally people would assume it's just like any other "free" highway. I think DC has a unique driving culture around this and slugging that unless you are just a total stickler for the rules is largely a grab bag game.
- olympus 9y ago
  Definitely unique. I've never lived in DC but visited a few times for work and was flabbergasted when I heard about slug lines (I still am). It's a bad driving situation when you'll voluntarily get into a stranger's car, and drivers will just let random strangers in their car. That doesn't happen in any of the cities I've lived in.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

I guess I'm at a loss here because I've lived in DC almost 6 years now and it never occurred to me that I-66 was HOV only during certain portions of the day. I know I am not alone in this because I see similar conversations happening elsewhere. Additionally, many comments say that single traveler HOV use is forbidden however I frequently see single drivers in the HOV lanes on 66 and elsewhere un-restricted. As a computer vision engineer, I know that DC doesn't have the capability to build camera systems that can infer a single/multi passenger drivers and the number of police that are 1. available and 2. can discern as much are simply not there. Are they now mailing toll charges to everyone who does not have the EZPass system? What they effectively did was permit free use of I-66 virtually unimpeded, through lack of enforcement of the intended laws, for years and then rapidly and expensively enforce the system. So the question I have is, how is it that they can go from a minimally (at best) enforced HOV policy to a high toll rate system effectively overnight, and expect that driver behavior will change without outrage? It seems like it will certainly decrease the road users, IF one of two things happen: they can identify and charge (or overcharge) drivers based on occupancy (I argue they technologically can't) OR rely on self-policing of behavior from drivers.

rayiner 9y ago
The other day I was driving along 50 to Annapolis, where the left lane is always HOV for 8 miles after 495, and was passed by a dozen cars in the HOV lane, all single riders. This sort of behavior is a cancer that will destroy America, mark my words. As to enforcement, in my experience the I-66 HOV is pretty aggressively enforced. They’ll park cop cars in major exits during the toll period pulling people over. I’ve gotten tagged that way when I’ve accidentally taken the road during toll hours when I left work earlier than usual.
- AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  I’ve accidentally taken the road during toll hours when I left work earlier than usual. This is exactly the point. If you can accidentally take a road without impedance that is supposed to be "off limits" then it's not really "off limits."
9y ago

pcurve 9y ago

If the road was already pretty full during rush hour when no solo driver was allowed, how is this new rule going to help by adding even more drivers? Sounds like a major fail to even have that kind of rule in first place.

thisisit 9y ago

> To many drivers' surprise, though, the tolls during rush hour were high, hitting $34.50 Monday morning and reaching $40 Tuesday. Is this like "surge pricing" on tolls? I thought most of the tolls are fixed to allow people know in advance what they must pay. If it increases based on demand, I think people will get mad. I think the psychology, if any, need not go towards the two choices. But rather what people thought the "dynamic pricing" will be and that was $5-$6 on average. People get mad at ride sharing companies for their "surge pricing" so this seems in the same mold.

fosco 9y ago
Yes, this is not the first private toll road whose price fluctuates by demand in northern VA. They are also on the behest themselves and probably higher areas by now...sometimes 2 miles being 6-8 dollars...however it can easily save 45 min and therefore to many completely worth it. Many use the savings to also justify the dulles toll road as well as a normal commuting road. The hov restriction makes committing difficult during normal hours. When I lived there I wished they would improve the metro system, pricier than NY and not as frequent however much cleaner...
ShabbosGoy 9y ago
Not sure how it works in VA. I know in SoCal, you are metered by distance, and you can calculate your own tolls. It has nothing to do with traffic congestion.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  Tolls on parts of the 91 change with traffic congestion. Probably some others too, but that's the one I'm familiar with.
smacktoward 9y ago
These tolls are part of the new-ish "Express Lanes" system, which have tolls set dynamically based on demand: http://www.66expresslanes.org/about_the_lanes/default.asp http://www.66expresslanes.org/about_the_lanes/default.asp Express Lanes were rolled out a few years ago on I-495, aka "the Beltway" that rings DC. Now they've been extended to I-66, the main artery that links the Virginia suburbs to DC's west.

joeax 9y ago

> Which would you prefer in general: Being forbidden from doing something at all, or allowed to do it at high cost? This is market economics at its best. If you don't like the $40 toll go back to alternative routes you were using before they introduced the toll. I also find it ironic that "free market" Republicans are suddenly stamping their feet and demanding either price controls at $6 or reverting to the old system.

rayiner 9y ago
It’s nuts. Reasonable people can differ about the accuracy of economic predictions on the large scale, but market mechanisms are great for things like this (and surge pricing, etc).

philsnow 9y ago

> Last week, only people in carpools with two people or more, drivers with an exempt hybrid vehicle, [...] during peak times. > This week, [...]. Hybrid folks and Dulles users also lost their privileges, [...] If I bought a home on the far end of this road thinking I could buy a hybrid or electric car and use it on the toll road, and then suddenly they take that away and start charging $30 each way, I'd be really upset. Whether the expectation that this road would remain open to hybrid cars is a _reasonable_ one is an interesting question. I'm not aware of similar changes (hybrids losing their exemption) in other road systems, but I don't exactly read transit-hawk blogs.

GVIrish 9y ago
The hybrid car exemption for HOV was supposed to be temporary but it kept getting extended for years. New hybrids couldn't get the special license plates but if you got in before the cutoff you could keep the license plate and keep transferring to whatever new hybrid or electric car you bought. I can imagine a lot of the people with the alt fuels tags are angry, but at the same time their exemption was never supposed to last this long.
sliverstorm 9y ago
California was the same way, hybrids were only supposed to get HOV access for a little while. It was written into the original law. (Don't know if that ever changed)
- ddinh 9y ago
  It's supposed to expire at the end of 2018: https://arb.ca.gov/msprog/carpool/carpool.htm https://arb.ca.gov/msprog/carpool/carpool.htm Whether or not it will be extended again is an open question.

zeveb 9y ago

The article quotes a legislator: > which is why I called charging the highest toll in the country what it is: price gouging. No, no, no it's not price gouging: it's charging what the privilege of driving in the fast lane is worth. The problem in northern Virginia is that there are too many people commuting. Fortunately, there's the entire rest of the country that they can move to. 'Not located in northern Virginia, New York or California' is a very real marketing edge for a potential employer.

JauntyHatAngle 9y ago

I mean, one of the problems with tolls is that it is another form of taxing that has a bigger impact the lower income you have. Without getting into an ideological discussion, having surge pricing on tolls would contribute to a minor divide in class. In Australia this is a current topic, as (in Sydney specifically) there was a recent controversial highway widening which has been funded by tolls and constructed by a private company, which will own the road and tolls for the next 100 years or so. This highway leads to/from the CBD as a work commute for everyone coming from the west part of the city (the poorer part usually..) and so has direct influence on people's pockets in an already high expenses city on people choosing to live further away in a cheaper part of the city. This perhaps does not directly apply to this specific instance, but I do think it illustrates that this is slightly more of a complex issue and has more implications than the simplification of the issue the article author wrote - if you introduce a toll but allow people to use it, that does have an impact on overall equality in society, even if you can debate the merits & size of the impact.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
China has this big time. Almost all of the infrastructure built out in the current book was privately financed and is heavily tolled (definitely by western standards, it is much worse by Chinese standards). This is part of the reasons chinese logistic prices are so high, but also why there are 8 day traffic jams (because the non-toll option went under construction) and why much of the infrastructure isn’t usable by local farmers.
- OkGoDoIt 9y ago
  Yeah, I just spent a week driving to a few different cities throughout China, and the tolls are unbelievable! Just one leg of my trip cost a $50 toll for a half day of driving (not sure about the exact distance). And that’s US$50, which is a lot of money by Chinese standards. You can stay at a decent hotel for two nights for US$50, or buy several nice meals at least.
divanvisagie 9y ago
Ive seen multiple sources say that widening roads only makes the problem worse yet in this article and in your comment it seems like the "solution" people are going for. That leaves me wondering; Are these sources not sound or are the people in charge of transport morons?

dannyw 9y ago

Is everyone else missing the fact that this may be a bug in the algorithm? Read the update to the article, tolls are “surging” despite the road being almost empty.

rdtsc 9y ago

I understand the psychology of it as far as the high price goes, I think also people are appalled that there are others who can afford such obscene prices too, not just that the prices are so high. And well the two counties funneling traffic into this road Fairfax and Loudon are the richest counties in US, I have no doubt they'll be enough people who will pay the $40. But what most people are upset about is that the hours when the whole highway becomes HOV-2 only have been expanded. So solo drivers who were getting up early, could have made it into the city before the restrictions kicked in, now won't be able to, and will have to funnel to secondary roads.

maxxxxx 9y ago

My main concern is that with tolls that high that only people with a lot of money can afford them (I make six figures but I doubt I would ever pay $40 for a toll. I would need much more money). These are also often the most influential people so they may think that everything is OK because they can afford the toll and never suffer in traffic. I think the same is happening with health care. Most people in Congress have enough money and get a nice insurance plan so they don't even understand how bad the US health system is for people in the lower incomes. They think it's perfectly fine and no need to change anything. It's very problematic when in a society the people at the top never experience life the same way regular citizens do.

freetime2 9y ago
I'm curious how they use the money from the $40 toll. If, for example, they used the money to improve roads and other public transportation options so that everyone on average gets where they need to go faster, then that ought to make everyone happy. Or else just divide up the revenue and mail everyone in the state a check at the end of the year. That would make me less angry about the fact that other people are able to afford the $40 toll.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Money is fungible. Even if the toll goes to transportation they will just cut that amount from the regular budget. Sending out a check to everybody would be fine but that ain't gonna happen...
  - eru 9y ago
    And, alas, sending back a check to everybody would probably just drive up rents.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  > "I'm curious how they use the money from the $40 toll." The article says that it is being used to fund new construction: "This is what transportation costs!" "The real reason there's sticker shock is that the real cost of road transportation is hidden from most voters. Gas tax money goes to states and the US Department of Transportation which flows back as what seems like free federal money to build a lot of roads. Meanwhile, every transit project has to scrimp for funds and deal with constant sniping from critics calling it a boondoggle."

ravar 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_theory I believe in the context of these road discussions its important to understand the math behind the usage of roads. Roads become less efficient, in terms of people per hour, the more people use them. While restricting access may be unfair it also creates value by getting cars off the road faster than what would have happened otherwise.

nwrk 9y ago

Can it be cheaper if you drive faster ? ie. 45mph = $40 ie. 80mph = $30 ie. 100mph = $6 (for contrast) et cetera ? That would make traffic flow and people happy ? Not US driver, don't know the US speed limits. On oposite side, Germany doesn't have speed limits on some tolls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn

CodesInChaos 9y ago
Keep in mind that the safety distance you have to the preceding driver increases with speed. Additionally the large speed differential between cars leads to more frequent lane changes, acceleration and breaking, etc. Which hinders the flow of traffic, reducing throughput. In Germany it's common to use electronic signs to limit speed when the highway is (moderately) congested to help traffic flow more smoothly, increasing throughput (typically to 100 or 120 km/h).
- nwrk 9y ago
  Valid points. Thank you. Was just stupid 'why not' late night thoughts.

pishpash 9y ago

Tolls change routing decisions. If you can't gauge a toll until you are at the road because it keeps changing, that's a risk. Dynamic tolling asks people to take a risk; that will never work unless they do like Uber and fix the price at the time you leave. It's only fair that the planning risk should fall on the central traffic manager, as they have the most information and capabilities.

syphilis2 9y ago

"The government could theoretically go back to the 20th century model of taxing more and building more free transportation, but voters haven't shown much appetite for raising their taxes." This is the author weaseling out of addressing the reality that most Americans want higher taxes on the rich. Not taxes raised on everyone, not funds raised through purchasable perks. http://news.gallup.com/poll/208685/majority-say-wealthy-americans-corporations-taxed-little.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/208685/majority-say-wealthy-amer... "A significant majority of Americans believe that upper-income people and corporations pay too little in taxes, supporting other research showing that well less than half of Americans -- 38% -- agree with a proposal to cut corporate income taxes, and that the majority favor heavier taxes on the rich."

simonh 9y ago
Which would make voting in a president that openly campaigned in a platform to massively cut taxes on corporations and the rich unthinkable, right? You can often predict reasonably well what individual segments of the voting public will vote for, but they overlap with each other so divining the will of the voters as a whole is really hard. Unless you just promise everyone the earth without any regard to the cost. That can work.

bambax 9y ago

> Which would you prefer in general: Being forbidden from doing something at all, or allowed to do it at high cost? Under standard economic theory, the latter should always be better. In the first scenario, you have one option: don't do it. In the second, you have two options, including the same option as before. This is not how the human mind works. One part is obvious: would you rather starve, with no options, or starve in front of a beautiful cheesecake, just out of reach? Or worse, in front of a cake out of reach to you, but with other people feasting on it? This is not just "envy", it's loss, in the second case we're losing out and we're extremely loss adverse. The other part is less obvious but no less real: we average the cost of options. A set of 11 plates with one of them broken is worth less to buyers than a set of 10 good plates, because the average value of 1 plate in the first case is less than in the second one. This has been demonstrated many times. When you go from one option at no cost (slow lane) to one free option + one paying option, then the perceived value/cost of the "free" option isn't free anymore, it goes up because people average the cost. (That said, tolls are probably the best possible solution; but the transition is always going to be painful).

im3w1l 9y ago
Even fully rational people can prefer less options. According to game theory you're better off without a steering wheel in "chicken". And while credible threats may be uncommon, removing the possibility of defection for a group of people seems like a very common potential for gain.
- eru 9y ago
  Another interesting example of pre-committing to less options: sending an agent to negotiate for you. Eg the company service rep you are talking over the phone can play the 'good cop' all day long and be nice and polite; but to make any decisions they have to call their manager, who can play the 'bad cop' or defer to 'company policy'. (Not very relevant to the road charging example here, though.)
lgbr 9y ago
> One part is obvious: would you rather starve, with no options, or starve in front of a beautiful cheesecake, just out of reach? Choices made when consequences are so extreme, especially in life or death scenarios, are often different than everyday decisions. A life or death decision would have zero risk tolerance. For example, in a work environment, one strategy people like to choose is to never say that something is 'impossible', but rather that something has a particularly high price. People are much more comfortable hearing that the effort/costs of doing something aren't for them, rather than feeling like they have no choice at all.

sharpercoder 9y ago

We have the best road system in the world with high quality roads over the whole country. Most roads are "rain-resistant", meaning heavy rainfall does not affect road conditions negatively. We don't have any toll roads. We do pay a relatively high tax for it though. The article is spot on that tolls are the consequence of public not willing to increase their taxes.

beobab 9y ago
Where are you?
- eru 9y ago
  Perhaps Singapore? (Though high taxes wouldn't fit. Perhaps Germany?)
- sharpercoder 9y ago
  The Netherlands.
  - PhantomGremlin 9y ago
    It's OK to be proud of "the best road system in the world". As you point out, you pay taxes to support it. However, it's easier to solve certain types of transportation problems when your population density is as high as it is in The Netherlands. Consider that 41 out of 50 US states have a larger land area than The Netherlands. Consider that only 4 out of 50 US states have a larger population than The Netherlands. We in the USA need to build and maintain a lot of roads. And our lower population density means that mass transit isn't nearly as viable, except in the largest metropolitan areas, as it is in most of Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

11235813213455 9y ago

good idea, and reward cyclists, and promote remote work

cmurf 9y ago

The true cost of a trip is masked behind sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, various state fees unrelated to roads, insurance, rent/mortgage for the cost of space for the car, the loan for the car, etc. The technology exists to toll everyone for the actual cost per mile, with higher fees for higher weight (trucks wear roads way faster than cars), and congestion. It incentivizes more investments in cycling and pedestrian lanes, would affect how and where housing is built, and how much investment is made in public transit and where it's located. Congestion fees are used by at least Long Island Rail Road, it's roughly 50% higher during peak times. So it can be applied to public transit as well. In fact a chunk of automobile transport is public transit because the biggest cost in the whole system is the infrastructure which is publicly owned and maintained, typically without direct user fees that relate to usage. Gasoline taxes only approximate a person's usage.

jlebrech 9y ago

they should fund public transport proportionally to a tax applied to fuel. that way more cars also means more buses (or well maintained if people insist on using cars) every year crank up the fuel tax and you'll see more people using busses.

rjmunro 9y ago

When the price algorithm goes above some unacceptable amount, they should just change it to "Carpool only", as it was before, and there would then be no reason for people to complain. If they made the "Carpool only" have some sort of fine for violations, say $100, paid the same way as the toll would have been, people could still use it in real emergencies. It sounds like the calibration of the toll amount is a bit off, and can probably be adjusted over time as the systems get experience managing the demand of the road. If they'd launched with an $8 toll, and ended up with gridlock on the road, would that have been better?

nikanj 9y ago
With a $40 toll and a $100 violation, it pays off to break the rules if you only get caught every third day(!) Incidentally, I've NEVER seen anyone get pulled over for driving solo on the car-pool lane.

OliverJones 9y ago

I'm a guy with a long commute and a dislike of traffic jams. I've shifted my work hours to get me to work by 6:30 am at the latest. I'll take the toll route (Boston's Tobin Bridge, $1.50) or the free route (I-93) without considerating cost because I've taught myself that time is worth more than money. But if the Tobin toll abruptly went up to $20, my loss-aversion anxiety would spike (cf. this year's Nobel Memorial winner Richard Sunstein, for behavioral economics) and my behavior would change in ways that weren't exactly rational. This already happened on the Tobin Bridge when the tolls were first introduced. People from the neighborhoods near the Tobin used alternate routes and clogged them. The government response was wise: issue special toll tags to neighbors giving them a discount on the Tobin. The wisdom was that it countered loss-aversion with a special privilege. It worked. (Of course, this being Massachusetts, there's a small but thriving black market in those special toll tags for wiseguys wanting to save a couple of bucks a day. But so what?) In a place like the DC area, people react to loss anxiety by attacking public projects as well as by changing their behavior, so this experiment may not last too long. I hope they can get some skilfull behavioral economics people to work with them before the whole thing gets shut down hard by fake-angry politicians. If the goal is really to increase vehicle occupancy, the highway needs stations named for Tom and Ray Magliozzi's Russian chauffeur (Pickup Andropoff) near the exits. Getting more people into cars has proven very difficult. Understanding this kind of peak-load pricing, and how to apply it effectively, will help all sorts of future projects in our overcrowded metroplexes.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

An individual car might not be a mass transit system but a highway is (albeit inefficient). I think it's just as absurd to use demand pricing for highways as it would be to use them for subways. (I support HOV lanes though) The main issue I see with a non-HOV toll option on an HOV road, toll lanes, etc. is that it gives the wealthy an option that others do not have. If there isn't enough commuting capacity (regardless of medium) we need to provide more. The state should not give the rich an option to make their commutes tolerable because that's easier than solving the problems (because we all know that when the rich and powerful have problems with how the state is running things that's when they change). The wealthy have to wait on the same subway platforms as the poor. The national parks don't have a "skip the line if you're rich enough to justify the insane price" option. The wealthy should have to sit in the same traffic jams as the rest of us. Congress should have the same healthcare options as the rest of us. The worst part about toll lanes and the other demand based pricing for necessities is that they reduce the incentive to increase supply. If it were independently verifiable that any given implementation of surge pricing was optimized for bandwidth (people-miles over the time period surge pricing applies) rather than latency (average speed) or revenue I might feel differently but considering how pretty much every other traffic control rule turns into a revenue source of some sort (tolls on I90 in MA were only supposed to last long enough to recover the construction cost) I quite frankly don't trust any government to do it that way unless it's 100% in the open.

sageabilly 9y ago

I live in Northern Virginia, and the statement "People who were totally banned from a road now could now use it at its busiest time" is false. People were already driving on I-66 solo during HOV-only hours, they were just counting on super lax enforcement and the law of probability falling in their favor for not getting caught. When riding in the metro in the mornings (which runs parallel to I-66 into DC for a time) you saw lots and lots and LOTS of solo commuters during HOV times. I imagine now people are just switching their EZPass (toll transponder) to "HOV" and still driving solo, which I imagine is even harder to enforce. Traffic into and out of DC to and from Northern Virginia SUCKS, it's always sucked, and it will continue to suck probably indefinitely. There need to be more roads and more bridges across the Potomac river but there's no logistically possible way to do so.

jonstewart 9y ago
Have you ever heard of induced demand? More roads and bridges are not the answer, especially since the associated capital costs could go a long ways towards fixing Metro and thereby provide greater utility. Northern Virginia has some of the absolute dumbest land use policies and traffic planning of anywhere in the nation. It's reaping what it's sown with traffic congestion. This is a big step in the right direction. (I live in DC, because I can't stand Virginia.)
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > Have you ever heard of induced demand? That is not what happens. The effect they're measuring is that a road gets congested, the congestion suppresses the natural demand, and if you expand the road to reduce the congestion then more of the natural demand comes back and there is still more congestion than you expected. But the same applies to any of the alternatives. If you build more housing in the metro area then there are less cars, which reduces congestion some, but not very much because as soon as there is less congestion for any reason, more people drive. The only way to eliminate the congestion is to satisfy the entire demand. You can do that by expanding the roads, you can do that by making it less expensive to actually live in the city, but it's often more effective to do both. A much worse choice is to suppress the natural demand with tolls, which will certainly reduce congestion, but will also screw up your city even worse because people are severely punished for living in the suburbs even though there still isn't enough urban housing. So urban housing prices go up, commuting costs go up, and everyone in the city becomes poorer (except the landlords and toll companies).

balabaster 9y ago

Even for the honest ones, I would wager you'll find that most people fit into one of three categories: 1. The ones that won't pay at any cost for whatever reason. 2. The ones who will pay only if it's an emergency or they're in a rush and it's the difference between being on-time or late. 3. The ones who will pay just so they don't have to sit in traffic. Either the money is meaningless to them or they'd rather be happy than rich. I'm reasonably frugal, generally speaking, but I'm still category 3. My sanity is worth more to me than the $40. Even if it costs me some percentage of my daily pay. I'd rather spend all my money on things that remove friction from my life so I have more time for fun than spend my time dealing with one frustration after another. My happiness is worth way more to me than money. I would say that a fair portion of my time and pay cheque every month is spent on removing friction from my life. What would be interesting is if (as I predict) the majority of people fall into categories 1 and 2. If too many fall into category 3, I'm going to need to rethink my strategy.

soheil 9y ago

I find these types of articles massively deceiving, if there is a simple explanation for something, a complicated explanation isn't required, ie. the human psychology. Here is one reason why the drivers reaction makes sense, when previously people were disallowed to use the toll road it wasn't about money when you charge them $40 it is all of a sudden a question of money. Previously people were perhaps understanding of congestion problems and it's natural when you have so many cars on the roads that the government should disallow some and they understood that otherwise the traffic wouldn't move. Now when you make it about money, it's no longer arbitrarily decided who gets to ride in the toll road, it's about who can afford to ride on the toll road. (or to the extend that it was arbitrary before)

gm-conspiracy 9y ago

So, in the article, the author says (as the 2nd of 3 possible options): Add lanes, which Arlington doesn't want and there's no money for (or would require high tolls to fund); or Does adding lanes alleviate anything? I have seen multiple studies indicate adding lanes does not help w/ traffic, and actually makes things worse. Is it simply assumed that more roads = less traffic?

drelihan 9y ago

Let's assume that overall, this does not make the road any more or less efficient ( i.e. the same # of product, i.e. people and goods, still pass through the highway stretch per hour ). For those whose $time_saved_in_traffic > $40, they now have a more economical option. Imagine a business that bills out labor at $100/hr and offers to pay the $40 toll + $10 extra per day if the employee can and is willing to bill another 30 minutes. Employee is better off ( they effectively spend the same amount of time "at work" plus and extra $10 and likely slightly less gas money ). Employer bills out an extra $50, assuming 20% of that is markup over labor cost, this is an extra $10 in their pocket. The government gets an extra $40 (minus whatever the base toll is) to reinvest elsewhere. The downside is that the remaining lanes ( those who cannot justify the cost of the fastlane ), will end up paying more in slightly longer commute times if the remaining lanes are now more congested. What society should be paying attention to is how the efficiency of the road overall improves. If there is open ( i.e. wasted ) capacity in the HOV lane, opening HOV lane to more traffic will improve efficiency in the road overall. If the additional revenue can be reinvested to improve efficiency, this should improve things for everyone overall. If there are no ( or negative ) efficiency gains, then those forced to ride in the mainstream lanes will bear the net cost. tl;dr; Focus on improving the overall efficiency of the road.

ppeetteerr 9y ago

It's not about the price, it's about expectation. The shock comes from people thinking, you've just opened a road for the rich, not for the every man. Roads have not, historically in the US, been excluded to a certain group of people. Of course people will react harshly. Some economists need to get their heads out of their asses and live in the real world for a bit.

dmix 9y ago

> Which would you prefer in general: Being forbidden from doing something at all, or allowed to do it at high cost? There are plenty of government policies or state run services that prevent or completely avoid this dynamic in the name of pseudo 'fairness'. When usually it more often restricts options for more people rather than makes it more fair. It's easy to see why from a populist perspective, look at the outrage on Twitter: >> I don't have to use it, but it's effing outrageous. Armed robbery. $34.50 for 10 miles? New tolls on I-66 kick off with some high rates. https://twitter.com/andreas_adriano/status/937723170739707904 https://twitter.com/andreas_adriano/status/93772317073970790... ... he admits he never even uses it but he still finds it unfair 'highway robbery' regardless. And it's not just a policy helping the wealthy as it would be using the service to maximal efficacy rather than below capacity. It's a net gain for average users. As there will never be a high number of people willing to pay that fee, not slowing down existing traffic. Plus the additional revenue gained could otherwise be used to improve the operation, go back into the economy via employee income or spending, etc. It's a net gain.

mariojv 9y ago

I wonder if this will increase demand for "ride sharing." Anyone who takes an Uber/Lyft will automatically have at least two people in the car, allowing them to use this highway for free. I suppose this probably depends on how long the commute is and whether the ride would be <$40 (or <$40 + gas + car depreciation).

neves 9y ago

This is kind of a joke, but imagine this scenario: If I illegally immigrate to USA, how much I would make just to take a ride with people? I believe I could charge US$20 per trip. One trip early morning, go back by public transportation (it is just 10 miles!), and get another ride. The same at rush hour in the other direction. It would me about 80 * 22 = $1760 each month. Nothing bad. Better than a minimum wage of $1,150 per month. This is a kind of job that exists in a lot of places: https://gizmodo.com/10-transportation-related-jobs-that-only-exist-in-certa-1565635360 https://gizmodo.com/10-transportation-related-jobs-that-only...

moftz 9y ago
There are plenty of slug line commuter parking lots around the area that you can find people that will ride for free in your car so everyone can take advantage of HOV lanes. It's definitely a thing in some places where the passengers have no real need to be going anywhere in DC, people are just trying to get to work.
marginofterror 9y ago
Why would you pay someone when we already have a mechanism in place here to pick up additional people for free? See http://www.slug-lines.com/ http://www.slug-lines.com/ for more information. Edit: Didn't notice the comment below, that's what I get for not refreshing the page...

loudouncodes 9y ago

There is an important point lost here. People are saying 'people who couldn't use the road before now have the option to', but they are ignoring that the restricted hours were increased by 90 minutes in the morning and evening. I used to have an option to get to work super-early, or work till 7pm then head home on a road that was no busier than the rest of the regions traffic. Those options are now off the table. What was legal, fair, free, and without congestion is now blocked by a toll that is pushing early morning traffic onto roads not built for commuter traffic.

beamatronic 9y ago

Stuck in traffic, you might as well be stuck in prison. Say your loved ones are counting on you to be somewhere. When you are stuck , you're letting them down! Suddenly you have an option when there were no options previously. Now $40 looks pretty cheap in the face of fighting a spouse, disappointed children, etc.

carlmr 9y ago
If I drove there twice a day I wouldn't need to go to work anymore, because it would (almost) cancel out my salary. Granted I don't work with an American salary, but they're not THAT much higher. I don't know if that's what you call cheap.

johnm1019 9y ago

Consider that taxpayers fund and build airports. Available seats on an airplane are priced using demand based pricing. Taxpayers provide land and (sometimes) fund rail infranstructure. Most long distance rail uses demand based pricing (the last seat costs more than the first). Taxpayers also (sometimes) provide/pay for land and the costs to build roads. Until now, we haven't seen demand based pricing (the last slot costs more than the first), but it actually fits well with other modes of taxpayer funded transportation. This approach also considers the cost and value of a road network in a congested area. This could possibly fund other new transport in the area if it really is such a valuable commodity.

jonstewart 9y ago

This is a decent follow-up noting that the average toll is well below the peak toll. Of course, it doesn't talk about the median. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/12/08/forget-the-infamous-40-toll-heres-what-the-i-66-tolls-are-averaging/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/12/0...

fuzzfactor 9y ago

Seems like toll roads are always simply rent-seeking or exclusivity-seeking behavior by entities having greater-than-average resources compared to ordinary individuals. On private property, toll regulation according to a market seems fair enough under a free-enterprise system. On public property, toll roads are always unfair unless the toll rate is virtually insignificant to all potential users. Any other explanation does appear deceptive, whether intentional or not. Therefore it is usually just destructively extractive for the average users to fund roads on public property exclusively by tolls alone. When the public tolling entity is under the jurisdiction of electable officials in a working democracy, the proper response is for a disruptive candidate to campaign on a platform of eliminating toll roads altogether. With public support this could include public purchase of private toll roads according to eminent domain if a price affordable to the citizens can not be negotiated. Other things being equal, this type candidate should be able to prevail in cases where toll rates are particularly significant to the citizens in general. Assuming of course free enough enterprise and democracy working well enough . . .