Sitting On The Sideline Collecting Splinters

Today the U.S. Department of Transportation announced the five finalists for its Urban Partnership Program grants. The grants range from $62.9 million to $354 million and average about $170 million

As readers of this blog know all too well (e.g., here, here and here) this region's team of transportation professionals submitted an application for a Program grant. The DOT rejected that application in the first round because it was made up of preliminary concepts rather than a credible plan that satisfied the DOT's requirements, namely a plan that involved some form of highway pricing and would be rolled out in the next couple of years.

Consequently, we can only watch from the sidelines while five other cities with whom the Chicago region competes for business, population, and status tap into millions of new dollars to improve their transportation systems.

The winners are. . .

Florida Department of Transportation: $62.9 million to convert I-95 carpool lanes from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale to tolled lanes. The two tolled lanes in each direction will be dynamically priced to keep traffic moving at a speed of at least 50 miles an hour. Buses, vanpools, motorcycles and registered carpools will be able to use the toll lanes free of charge. The project also includes a regional express bus service that will take advantage of the constant travel speeds in the tolled lanes.

Minneapolis: $133.3 million for high occupancy toll lanes and dynamically priced shoulder lanes for use during rush hour along I-35W. The project also includes accelerated development of a bus rapid transit line, more dedicated bus lanes in downtown Minneapolis, and a flex-time/telecommuting program.

New York: $354.5 million to help implement Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan for Manhattan. $214 million of this money is going to be used to buy new buses, implement bus rapid transit routes, and for other improvements to the public transit system. The congestion charge will yield at least least several hundred million of dollars in new money for transportation projects annually.

San Francisco: $158.7 million for a package of congestion pricing and other improvements. Plan calls for congestion pricing on approach to Golden Gate Bridge and in the downtown. Other features include bus-priority lanes and intersection controls on major thoroughfares, a real-time parking space availability information system covering city garages, variable pricing for street parking in the downtown, and a new payment card that will allow users to pay for parking, tolls and other transit costs from one account.

Seattle: $138.7 million to implement tolling on the Highway 520 floating bridge. In addition to paying for tolling equipment, a substantial portion of the grant money will be used to purchase new buses for the local transit agency.

All of the proposals have a strong highway pricing component. All of them, most notably New York, San Francisco and Seattle, have strong transit components. There are some very creative ideas in the mix, such as San Francisco's payment card that will allow users to pay for highway and public transit using a single card and account (shades of our region's universal fare card, which came and went yet again this legislative session, with fanfare each time). Florida nicely leverages the steady traffic flow from variably priced toll lanes to improve regional bus service. New York and San Francisco are going to implement bus rapid transit in a congested urban environment akin to the denser areas of Chicago.

This region had all the elements for a winning application. We high levels of traffic congestion. We have both existing toll highways and highways like the Dan Ryan and Kennedy (express lanes) and Stevenson (shoulder lanes) that could easily be tolled. Variable tolling lanes could provide a steady operating operating environment for express buses and van pools throughout the region. The three million I-PASSes in circulation offer a built-in fare collection system. We certainly have transit agencies that could use a fleet of new buses and a big piece of the new revenue generated from the expanded road pricing system.

Yet, the region's transportation team and, to be fair, their politician clients, blew it when it came to the Urban Partnership Program. But never fear. According to the most recent report of the DOT's Value Pricing Program, while other urban regions are implementing a variety of creative transportation strategies that feature highway pricing and increased support for public transit, this region's transportation team is embarked on a study of congestion pricing that is scheduled to be completed in 2010.

Here's the description of what this region is doing instead of implementing congestion pricing initiatives like our urban peers:

The new project will evaluate the feasibility of reducing bottlenecks through a system of priced queue jumps and will assess resulting changes in travel times and delays on the region's expressways. The study will also assess the feasibility of better utilizing electronic toll collection and variable pricing mechanisms to reduce traffic congestion and access the potential of implementing pricing to increase the use of alternate travel modes and enhance the capacity on the region's expressway system. This project could lead to the demonstration of innovative pricing mechanisms to reduce congestion, improve goods movement, and increase the use of alternative transportation modes.

With new congestion pricing projects springing up around the country and the world like mushrooms and other U.S. cities moving from grant application to implementation in the course of 1-2 years is it really necessary for this region to take three years to "assess the feasibility" of congestion pricing that "could lead" to a "demonstration" of congestion pricing sometime after 2010? Haven't London, Stockholm, Singapore, San Diego and now the five winners of the Urban Partnership grants shown that road pricing is "feasible."

You would think that having been beaten badly in the Urban Partnership contest the local team would have regrouped and redoubled their efforts to help this region catch up to its competitor urban regions when it comes to transportation. Yet, here is what the FHWA reports on our transportation team's effort on the above-mentioned congestion pricing feasibility study:

April - June 2007 Update: The project was awarded funds in April 2007. The scope of work was revised and a project kick off meeting will be scheduled soon.

Three months and not even a kick off meeting? From reading the Moving Beyond Congestion materials we all thought this region was in a state of "crisis" when it comes to congestion and public transit funding. Yet, it takes the same transportation team over three months to hold a kick off meeting on a transportation tool--congestion pricing--that not only has the cachet of being the cool transportation technique of the moment but also may just work.

Our region's transportation team's leisurely response to a "crisis" of its own declaration is puzzling and disturbing. I apologize to readers for being so cranky about this, but our region's loss of an Urban Partnership Program grant seems emblematic of a major problem with the caliber of our region's team of transportation professionals. If our transportation professionals are so skittish and/or seemingly uninterested in congestion pricing then it is not surprising that their political clients and the public at large are too. That is a shame, because congestion pricing might have been a key element of a transit funding and reform package in this region, just as it has been in London, Stockholm and now five U.S. cites and presumably more urban regions between now and 2010, when this region completes its study of the "feasibility" of congestion pricing.

Go team!