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Paying to sit in traffic: Congestion pricing coming soon…
Another think tank working for the corporations…putting people on foot or on abicycle…You do know that the US doesn’t even OWN most of the highways inAmerica - right?
Transportation policymakers are increasingly considering congestion pricing a promisingoption for addressing urban traffic-congestion problems. While some congestion pricingprojects have been undertaken in the United States, many proposals have been rejectedbased on worries that congestion pricing is inequitable. This report looks at the evidencethat might support or negate this claim. As congestion pricing has been both studied andimplemented more widely, a body of evidence based on both real-world implementationsand models of proposed and hypothetical congestion pricing systems has been growing.While a number of papers have been published in this area, it has been difficult to reachgeneral conclusions about whether congestion pricing is equitable. This report providesan overview of the literature from both economists and transportation planners tohighlight what is known about the equity implications of congestion pricing.
Equity and Congestion Pricing A Review of the Evidence
 *Summary(PDF; 125 KB)*Full Document(PDF; 410 KB) 63 pages
Research:RAND
- Sponsored by the Environmental Defense FundJune 2, 2009
Equity Concerns Raised by Transportation Congestion Pricing Can Be AddressedTo Make Approach Viable
 Policymakers need to address equity concerns early when implementing congestionpricing to improve traffic flow, as each situation is unique and must be evaluated on acase-by-case basis, according to astudyissued today by the RAND Corporation.Transportation policymakers often look to congestion pricing —
charging drivers moreto travel particular routes at peak travel times
— as a way to reduce traffic gridlock and raise money for transportation projects.
However, because these policies impose acost on something that previously was not priced, critics often suggest that it willharm lower-income drivers who will be forced to pay additional costs or be “pricedoff” the roads.
 “There is no single answer to the question of whether congestion pricing is equitable,”said Thomas Light, co-author of the study and an associate economist with RAND, anonprofit research organization. “The answer depends on how equity is defined andmeasured. It also depends on how congestion pricing is implemented and thecharacteristics of the region where it is put into practice.”The study was supported by a grant from the Environmental Defense Fund, a nationalenvironmental group.
 
“The research shows that equity issues can and must be addressed early on whendesigning a congestion pricing project,” said Kathryn Phillips, who directs transportationadvocacy in California for the Environmental Defense Fund. “A well-designedcongestion pricing project can deliver clean air and less gridlock to everyone.”The RAND study evaluated alternative ways of defining and measuring equity and howsuch approaches interact with alternative forms of pricing, as well as the context in whichcongestion pricing is imposed. Light and study co-author Liisa Ecola reviewed dozens of studies and found that often congestion pricing results in most lower-income peoplepaying less in taxes to fund transportation, although some proportion of the group maypay more.For example, one analysis found that if a road construction bond was paid off with tollrevenues rather than sales taxes, people in the lowest-income group would pay lessoverall, while some in the group (those who frequently used the road) would pay more.Light and Ecola say congestion pricing can be either regressive or progressive. But if regions use revenues in ways that benefit low-income individuals, congestion pricing ismore likely to be progressive. If the toll revenues are used in other ways, then it can beregressive or progressive depending on local conditions and the specific details of thecongestion pricing policy.Even if low-income groups and others who are transportation disadvantaged benefit as awhole from congestion pricing, there will always be some individuals who will be madeworse off. However, many of these people also are disadvantaged by the status quo, Lightsaid, because they are hampered by both the existing traffic congestion and the taxescollected to fund transportation.Policymakers should consider the distribution of residents, job opportunities, schools,places of worship and other destinations when considering congestion pricing. Cordonpricing, where drivers pay a fee to enter a particular area, can be progressive, regressiveor neutral, depending where low-income drivers live, according to the RAND study.High-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, the most common form of congestion pricing in theUnited States, tend to raise fewer equity concerns since drivers have a choice of eitherusing a set of toll lanes or using parallel free lanes. Although drivers with higher incomestend to use the tolled lanes more, studies have not shown that lower-income drivers areleft worse off, in part because they may benefit from improved traffic flow in the freelanes.Researchers found little or no literature on environmental justice impacts, long-term landuse impacts, equity issues of building new roads with congestion pricing revenue, or howadding congestion pricing to existing transportation finance mechanisms would changethe equity implications overall.The study recommends that transportation planners should consider measuring andassessing equity concerns early in the planning process when considering congestionpricing. Once a plan is developed, the RAND study recommends the approach be testedthrough modeling. Programs that have been implemented should be periodically
 
monitored to make sure they remain equitable over time as populations and travelpatterns shift.The study, “Equity and Congestion Pricing: A Review of the Evidence,” is available atwww.rand.org.The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is a leading national nonprofit organizationrepresenting more than 500,000 members. Since 1967, EDF has linked science,economics and law to create innovative, equitable and cost-effective solutions tosociety’s most urgent environmental problems.The study was conducted by theTransportation, Space, and Technologyprogram withinRAND Infrastructure, Safety and Environment. The mission of ISE is to improve thedevelopment, operation, use and protection of society’s essential physical assets andnatural resources and to enhance the related social assets of safety and security of individuals in transit and in their workplaces and communities.
Related:
 
Rudy Giuliani Benefits From Sale Of U.S. Highways To ForeignCompanies; Q&A With Pat Choate On Privatizing U.S. Highways &The NAFTA Superhighway
 
BY RICHARD McCORMACKhttp://www.manufacturingnews.com The sell-off of American highways to private companies coupled with the controversialplan to build the “NAFTA Superhighway” has become an explosive political subject inmany states. The influx of foreign companies involved in becoming owners of publicassets has further enraged the public, as have details about their financial ties with someof the country’s most well-known politicians.One of the biggest whoppers in the whole debate about political patronage and the sell-off of public infrastructure concerns the $100-million buyout of the firm owned byRepublican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani by Macquarie, the big Australianinvestment banking firm.Macquarie Infrastructure has partnered with the Spanish firm Cintra Concesiones deInfraestructuras de Transporte in the controversial purchase of the Indiana Toll Road. Thetwo companies are also part of a major political uprising in Texas concerning theprivatization of State Highway 121 outside of Dallas. A Macquarie division has spent$110 million buying up 42 local newspapers along the Trans-Texas Corridor (theNAFTA Superhighway corridor).Pat Choate, who was Ross Perot’s running mate on the 1996 presidential ticket, has spentthe past year studying the NAFTA Superhighway and state and federal governments’desire to privatize America’s highways.
Choate is known as one of America’s foremosteconomic experts on infrastructure
. Twenty-five years ago, he wrote two influential
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