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Tolling 520

By Frank on January 29, 2009

The 520 tolling commission says we should only toll the bridge, not the approach roads.  While somewhat disappointing, this is unsurprising, considering the neighborhoods on either side seem to have incredible amounts of political clout, and don’t want to see traffic increase in their neighborhood.  What’s specifically disappointing is that the committee is using the wrong metric:

"State staffers and consultants estimated that charging tolls beyond the ends of the bridge would raise just 7 percent more in toll revenue. "I don’t think we receive a lot of money (considering) the consternation costs," Hammond said."

The increase in toll revenue has never been the issue.  It’s about using tolls to manage demand, especially West of I-405.  As it sits, the commission’s recommendation rates a 1 out of 6 on the old congestion pricing aggressiveness scale.

On the plus side, it looks like we’ll need to toll I-90 to hit the $2B revenue target, so that’s a start.

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Viaduct & 520 Costs

By Frank on November 20, 2008

The numbers for the Viaduct:

Three possible replacement options disbursing viaduct traffic onto city streets would cost $800 million to $900 million, according to estimates from engineers. One elevated highway design, assuming one new streetcar line and new traffic-flow improvements on Interstate 5, would cost an estimated $1.6 billion. Another elevated design, including a park on top and office and retail spaces and pedestrian access points, is estimated at $2.2 billion.

This is one of those situations where the transit-friendly approach is also the least expensive in the short term. And when the state’s facing a $5B potential budget shortfall next year, cheap is good.

The new 520 bridge, however, is not going to be cheap:

Least expensive at $4.6 billion to $4.8 billion, Plan A features a second bascule bridge alternative, which removes the Lake Washington Boulevard ramps to south Montlake, the arboretum and Madison Park. It urges a public switch from single-occupancy vehicles to transit.

Plan K, or the Parkway Plan, would cost between $6.6 billion and $6.7 billion. It features a tunnel beneath the Montlake Cut and a bermed stretch of highway at Foster Island, lidded to restore arboretum connections. Madison Park, North Capitol Hill, Portage Bay, Roanoke, Montlake and Laurelhurst, as well as the boating, arboretum and bicycling communities, support the Parkway alternative.

Tolling will almost certainly help mitigate these costs, but it’s still going to be a whopper for the state budget.

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Tolling 520

By Frank on November 13, 2008

Following up on bgothen’s post below, the latest thinking on 520 is to toll just bridge itself, apparently. Which makes sense. There was an idea afoot to charge a variable toll for a larger length of the roadway, which would have been a much more aggressive congestion pricing scheme, but would have only made sense in the context of a full, regional congestion pricing initiative.

On that note, be sure to check out the PSRC’s new report on regional tolling and Clark Williams-Derry’s great analysis.

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Tolls, Sooner

By Frank on August 12, 2008

Seattle City Council wants tolls on 520 and 90, starting in 2010. This is even more aggressive than the fastest schedule that the tolling committee is considering:

Council President Richard Conlin, who also heads the council’s SR 520 Committee, presented a letter to the committee, saying council members hope tolls will help “improve mobility throughout the region.” The fare, around $2.30 one-way, depending on the time of travel, is “relatively modest yet still raises adequate revenue,” he said.

By signaling that he wants the tolling to help manage congestion even before a new bridge is built, this proposal would rate a solid 4 out of 6 on my home-grown congestion pricing controversy-meter. Bold, but not politically impossible.

A major sticking point is what to do about Mercer Island. Island residents might suddenly have to pay a toll to go just about anywhere if there’s a toll on I-90. On the one hand, that seems fair, certainly residents of Puget Sound’s other islands (Vashon, Orcas, etc.) pay tolls to get on or off the Island. On the other hand, it’s not something that most residents had in mind when they first moved there.

Regardless, there are a ton of ways to mitigate this, and I’m sure they will all get discussed at the next tolling open house which is, as luck would have it, on Mercer Island. You could set up the toll transponders on the other side of the island, so that Mercer Islanders could ride free to and from Bellevue, for example, but would have to pay to get into Seattle. Then they’d be in the same boat as the rest of the Eastside (‘cept for the 206 area code, natch!).

The more interesting problem is how you handle people who don’t have transponders in their cars. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge has a single toll booth for people to pay cash. The 520 committee, on the other hand, is touting a “no toll booths” strategy, according to their site:

However, we know that some vehicles will not have transponders or may be visiting from out of town. These vehicles will have their license plate photographed and can prepay or be invoiced for the toll, which will include an additional surcharge for processing the video.

This seems like it’s going to piss a lot of people off, especially the additional surcharge bit. And I see no way they can get 4 toll booths and the requisite right-of-ways built between now and 2010.

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Capacity

By Frank on July 7, 2008

Sightline tries to get us thinking about more options on 520:

Overall, the visual is effective. We do need to re-think capacity in terms of moving people, and giving them options. Trying to find room for SOVs in a modern city is folly.

Still, I sometimes wonder about renderings that show highways less-than-full capacity as some kind of blissful, post-congestion future utopia. As folks at, say, Sightline, never tire of pointing out: congestion is here to stay. It’s possible that tools like congestion pricing could keep our freeways flowing at 50mph all day long, but I’m skeptical that there’s the political will for that. If there’s no traffic, people are going to want to drive until the roads are packed. And with 235mpg cars on the way, what’s going to stop them?

Even in New York, where I grew up and where there are tons of transit options, the roads are still jammed at rush hour.

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Fire Hydrants and Garden Hoses

By Frank on April 29, 2008

Former Mercer Island Mayor Aubrey Davis takes a hammer to Dino Rossi’s transportaiton proposal in today’s Seattle Times:

Engineering studies show that dumping eight lanes of traffic from 520 onto an already congested I-5 and I-405 would virtually shut down both freeways and create gridlock across the region. I-5 and I-405 would become the most expensive parking lots on Earth. Connecting an eight-lane 520 to I-5 and I-405 would be like trying to connect a fire hydrant to a garden hose, and the ones getting wet would be us, the taxpayers.

It has been estimated that billions of dollars in new lanes on I-5 and I-405 would be needed to make this fire hydrant-to-garden hose connection that Rossi proposes even remotely possible. These costs are not accounted for in Rossi’s plan and funding is not available.

Davis clearly hasn’t read the part of Ross’s plan where he promisies free jet skis for everyone.

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No More Big Digs

By Frank on March 15, 2008

Interesting piece in the Boston Globe talking about how cities like Seattle are re-thinking big downtown highways after the Big Dig. The article notes that the federal juice isn’t there like it used to be — the Dig would basically never have happened had Tip O’Neill not been Speaker of the House.

Of course, we’ve got our own Tip O’Neill here in Seattle, but thankfully she’s focused on funding for transit, not big downtown highway tunnels.

I also liked this bit from John Norquist:

John O. Norquist, a former mayor of Milwaukee, concedes that his plan to tear down a 0.8-mile stretch of an elevated highway would not have passed a public referendum.

Instead, he persuaded Milwaukee’s downtown property owners that the old Park East Freeway was hurting their land values and undermining economic progress. Then he took the plan to the governor and bartered a deal, he said.

Norquist is so convinced of the economic and cultural values of the project that he now goes around the country advocating highway removals, as president of the Congress of New Urbanism.

Norquist argues strenuously that successful cities are not built on their lack of traffic congestion. He offers Detroit as an example of a city that has defeated congestion, but has yet to recover from its economic problems.

“The thing that makes Boston valuable isn’t its fast traffic,” he said. “The thing that makes Boston is its complexity.”

As much as it pains us to admit it sometime, traffic congestion is a happy problem. It means people have lots of jobs to go to. If Microsoft were to close up shop in Redmond, I’m sure it would ease traffic on the 520. But at what cost?

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Early Relief

By Frank on March 10, 2008

WSDOT is considering moving the 520 HOV lanes from the right-hand side to the left, where HOV lanes typically run. They might even do this before the new bridge is in.

The main impediment to moving them thusfar, in my understanding, is the fact that the right-hand lanes are former shoulders not safe enough for general purpose traffic. But maybe they’re getting an upgrade, or WSDOT has decided that they’re safe enough.

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That's Like… Really Soon!

By Frank on March 3, 2008

Could we really be driving across a new 520 bridge in just 6 years?

2018 always seemed like a bit of a worst-case estimate to me. We’ll see what happens with the discussions between the various community groups, of course, but this is good news indeed. Especially the part where it magically gets cheaper.

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Is It Settled?

By Frank on February 22, 2008

This P-I article starts off by giving the impression that the 520 bridge issue is settled, that all groups have come to consensus. But as you read further down, you start to realize that lots of key groups — the Laurelhurst community, fish and wildlife, UW — are opposed to some or all of the proposed solution.

While the Governor seems to approve, I’ll reserve judgement until I see a price tag on this thing, which seems to have all manner of lids and tunnels and other expensive gee-gaws.

And, of course, I fully expect Ron Sims to forcefully oppose this plan, since it contains even more of “landscaped lids” in high-income neighborhoods that led him to withdraw his support of Proposition 1.

Finally, it just occured to me that I’m probably going to lose one of my favorite Seattle driving shortcuts, which is to jump on 520 Eastbound for one exit and get off at Montlake, when I’m headed to either University Village or Drinking Liberally at the Montlake Ale House. See? I’m sacrificing something, too, here!

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