A local approach to easing gridlock

Planners raise local funds for innovative projects instead of relying on state and federal money.

By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the November 27, 2007 edition

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Atlanta - Coming soon to a bottleneck near you:

•"Queue-jumper" lanes such as one in Lee County, Fla., where harried drivers paying a 25-cent toll can get around backed-up intersections.

•Trucker toll lanes, already under consideration in Atlanta, that will in effect segregate big rigs from the rest of the freeway public.

•Privately managed zoom lanes, similar to the South Bay Expressway that opened in San Diego on Nov. 19, that allow motorists to move at a heavenly 65 miles per hour.

With 55 of the nation's 85 densest population centers estimated to have Los Angeles-style road congestion within the next 20 years, local road planners are increasingly blowing by the stagnant revenue from state and federal fuel taxes and instead raising their own money to build new roads and optimize existing roadways.

Head winds include the risk of political failure as Americans not only balk at more taxes, but also resist the prospect of foreign companies swooping in to manage toll roads in the land of Ford and Chevy.

"The message from everybody right now is, if you think the federal government or even state government is going to come in and completely solve your transportation problems, you're kidding yourselves," says Scott Van Lanningham, vice chairman of the Northwest Arkansas Council, a private infrastructure think tank.

Short term, the gridlock continues. In its 2007 Urban Mobility Report, the Texas Transportation Institute estimated that Americans wasted 4.2 billion hours and 2.9 billion gallons of fuel while sitting in traffic jams last year. Before this Thanksgiving, a survey by Discover Card found that 15 percent of Americans said the hassle of getting to their holiday destination was almost not worth it.

Pressures to stay globally competitive and keep urban areas attractive are forcing the highway make-overs. Before now, politicians – and the voting public – either failed to anticipate such pressures or put off the projects because of costs, experts say.

"The inevitability of having to deal with this issue on this scale will force us to make policy choices and change things, so that in the long run we do solve these problems," says Sam Staley, coauthor of "The Road More Traveled," a book about potential solutions to America's "congestion crisis."

Three decades ago, no state allowed local authorities to raise funds for highway projects; 35 states now do. Such local problem-solving is not necessarily a bad thing, given the regional complexities of gridlock, says Martin Wachs, a transportation expert at the RAND Corp. What's more, he says, busy roads are a result of success, not failure.

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