Transcript Slide 1

honolulutraffic.com
Seeking cost effective ways to reduce
O’ahu’s traffic congestion
HOT BRT
Bus/Rapid Transit (BRT) running in
High-Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes
or
RAIL TRANSIT
Benefits & Costs
of the alternatives
• Will they reduce congestion?
• Are the costs reasonable?
The normal way that business people approach planning on a large project is to first roughly estimate
the costs, then estimate the benefits and then ask, “Are we in the ballpark?” If yes, then the planning
proceeds, with constant refinement of costs and benefits.
The city is not doing that. We know which stations will have escalators but not whether rail will reduce
traffic congestion, the most important benefit, or at what cost. So let’s look at the chances of rail giving
us a reduction in traffic congestion and what rail will cost. And then look at HOT lanes and what they
could do for us.
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Commuting on Oahu, 1980-2000
First, a little history. This is the Census data for Honolulu. Notice that drivers have been increasing and
transit is in decline both in percentages and in absolute numbers. The trend continues.
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National Census data for journey-to-work, 1960-2000
Percent of commuters
1960
1970
1980 1990 2000
Private Vehicle
64.0%
77.7%
84.1%
86.5%
87.9%
Public transportation
12.1%
8.9%
6.4%
5.3%
4.7%
Walked
9.9%
7.4%
5.6%
3.9%
2.9%
Worked at home
7.2%
3.5%
2.3%
3.0%
3.3%
It is the same nationally. A continual decline in the use of public transportation and increases in drivers — decade
after decade.
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8/80 principle
The 8/80 principle says public
transportation is so small a percentage
of commuting, that unless we triple or
quadruple the percentage it have little
impact on the huge percentage of
drivers. That has not happened
anywhere; it has declined.
We are coining the idea of the “8/80 principle” to focus people on the importance of the percentage of commuters using
public transportation — of any kind
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The 8/80 principle:
Oahu commuters:
•
8% use TheBus.
• 80% drive
•
The city forecasts 130,000 new commuters by 2030.
•
If we maintain these percentages:
•
•
•
10,000 of these new commuters will use bus and/or rail
100,000 will drive.
But no metro area has ever increased the percentage of
transit commuters over any 20 year period.
This is where the 8/80 principle comes from: How Oahu commuters get to work. As of 2000, 34,000 Oahu commuters
used transit. To keep the same level of traffic congestion as 2000, about 110,000 commuters would have to use
transit, or about 3.5 times the number currently, or 20 percent of all commuters and that would be greater than any
place other than New York.
8/80 principle for Vancouver, 1993-2003:
Vancouver commute method
Commuters
Transit
%
Autos
%
1993
805,000
88,550
11.0%
595,700
74.0%
2003
1,100,000
121,000
11.0%
814,000
74.0%
Change
+295,000
+32,450
+218,300
Source: www.translink.bc.ca/files/pdf/plan_proj/10year_project.pdf page 10.
Here’s the 8/80 principle as work in the poster child city of Vancouver. They maintained the same percentages of
commuters using transit and autos. Consequently their 295,000 new commuters split 74:11 resulting in a 32 thousand
increase in transit commuters, which people rave about BUT two hundred thousand increase in drivers.
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8/80 principle for Portland 1990-2000
Portland commute method
Commuters
Transit
%
Autos
%
1990
861,141
41,335
4.8%
635,522
73.8%
2000
1,105,133
62,992
5.7%
807,852
73.1%
Change
+243,992
+21,657
+172,330
Here’s the 8/80 principle at work in Portland. Net result: 21 thousand new transit commuters BUT one hundred and
seventy new drivers.
U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highways Administration file: msacomparison. xls
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Automobiles overwhelm transit, 1990-2000
% Drove
National
Total
% Transit
Inc/(dec) in
drivers
1990
2000
1990
2000
73.2%
75.7%
5.3%
4.7% 12,886,752
Inc/(dec)
in transit
(1,886)
U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highways Administration file: msacomparison. xls
Most of the other cities performed worse than Vancouver and Portland that is why on average in the nation, commuter
usage of transit slid from 5.3 to 4.7 percent and drivers increased from 73.2 to 75.7 percent. With 13 million new
commuters it meant that we had 13 million more drivers and no new transit users.
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Atlanta
Washington, DC
Dallas
Los Angeles
San Diego
San Francisco
Chicago
Miami
Boston
Denver
Seattle
Portland
New York
Sacramento
Salt Lake City
Philadelphia
St. Louis
Cleveland
Buffalo
Pittsburgh
All 20 Metro Areas
with rail in 2000
These are the 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas
(MSA’s) that have rail lines. The U.S. Dept. of
Transportation uses MSA’s, or metro areas, in
discussing urban transportation because it only
makes sense to group contiguous urban areas
together.
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Atlanta
Washington, DC
Dallas
Los Angeles
San Diego
San Francisco
Chicago
Miami
Boston
Denver
Seattle
Portland
New York
Sacramento
Salt Lake City
Philadelphia
St. Louis
Cleveland
Buffalo
Pittsburgh
All declined in
percentage of
commuter use
1980-2000
These metro areas with rail all saw percentage
declines in the commuter use of public
transportation in 1980-2000. The only exception was
that San Diego increased from 3.3 to 3.4 percent —
essentially nothing to nothing.
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1 Atlanta
2 Washington, DC
3 Dallas
4 Los Angeles
6 San Diego
The worst
8 San Francisco
8 Chicago
traffic
11 Miami
15 Boston
congestion
16 Denver
17 Seattle
increases in
20 Portland
22 New York
the
nation,
26 Sacramento
26 Salt Lake City
1982-2003
38 Philadelphia
The Texas Transportation Institute, the nation’s guardians of traffic congestion
43 St. Louis
data, list in the latest Urban Mobility Report, 85 urban areas listed in order of
the worst increase in traffic congestion in the period 1982-2003. Note that 7 of
65 Cleveland
the 10 worst have rail transit; 16 of the 20 rail areas are in the top half of the
65 Buffalo
worst increases and the other four had little population growth.
81 Pittsburgh
Congestion data from Texas Transportation Institute,
Urban Mobility Study, Table 4.
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Urban Area Traffic Congestion
• 11 Very Large: over 3 million population.
All with rail lines, except Houston — it had
the least increase in traffic congestion.
• 27 Large: 1 to 3 million population — half
with rail lines. The 4 best had no rail lines.
• 30 Medium: ½ to 1 million population,
includes Honolulu. Only Salt Lake City had
rail — they had the third worst increase.
Congestion data from Texas Transportation Institute, Urban Mobility Study, Table 4.
This is another way the Texas Transportation Institute looks at it; by dividing the cities by population size.
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• Investing in public
transportation of any kind
will not reduce traffic
congestion.
• It may produce other
beneficial outcomes but not
congestion reduction
This may seem like an extraordinary statement but the evidence is quite clear and reviewing the data in
greater detail than is done here only confirms the statement. There may be other benefits to public
transportation such as social justice benefits, or equity reasons, but not the reduction of traffic congestion.
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Leeward Corridor Problem:
– Highway traffic congestion
– Not insufficient transit.
You can only relieve traffic congestion
by expanding highway capacity:
– Construct new highways
– Make them more efficient
We can all agree we need new capacity in the Leeward Corridor. But we must first be honest with the public
because it is their view that our problem is traffic congestion; we do not have a public transportation problem. In
addition, we have to recognize that, short of using politically unacceptable congestion pricing on all freeways, we
can only relieve traffic congestion by building new highways and making them more efficient.
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Leeward Corridor capacity increase needed
Bus/Rapid
Transit &
autos on HOT
lanes @ $900
million?
OR
Rail transit @
$4.1 billion?
Flexible: Buses, van
pools, HandiVans,
autos, trucks,
ambulances, civil
defense, police, tow
trucks, and other
emergency vehicles
Inflexible: Train
riders only —
when not on
strike.
This is why we suggested the HOT lanes approach.
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HOV lanes carry more than most rail lines
Voters have been abused for a long time by rail proponents making
statements such as it takes 12 freeway lanes to equal one light rail line.
What nonsense. As we can see here only NYC’s subways move more
people than the three largest HOV facilities.
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HOV carries more per hour than rail
Portland Eastside MAX light rail line
1,980 people per hour
Portland’s 6th Avenue HOV lane
8,500 people per hour
Quote: “Both rail and HOV can serve the person carrying capacity
needs of about any corridor in North America”
Parsons, Brinckerhoff HOV Manual
Portland, the light rail poster city makes the case for us. Their light rail carries much less than the
average HOT lanes. And their HOV lane carries over four times as much.
Transportation Research Board Highway Capacity Manual
www.honolulutraffic.com/passperhour.htm
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Reversible non-stop HOT lanes are better
Two lanes into town in the morning and out in the afternoon.
Buses and vanpools have priority, cars pay tolls electronically.
A fast, reliable trip when needed makes them popular with everyone.
http://www.honolulutraffic.com/lexuslane.htm
This is the 3-lane Tampa reversible toll lanes due to open later this year.
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HOT lanes: Waikele to Pier 16
We have suggested running a HOT lanes facility from around the H1/H2
merge down to Pier 16 near Hilo Hattie’s.
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HOT lanes advantages:
• Uncongested HOT lane traffic is at 5560mph but, because of station stops, rail
only averages 22 to 28 mph.
• HOT lanes enable buses to make two trips
in the time it now takes to make one.
• Buses can travel door-to-door whereas rail
nearly always requires transfers.
Buses can make two trips by returning in the reverse direction using regular, relatively uncrowded freeways.
http://www.honolulutraffic.com/railspeed.pdf
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HOT lanes are more efficient
A regular freeway lane, such as the H-1
between Mapunapuna and Kaimuki, during the
congested peak rush hour now carries just
1,500 vehicles (cars and buses) per hour with
an average load of 1.25 people, or 1,875 per
lane hour.
Freeways peak out at over 2,000 vehicles an hour
when uncongested. As more and more vehicles
crowd onto the freeways at peak hours, the
throughput of vehicles declines until it reaches bottom
at around 1,500 an hour.
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HOT lanes are more efficient
• A HOT lane during the peak rush hour carries
1,800 vehicles per hour because of pricing.
• The two HOT lanes will take 3,600 vehicles
off the regular freeways — guaranteed — in
addition to those switching from cars to
buses. These will be about 25% of auto
commuters in the corridor.
* The higher average load is because of a greater ratio of buses to autos and more use of
carpooling on priced lanes. See Poole and Orski.
There is a seeming paradox here that by restraining drivers from entering the freeway, we get greater throughput but
that is the way it works.
The variable is not whether HOT lanes can take 3,600 cars of the regular freeway but rather the toll price that it will
take to do that. It may be $5, or 5¢ but between these two numbers is a price that will entice drivers to fill the HOT
lanes.
HOT lanes are more efficient
A HOT lane during the peak rush hour
carries 1,800 vehicles per hour with
an average load of 2.5 people,* or
4,500 per lane hour.
* The higher average load is because of a greater ratio of buses to autos and more use of
carpooling on priced lanes. See Poole and Orski.
You will have noticed that the 4,500 people is 2.4 times that of a regular freeway lane.
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HOT lanes are more efficient
• The two HOT lanes together carry
9,000 people an hour.
• That’s the same as nearly five
regular freeway lanes
• That is more than the people carried
by either the H-1 or Moanalua
freeways.
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The cost of rail:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Waiau to UH in 1991$
Inflation 1991-2005
Kapolei to Waiau ext
Total cost
Less Federal funding
To be locally funded
$1.8 billion
$0.7 billion
$1.6 billion
$4.1 billion
$0.5 billion
$3.5 billion
Before cost overruns
The ½ percent GE tax hike is not enough. In the out years it only covers
interest and operating losses. We will still owe $3 billion 15 years out.
The $1.8 billion is arrived at by taking the total 1992 FEIS LPA costs and deducting the No-Build costs.
See honolulutraffic.com spreadsheet
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HOT lanes do not need a tax hike
• 10 miles @ $90 mm a mile*
$900 million
• Less federal funding
($450 million)
• Net local funding needed
$450 million
• Toll revenues, $20 million annually growing at ½
% annually plus inflation, will retire a $450 million
bond issue in 25 years.
•
* According to Braden Smith, CFO of Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority (813) 272-6740
Tampa cost should be $28 million a mile.
We are understating the HOT lanes costs somewhat. The main issue is that they do not need a tax increase.
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Summary:
• Rail has never improved traffic congestion.
• We have a traffic problem, not a transit problem.
• HOT lanes gives motorists a choice.
• HOT lanes outperform rail transit.
• We can afford HOT lanes; we cannot afford rail.
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Atlanta
Washington, DC
Dallas
Los Angeles
San Diego
San Francisco
Chicago
Honolulu would be
Miami
Boston
the smallest
Denver
metro area with rail
Seattle
Portland
in the U.S. There
New York
Sacramento
are 32 larger than
Salt Lake City
Philadelphia
us with no rail.
St. Louis
Cleveland
And worse, the $3.5 billion in local funding needed would burden our local
Buffalo
taxpayers per capita far more than any other metro area in the country.
Pittsburgh
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honolulutraffic.com
Seeking cost effective ways to reduce
O’ahu’s traffic congestion
That’s it. Thanks for staying with us through the whole presentation!
Questions to [email protected]