Bureaucrats will be bureaucrats, and when there’s federal money at stake, there will be those clamoring for a study to spend those dollars. That is basically the case with Flyod Lapp of SWRPA. When legislators reconvene this week to do something with the bonding package, the $1.5 million for this congestion pricing study, is on the table. What a waste of money.
State Senator Bob Duff has identified the priority for any transportation legislation, and its too bad that there are some who think studies about congestion pricing make sense given that Connecticut has no viable alternatives for residents to choose from alternative transportation.
Connecticut legislators this week are expected to decide whether the state should move forward with a study that would gauge whether a “boothless” tolling system should be used to lessen congestion on state roadways.
The tolling system proposed to be studied, called congestion pricing, uses variable rates that increase during the busiest driving hours. Congestion pricing, which, like EZ Pass, utilizes electronic transponders to bill drivers while they’re in motion, is designed to get some cars off the roadway during rush hour so traffic flow can be increased, said Woody Bliss, Weston’s first selectman who is also the chairman of the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization.
“It offers an incentive for people to not travel during rush hour,” said the chairman of the MPO, which endorsed the study earlier this year.
Both the state Senate and House of Representatives, scheduled to meet this Thursday, will be voting on $267.5 million in transportation bond items proposed for 2008, which is expected to include roughly $1.5 million for the congestion pricing study, said Floyd Lapp, executive director of the South Western Planning Agency.
Lapp said Connecticut needs to be assessing how to alleviate gridlock on its highways, and the study is the logical next step.
“I feel that congestion pricing has the potential to be a highly
effective, low cost way to reduce rush hour traffic,” he said. “Unless we do the study, we will not learn anything new, and we will be steeped in ignorance.”
Congestion pricing, which can also bill out-of state drivers by using surveillance cameras to snap photos of vehicles’ license plates, can be located anywhere, Lapp said, and does not have motorists waiting in toll booth lines.
“You can be going 65 miles per hour,” he said.
Revenue from congestion pricing can be put back into the state’s highways and its public transit system, Lapp said.
Beyond looking at whether traffic on the state’s highways could be reduced by the boothless tolling system, Bliss said, the congestion pricing study would also try to pinpoint which particular areas could be better served by it. It would also evaluate the impact congestion pricing would have on the state’s public transit system, he said.
Bliss said states looking to study congestion pricing used to be able to apply for federal funds for such an assessment, but, because the boothless tolling system has already worked in over 20 cities and towns nationwide, grant monies are now only available to implement it.
“It’s already a proven system,” said Bliss, who noted congestion pricing has also been established internationally for decades.
Congestion pricing still should be studied in Connecticut, however, because the state needs to evaluate the effect it would have on the its public transit system, Lapp said, with anywhere from 10 to 25 percent of vehicles expected to be taken off the highways during rush hour.
“How the public transportation system would handle this I don’t know, which is why I am an advocate of the study,” he said.
State Sen. Bob Duff, D-25, said the state should not even be looking to study congestion pricing when there are still too many public transit issues at hand, such as not having enough trains or parking for passengers.
“Congestion pricing, in my opinion, is off the table until we fix the public transit system,” he said.
source: The Hour, Lawmakers mull tolling system study, September 17, 2007
