What about toll lanes?

"Build it and they will come," you will hear from self-appointed anti-car transport experts like Green MP Julianne Genter and the boffins at Greater Auckland, right up to the real experts like the government's Chief Science Adviser. They do not intend this as praise, but as a complaint. What they're talking about is something they call "induced demand," the idea being that if you build new roads or add additional lanes, say, to an already congested motorway, then all you do is fill those lanes up with additional congestion, and so you're just back to where you started, they say.

As Andrew Galambos observed many years ago however, all this congestion is an example of the collision between capitalism and socialism -- capitalism producing cars faster than socialism and its "planners" can produce the roads. (And he made his observation back when the planners and politicians were trying to build roads, instead of to thwart their construction, as they are now.)

But even on their own terms this idea of "induced demand" is nonsense. That additional congestion they cite consists, of course, of more people going to places they'd like to go to, people who've decided that even if the delay stays the the same as before the new lanes that they'd still like to go there, thank you very much. So more people are made happier, and their lives better, by the additional capacity.

And on top of that, you have advice from the likes of Steven Polzin of Arizona State University, who points out that in fast-growing places, like Auckland and the newer suburbs around Christchurch, most of this new highway demand 

comes from new population, new employment and economic activity (some or all of which may have been attracted by enhanced transportation infrastructure), traffic rerouted from neighborhood streets or congested roads, or travel that has shifted in time to the benefit of the traveling public now that more capacity is available to undertake activities during desired travel times.

He also points out that trips accommodated by an expanded highway can provide a number of benefits l, such as: 

• Residents getting access to better jobs and businesses with better selections and lower prices;
• Businesses having access to a larger labour pool, and larger customer and supplier bases;
• Enabling emergency vehicles getting where they are needed faster;
• Pulling cut-through traffic out of neighborhoods; and,
• Enabling parents to get home in time for family meals and activities.

All these very real benefits to folk are almost entirely ignored or dismissed by the likes of Genter and her bureaucratic we-know-best types.

Characterising induced travel as bad or wasted is a misrepresentation of the value that people derive from engaging in travel. It’s not just wealthy folks making superfluous trips. Residents having access to better jobs or businesses with better selection and lower prices isn’t bad. Businesses having access to a bigger labor pool and potential customer and supplier bases because people can travel farther in a tolerable amount of time isn’t bad. Making supply chains work better isn’t bad. Getting emergency vehicles where they need to go faster isn’t bad. Pulling cut-through traffic out of neighborhoods to travel on a safer highway facility isn’t bad. Having more direct and less congested—and thus environmentally greener—trips isn’t bad. Enabling parents to get home and share a meal with the family isn’t bad. Using transportation infrastructure to shape development or improve economic competitiveness isn’t bad. Being able to engage in social interactions and recreational activities isn’t bad, and contributes positively to physical and mental health.

People do derive value from travel. Even with induced demand caused by new roads or additional lanes, more people can. 

What is true however is that neither new roads nor new lanes are cheap -- and the timidity of NZ's politicians means that new toll roads will be off the agenda until they convince the electorate they're not the spawn of Satan.

But what about toll lanes? Bob Poole at Reason's Surface Transport Innovations team suggests that by adding market-priced lanes instead of free lanes, the new work can be both self-funding and helpful to folks trying to get around.

The pricing will enable high-value trips to take place even during peaks when the free lanes are getting jammed. Those can be personal trips (to the airport to catch a plane, getting to day-care in time to avoid late fees), enabling express buses to run consistently faster and more reliably, and letting emergency vehicles get where they’re needed quickly, for example.... 

In Houston and especially Dallas/Ft. Worth, the express toll lanes are popular and much-used. But even there, where they have proven their usefulness and popularity, regional plans for a whole network of express toll lanes have been thwarted by the Texas state legislature...

 Here in Enzed we haven't even got that far. Instead, in all our major cities it's made harder to get around by car because of things like bike lanes, bus lanes, high-occupancy lanes, and so-called beautification. And if new lanes are ever built, they either take forever (just ask the good people of South Auckland and Franklin how long its taken to make their motorway journey north any better), or they're simply more “non-priced managed lanes.”

In plain language, that means old-fashioned, ineffective high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. Based on past history, if built, those lanes will likely be either too empty (wasting costly pavement) or too full (fam-pools, cheaters). Without pricing, there is no “management” of HOV lanes.

And with pricing, these additional toll lanes can be almost self-funding, as Poole explains using an example from Texas.

In a recent presentation in Ft. Worth, I pointed out that TxDOT’s current plans to add HOV lanes to I-35 in Austin, I-35 in San Antonio, and I-635E in Dallas total $8.1 billion. On average, revenue-financed highway projects like express toll lanes need only 20% from the state DOT with all the rest financed based on toll revenues. Were those three projects carried out via revenue-financed P3s, TxDOT would save 80% of that $8.1 billion to spend on other projects statewide. That ought to appeal to legislators from smaller cities and rural areas. And it would produce a much more effective and long-term solution for the antiquated I-35 through Austin.

And also for NZ's creaking roading infrastructure.