The toll road troll gets his nose under the I-66 tent.

Yesterday, the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) unanimously approved the tolling of I-66 inside the Beltway for one-passenger cars that are headed eastbound during morning rush.  About three hours of tolls for 40,000 autos out of the more than 400,000 that make that trip each workday.   

The tip of the toll road troll nose just barely got stuck under the I-66 tent as the result of some last minute maneuvering to allow toll-free driving in the opposite direction during afternoon rush.  The decision will actually add vehicles to the dreadfully congested I-66 route, especially in the absence of any plans to expand the highway. 

We have no objection to tolling a highway—any highway—for the purpose of providing revenues to maintain and improve the highway, but this plan, like most other tolling plans, is aimed at taxing drivers to provide revenues for other purposes.  In this case, any surplus funds—and the tolls will be high enough to make sure they generate surplus funds—will be used to provide public transit options generally in the inside the Beltway I-66 corridor.   The Washington Post says, “The state expects to generate $18 million in toll revenue in 2018, the first year in which tolls will be fully implemented. The money can be used to support mass transit options on the I-66 corridor, as well as the possible widening of eastbound I-66.”

Well, there are no plans to widen eastbound (or westbound) I-66 and it is unlikely that there will be any for years, if not decades.  Physically, it will be extremely difficult to add a third lane from Falls Church to the Roosevelt Bridge as anyone who has driven that route well knows.  And with that extreme difficulty goes tremendous expense.  Moreover, Arlington County almost violently opposes any widening of the highway into its various neighborhoods and has since the interstate was built decades ago.

We think it more likely that, within a few years, the new toll will be expanded to all users of I-66 inside the Beltway—possibly with the toll break for carpools--and possibly from just peak periods to 24-hours per day with rates varying with peak flow periods.  Once the toll gate spigot begins generating revenues, there is no stopping the expansion of its coverage and increases in the tolls.

Moreover, we expect that the use of the tolls will expand to public transit measures well beyond the Beltway.   In fact, we anticipate that tolling I-66 will expand well beyond the Beltway.  It is easy to foresee that, as Northern Virginia continues to grow, tolling will extend as far out as Gainesville, ostensibly to help sustain the interstate and constrain traffic flows.  Those tolls will, like Dulles Toll Road tolls, be used to extend Metrorail’s Orange Line as far as the tolls—to the Gainesville exit area.

Our state and local leaders see a massive potential revenue flow from these tolls to help offset the huge cost of transportation infrastructure construction and operation.  They may even see future opportunities to extend the use of those tolls to non-transportation uses.  All they have to do is to take one tiny step at a time in moving forward so as not to so upset their constituents that they all get thrown out of office.  The first step is to get the toll troll’s nose under the tent.  That box has now been checked. 

Tolling I-66 Inside the Beltway: Adding Tolls AND Traffic to Pay for “Multi-Modal” Transportation.

While a bit outside of our Reston bailiwick, the extended dialogue on tolling I-66 inside the Beltway—mostly out of Richmond and NoVa discussions—and how that might be done appears to be running off the rails—if an interstate highway can be on rails.  Nonetheless, the latest proposal for I-66 inside the Beltway may set an ugly precedent for other highways closer to Reston, particularly the Dulles Toll Road (DTR) that would be inequitable, inappropriate, and ineffective in relieving congestion.    

 

As a starting point, let us say that we have no objection to the reasonable tolling of highways or other roads.  The key goal of a toll road should be to generate toll revenues that maintain and improve the tolled road in a way that is equitable while striving to reduce congestion.  That leads us to two key tolling principles:

•  The tolls:  Everyone pays tolls and they pay the same toll per mile at the same time except discounts for congestion-alleviating HOV car and van pools and public transit. 
• No separate HOT lanes for the one percent, which does virtually nothing to alleviate the congestion for the other 99%, while “free loaders” remain stuck in traffic.  HOT lanes merely give drivers a way around traffic by accepting a self-imposed tax that has virtually nothing to do with improving traffic flow or generating needed revenue--unless the tolls are prohibitive for most.
• To reduce congestion most effectively, we prefer an HOV-3 requirement over the longer term (vice HOV-2) with steep toll reductions, maybe a third of the SOV toll, maybe none at all.    
• Moreover, tolls should be distanced-based as well as time-of-day/ “peak period”/dynamic tolling, reflecting users actual use—unlike either the Dulles Greenway or the DTR.   (In particular, by being roughly at the mid-point of the DTR, Reston DTR users pay about twice the price per mile that others pay for using the full length of the toll road.

•  The revenues:  All the revenue from the tolls goes to maintaining and improving the tolled road, not other transportation programs or projects, much less non-transportation uses.  We have stated this frequently in the past regarding the ill-conceived $6 billion funding of Silver Line construction through DTR tolls. 

Now on the table for I-66, according the Washington Post, is a proposal that violates several of these principles:  If you drive alone east to work inside the Beltway during the “peak period,” you will pay a toll; if you drive west even alone, you won’t pay a toll.   HOVs (2-person now, 3-person ca. 2020) and transit would not be tolled.  The tolls would reverse direction during the peak period when you’re driving west to home at the end of the day.   As a result, people who live in DC who drive by themselves to work in Tysons would pay nothing to use I-66 while SOVs reversing that commute could be paying $17 per day.   

Officials, including the Governor, offer a little bit of sugar (for a short-term high) to help the toll medicine go down: 

• HOVs will continue to use I-66 with no toll for now; that’s a sucker’s play.
• SOVs  will be able to use I-66 inside the Beltway during rush period, not just HOV vehicles as is now the case, if you’re willing to pay the toll.  Years--maybe decades--from now, they will be cut out again when traffic growth demands it. 
• The toll only applies to “rush hour,” but that can be changed later to full-day tolling and almost certainly will.  The tolling camel’s nose—and the needed tolling equipment--would be under the tent. 

All this points to the prospect of ever expanding and increasing tolls:  all day vs. rush periods, all vehicles vs SOVs, both directions vs. one, and, of course, increasing toll rates.  Just ask DTR users.  Once the principle of tolling is accepted and the equipment is installed, the rest is as certain to follow as night follows day.  

The key problem is, as the article notes, “The toll revenue left over after the expenses of operating the HOT lanes system inside the Beltway will go to supporting alternative transportation — carpooling and commuter buses, for example.”   Why not lower the toll to meet just the cost of maintaining and improving I-66, at least inside the Beltway, if there is a surplus?  

I-66 tolling should not become a “cash cow” for agenda-driven bureaucrats, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission in this case, to spend on even less cost-effective transportation modes, nominally to ease I-66 congestion.  While it’s true that drivers don’t pay the full cost of the roads they use (without tolls), we’ve never seen public transit of any type, much less bike riding or walking, cover its cost, much less help pay for roadway improvements.  Why should this be true? And the extent these “multi-modal” alternatives reduce commuting traffic is both minimal and transient, especially for the long-distance commuting that characterizes the I-66 corridor.  

A quick look at the Supplemental Report (2013), Figure 2.7, prepared by VDOT's consultant on the I-66 inititiave shows how cost-ineffective using tolls or taxpayer dollars for "multi-modal" transportation is.  In its "Refined Package (Peak-Only Tolls" option, throughput on I-66 inside the Beltway increases by about 40,000 people per day or a 9% increase in throughput from MWCOG's CLRP+.  Only 4,000 of those additional people will be moved public transit, about 10%, yet both the total cost and the cost per passenger to add those 4,000 people is 74% higher than the cost of adding POVs  as the table below shows.  Moreover, spending an extra $33 million per year on transit results in only a 0.9% shift in transportation mode productions from private vehicles to transit over 25 years.  In an era when our governments are badgered by their inefficient use of taxpayer (or, in this case, toll payer) monies, this is a perfect example of why that criticism continues.  If the intention of the I-66 plan is to increase I-66's throughput, the most cost-effective way to do so is to improve (widen) the highway; subsidizing added transit routes is a relative waste of money.  

 

The basic 2012 consultant’s report for VDOT guiding the I-66 initiative (during the McDonnell administration with amendments under the McAulliffe administration as recently as two weeks ago) also identifies some 60 bicycle and pedestrian improvements that the “surplus” I-66 tolls could fund.  Here is what GreaterGreaterWashington says enthusiastically about the improvements:

The report includes 60 bike/ped projects which include trail improvements to the Mt.Vernon, Custis, Four Mile Run, W&OD, Route 110, Washington Blvd and Arlington Blvd Trails; connector trails; bike facilities added to the Route 27 bridge over Route 110 and the Meade Bridge; bikeshare expansion and parking additions along the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor and in Falls Church; Rosslyn Circle improvements, including a tunnel; bike lanes; and bike parking at Metro Stations. The list is too long to go into, so if curious, you should check it out starting on page 3-76 of the report.

The only roadway improvements explicitly identified in the proposal are to widen the western end of I-66 to three lanes, including extending the eastbound I-66/DTR merge to three lanes for a mile rather than the current quick transition from four to two lanes of eastbound traffic at the East Falls Church Metrorail station.  The east end I-66 chokepoints remain unchanged.

 

The program’s only strategic goal appears to be to generate revenue for development of alternative transportation modes after covering I-66 maintenance expenses.  As explained above, the proposal does not intend to relieve congestion on I-66.  In fact, it adds single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) that are now banned from I-66 inside the Beltway during rush periods.  HOVs will not be discouraged from using the corridor because they will not be tolled.   

Longer term, the 2012 consultant’s report forecasts ”the increase in (transit) mode share is less than one percent for work trips.”  That’s less than one percent shift to transit for some $23 million in annual toll revenues totaling more some one-half billion dollars in tolls by 2040 at the initial suggested toll rates.  I-66 is to become a “cash cow” for the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission which will decide how those dollars are spent.  There are vague suggestions of future expansion of this portion of I-66, but they are always caveated by the huge restrictions on space to expand the highway by adding additional lanes.  More likely over time is the tolling of all vehicles in both directions all day will add to the revenues and keep congestion at a sufferable level, nothing more.

And tolling I-66 inside the Beltway will likely beget tolling and/or driving restrictions elsewhere.  Already Arlington County is examining how to prevent traffic diversion to its streets from I-66 because of the tolls.  Because the proposed tolls only apply to SOVs, not HOVs, in the near term, there actually shouldn’t be much of an impact because SOVs are already banned from I-66 during rush period.  That said, Arlington officials and residents see the long-term writing on the wall:  Tolls for everyone on I-66 that will divert traffic to Arlington’s already congested east-west rush hour streets.  And VDOT has not yet provided a traffic-impact analysis of its proposed tolling of I-66 even for the short-term.

Put simply, this I-66 inside the Beltway initiative is a new tax on highway transportation to pay for public transit, biking, and pedestrian transportation.   It is not intended to relieve or even stabilize congestion on I-66 despite public officials’ claims, which will grow as more people live outside and work inside the Beltway.  And it will almost certainly lead to higher tolls on the full range of vehicles using it over the full day every day over time.   

Buyer beware!

MWAA: Silver Line Phase 1 Final Costs Up $76 Million, Phase 2 to Take 13 Months Longer & Add to Costs

April 27, 2015   

Airports Authority Updates Status of Silver Line Metrorail Construction Project 

Design Changes Enhance Safety, Reliability, Environmental Protection

Will Add Time, Cost; Will Not Impact Dulles Toll Road Rates 

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority announced Monday that design modifications
made to enhance the safety and reliability of the Metrorail Silver Line, along with remaining
work to finalize Phase 1 of the overall project, will add $76 million, or about 2.6 percent, to the
previously announced Phase 1 cost. The new Phase 1 cost remains within the original federally
approved Phase 1 budget.

Toll rates on the Dulles Toll Road will not be affected. Toll rates will remain at current levels
through 2018, and the previously published, decades-long toll rate schedule will remain
unchanged.  Revenue from tolls is one of several sources of funding for the Silver Line project,
which the Airports Authority is constructing for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit
Authority (WMATA).

A recently concluded global settlement with the construction contractor for Phase 1, Dulles
Transit Partners, along with the resolution of other outstanding matters – including the close-out
of Virginia permits which allowed Phase 1 work within Routes 7 and 123 in Tysons Corner, and
the execution of contracts to supplement certain Phase 1 work, as required by WMATA – has
allowed the Airports Authority to project a final Phase 1 close-out cost of $2.982 billion, which
represents an additional cost of about $76 million, and to move to the final close-out of the Phase
1 project.  The majority of the remaining work on Phase 1, which opened for business in July
2014, will be completed by the end of this year, including the delivery of 64 new rail cars at a
cost of $189.4 million to expand the Metrorail fleet.  Final close-out of Phase 1 is expected to
occur in 2016.

“The Phase 1 global settlement is an important milestone in the Silver Line project, following its
successful launch in July 2014,” Airports Authority CEO Jack Potter said.  “It gives us closure
on the most substantial cost component of Phase 1, ensures we will achieve the project’s federal
budget targets and allows us to maintain the existing toll schedule for the Dulles Toll Road.”

The ultimate impact of the Phase 1 additional costs may be reduced or even eliminated if the
contingency budget for Phase 2 of the Silver Line project is not fully used and the total project,
both Phases 1 and 2, comes in at or under the overall project budget.

The Airports Authority also announced an update to the construction schedule for Phase 2 of the
Silver Line project, which will extend service from the terminus of Phase 1 in Reston, Virginia,
through Washington Dulles International Airport and into Loudoun County, Virginia.

More than 150 modifications have been made and integrated into the design for Phase 2. Many
of these modifications parallel design changes made in the latter stages of Phase 1 and will
enhance the safety and reliability of Phase 2.  The modifications, when combined with associated
weather and construction delays, have extended the Phase 2 construction schedule by about 13
months.

“Over 100 design changes were made in Phase 1 – a large number of them ordered in the final
months of the construction process – requiring additional design, engineering, construction,
management and oversight work,” said Charles Stark, the Airports Authority’s executive director
of the Silver Line project. “For consistency, many of these same safety and reliability
modifications needed to be incorporated into Phase 2 of the project, which then impacted the
schedule.”

Potter said, “The added costs arising from Phase 2 design modifications will remain within the
Phase 2 contingency budget of $550 million and will have no effect on the toll rates on the
Dulles Toll Road. With our project partners, we are committed to limiting future design changes.
Phase 1 is already experiencing ridership beyond expectations, and significant construction and
development is underway along its path in the Dulles Corridor. We are confident that Phase 2
will experience similar success.” 

Construction of the Silver Line, one of the largest public transportation construction projects
underway in the country, is managed by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, and is
being built in partnership with Loudoun and Fairfax counties and the Commonwealth of
Virginia, with financial assistance from the federal government.  It will be transferred to the
WMATA for operation upon completion. 
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