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To: dpolhill@xxxxxxx
Sent: 11/7/2022 12:05:26 PM Mountain Standard Time
Subject: Surface Transportation Newsletter #229
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| Surface Transportation Innovations |
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| By Robert W. Poole, Jr.
Searle Freedom Trust Transportation Fellow and Director of Transportation Policy
November 2022 |
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This issue of Surface Transportation News is also available online here.
In this issue:
- Gas stations in an electric vehicle world
- Why California high-speed rail failed
- Treating induced demand as a religion?
- Smart roads’ disappointing performance
- Opposition to FHWA’s proposed GHG regulation
- The private sector’s historic role in British toll roads
- News Notes
- Quotable Quotes
Gas Stations in an Electric Vehicle World
Shell, the world’s largest gasoline retailer with 46,000 stations in 80
countries, is showing off its gas station of the future in southwest London.
Instead of gas pumps, the station has 10 fast chargers under artistic wood
coverings. To keep customers occupied during charging periods of 20 to 40
minutes, it sells sodas, snacks, and basic groceries. Although it has only a
few prototypes like the one in London, Shell already has 9,000 branded charging
points in operation.
But as a lengthy article by Politico pointed out recently, it’s doubtful that
many conventional urban gas stations with six or eight pumps can survive by
converting to electric vehicle (EV) charging. The article explains the ongoing
war between electric utilities and elective vehicle charging providers like
EVgo and ChargePoint, along with truck stops and traditional gas stations.
Until recently, most states had laws that prevented anyone but regulated
electric utilities from selling electricity. Although that has been changing,
the way electricity is provided to EV charge companies is economically
untenable, at least in these early days of the transition from petroleum-fueled
vehicles to electric vehicles.
But before going further, let’s do a little math. With today’s EV batteries and
DC fast chargers, average EV charging takes 20 to 40 minutes—say 30 minutes on
average. A typical gasoline fill-up takes about five minutes. Hence, the dwell
time of the EV is six times as long as the gas-fueled car. A gas station with
14 pumps can refuel 70 cars in five minutes. During a 12-hour day, a gas
station can refuel 10,080 cars. But in that same 12 hours, it can handle
one-sixth as many EVs—just 1,680. If the average price for an EV charge were
the same as the average gasoline bill, the station owner would see a drastic
reduction in revenue.
One alternative would be a much larger footprint for the electric vehicle (EV)
station—up to six times larger to generate the same revenue. That will not be
feasible in most urban areas, where affordable land adjacent to gas stations is
mostly not available. But it’s a different story in some low-density suburban
areas, exurbs, and on long-distance highways in rural areas. That is why
convenience store chains and truck stop chains are better positioned than gas
stations to be the providers of EV charging.
One early mover is North America’s largest truck stop operator, Pilot Company.
As Utility Dive pointed out last month, Pilot has formed a joint venture with
General Motors and EVgo to add 2,000 fast chargers to 500 of its U.S. “travel
centers” (aka truck stops). It turns out that EVgo had already been working
with gas station/convenience store chain Wawa and several others. As you may
have noticed in recent years, non-urban gas stations increasingly include
“convenience stores,” whose operating margins are higher than what they make
from selling gasoline. One consultant told Utility Dive that convenience stores
now sell 80% of America’s gasoline. So it should not be surprising that the
National Association of Convenience Stores joined with the National Association
of Truck Stop Operators in trying to influence what became the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) legislation to address gas-station/convenience
store problems with electric utilities. That lobbying produced only lip service
in the final legislation, but most states have already exempted gas stations
and convenience stores from their bans on those businesses selling electricity
to EV operators.
Gas stations have a long history, starting out as mere “filling stations” (a
gas pump outside a general store), becoming full “service stations” offering an
array of auto maintenance services, and more recently becoming self-service
operations selling fuel in most urban locations but paired with a convenience
store in suburbs, exurbs, and the countryside. My bet is on the
truck-stop/convenience store EV charging model as the next step in their
evolution.
» return to top
Why California’s High-Speed Rail Failed
Back in 2007, I read a number of reports suggesting that spending $33 billion
of taxpayers’ money on a high-speed rail (HSR) system between Los Angeles and
San Francisco would have costs exceeding benefits. The idea that a new rail
corridor would cost less and be more beneficial than (a) adding priced express
lanes to Interstate 5 between the two metro areas, or (b) getting more use out
of the multiple airports in both metro areas that would offer travelers
departure and arrival locations closer than downtown Los Angeles and San
Francisco to their actual origins and destinations, struck me as ludicrous.
My concerns led to a highly detailed 2008 Reason Foundation study on the
proposed system, released several months before voters statewide had to vote
yes or no on a $10 billion general obligation bond issue to launch the
project’s development. The 196-page “due diligence report” raised concerns
about where the rest of the funding would come from, whether the travel time
between Los Angles and San Francisco could actually be achieved, and the
likelihood that if built, the rail system would require operating subsidies,
like almost all overseas HSR systems. In Oct. 2008 testimony before the
California Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, study co-author Joseph
Vranich said, “The current proposal is untenable. The train will go slower than
they say it will, will carry fewer people than they claim it will, and will
cost much more than they say it will.” That all turned out to be correct.
It’s taken many years for the project’s failure to become widely recognized,
but one dogged reporter has been on the California high-speed rail beat for
more than a decade: Ralph Vartabedian, then at the Los Angeles Times and more
recently writing major pieces for The New York Times. In his latest NYT
article, “How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails,” he reveals many
new findings that explain mostly political decisions that led to the cost
ballooning to $113 billion, with only a small segment under construction (from
“nowhere to nowhere” in the middle of the state) and funding for the rest far
from assured.
A key factor in the enormous cost escalation was the political decision early
on to avoid the direct route between Los Angeles and San Francisco—paralleling
I-5. That route would have relied in part on the existing state-owned right of
way and avoided huge, costly battles with agricultural interests in the Central
Valley who didn’t want their farms, groves, and ranches cut in half. It would
also have avoided the much greater need for costly tunnels to cross the
mountains between the two metro areas and the Central Valley. Vartabedian
details the politicking that took place to put the route instead through
Palmdale, Bakersfield, Fresno, Madera, and other areas. That route was longer,
encouraged low-traffic station stops, and ended up requiring slower speeds on
shared trackage in both the San Fernando Valley and Silicon Valley.
Vartabedian, for the first time, reveals who was responsible for that foolish
route decision.
In the early years, the California High-Speed Rail Authority assured the state
legislature and the media that the system would not require operating
subsidies, so they were confident that private investors would cover part of
the construction costs in exchange for some of the resulting fare revenue. In
those years, European and Japanese high-speed rail companies spent time in
California checking into the viability of the project, likely hoping to become
part of it. As Vartabedian had previously reported (and notes again in the
current article), French railroad company SNCF recommended the I-5 route as far
wiser, facilitating the promised two-hour and 40-minute nonstop travel time.
But the company lost interest when the longer and more-costly route was chosen.
And no private investment in the system ever materialized.
Many people suspected politics was behind the foolish decisions, but for this
detailed article, Vartabedian got many early supporters and decision-makers to
acknowledge what actually happened and how those decisions made the project
unlikely to ever be completed (and incapable of meeting the nonstop trip time
promised to voters who approved the 2008 bond issue). Vartabedian and the New
York Times have done this country a great service by unveiling how politics
contributed significantly to making an already questionable project unviable.
» return to top
Treating Induced Demand as a Religion?
By Baruch Feigenbaum
A recent article in Transfers Magazine published by the Pacific Southwest
Region University Transportation Center argues for “spreading the gospel of
induced demand.” Unfortunately, the article simplifies induced demand into a
series of yes or no questions and then recommends that people, whom the article
showed do not understand the concept, “become evangelical about it.”
The authors start by giving a brief introduction to induced demand. In the next
section, the authors present the findings from a series of questions they asked
597 non-students and 520 university students throughout the U.S. about induced
demand. I have some methodological concerns with the survey. The sample size is
very small, so the margin of error could be very large. The survey used stated
preference when revealed preference would have been a better process. The
survey questions were binary, requiring yes or no answers. Yet induced demand
falls within a range. The first question asked whether adding lanes to a
roadway is “likely” or “unlikely” to reduce congestion in the long term. But
the accurate grad school answer is “it depends.” If it is a low-density
slow-growing area, then induced demand is unlikely. If it is a fast-growing
area or one with a high population density and the new capacity is priced,
induced demand is unlikely or at least smaller in magnitude. If the capacity is
not priced, induced demand is likely.
The second question asked if transportation policy should make it easier for
most people to drive for most trips or try to shift most trips toward public
transit, walking, and bicycling. Again, why can’t the answer be both?
Certainly, in rural areas, it makes sense to make it easier for people to
drive, since other options might not be available. If you live in West Virginia
and you live 20 miles from your job, walking does not seem like a viable
alternative. And as the article does throughout, the paragraph includes a
normative statement about “respondents who understood that road expansion will
not alleviate traffic congestion.”
In a follow-up question, the authors asked what should be done about traffic
congestion. They found that even those who agreed that induced demand is a
problem supported road widening. The authors speculated that some respondents
might support road widening to encourage economic development. Further, the
article noted that 89% of respondents who agreed with induced demand thought
building more transit would address the problem. Seventy-three percent thought
transit was the best option. Yet the authors note that transit can also create
induced demand since if more people use transit, more road space will become
available for discretionary trips.
Finally, the survey examined whether people’s opinions on induced demand can be
changed. It added “refutation text” claiming that adding lanes only reduces
congestion over the short term. After reading the refutation text, support for
expanding highways declined from 76% to 50%. But six months later, the
researchers asked the same question and found support for road widening
rebounded to 79%. The authors suggest the change in opinion was due to
“acquiescence bias,” but it’s just as likely that, after experiencing
congestion in their daily commutes, some people changed their minds.
After the research section, the authors switch to advocacy mode and recommend
three calls to action. The first is that proponents should stop justifying
roadway and transit projects with the promise of congestion relief. I agree
with this recommendation. Highway projects can enable more economic activity,
increase safety, improve freight delivery, and allow more people to use
roadways. Congestion relief may not be a long-term benefit. Transit projects
can help working-class residents reach their jobs, but they don’t reduce
traffic congestion either.
The authors’ second recommendation is to spread the word about induced demand.
But one of the main findings of the study is that almost nobody understands
induced demand. If people don’t understand what it is, why are we asking them
to teach it?
The third recommendation is to “update” our teaching on the subject. As
somebody who completed a master’s degree project (mini-thesis) on induced
demand, I’m dismayed that so few students understand it. But what individual
will provide a balanced approach to induced demand? Perhaps retired University
of California-Berkeley professor Robert Cervero would be willing to come out of
retirement to teach the class. Cervero studied the phenomena of induced demand
in California and then spent years pushing back about bogus claims about
induced demand across the country.
More troubling is the authors’ recommendation of the “induced demand
calculator,” which is used as a sort of propaganda tool and was created by
several 501(c)4 advocacy groups. As I wrote in the January Surface
Transportation Newsletter, the calculator does not provide an accurate measure
of induced demand:
The calculator treats all new travel as bad. Yet increasing roadway capacity in
urban areas has at least three benefits. First, new road capacity creates
economic benefits. It allows employees to reach a larger number of employers in
a given time, creating a better match between employees and employers. It
promotes economic activity by increasing the number of consumers that can reach
businesses in 15 minutes.
But the calculator’s biggest problem is that it is technically inaccurate.
Instead of separating existing trips made at a different time or on a different
roadway from new trips, the calculator assumes all new travel that happens at a
given time on an expanded roadway at any given point is induced demand.
Most troubling is the report’s blurring of lines between research and advocacy.
The authors advocate treating induced demand as a “religion.” Yet
transportation research should be based on science. And religion and science
are opposites. One requires creating a hypothesis and testing it using the
scientific method. The other requires believing something as a fact without
testing or questioning it. Neither this article nor the concept of induced
demand should be treated as any type of gospel.
» return to top
Smart Roads’ Disappointing Performance
Engineering News-Record (ENR) published a major article on various kinds of
“smart-road” technology in its Sept.5 issue, headlined “Laying Tech Test
Tracks.” The subheadline gave away the findings: “Domestically and abroad,
agencies are testing smart roads with mixed results.” The findings reinforced
the skepticism I’ve expressed in previous newsletter articles about both
on-road electric vehicle charging, now dubbed dynamic charging, and “solar
roads.”
The idea of charging electric vehicles (EVs) while they drive on highways
sounds appealing, as opposed to having to get off the road and sit waiting at a
charging station for 45 to 60 minutes while the vehicle gets charged. The
problems that are emerging in test projects reflect the practicality of
actually doing this on a large scale, as well as the lack of a viable business
model under which vehicle operators actually pay for the electricity they pick
up while driving.
The ENR article profiles several test projects under way in both Europe and the
United States. One startup is WiTricity Corp., in which Siemens recently
acquired a minority stake. So far, all it has demonstrated is static charging,
in which a bus or other vehicle is charged while sitting in one place. The big
action is in dynamic charging, with several firms testing their approaches. One
is Electreon, an Israeli startup. Early this year, it demonstrated dynamic
charging on a 1km closed track near Milan, Italy. Electromagnetic coils were
embedded in the roadway, in varying kinds of asphalt pavement, at a cost of $1
million per lane-km. The coils have an estimated life of 10 years. Trials of
Electreon’s system are under way in Sweden on a 1.65 km highway section on
Gotland Island. Electreon says that trial showed the vehicles could charge
while driving at 80 km/hr (about 50 mph). More recently, Michigan DOT is
gearing up for a trial of Electreon’s system on a 1-mile road segment.
To be able to pick up electric energy on the fly, an EV must be equipped with
an Electreon receiver. For widespread use, in addition to many thousands of
highway miles being equipped with in-pavement coils, all EVs would need to be
outfitted with compatible receivers. And there must be a way to itemize the
amount of electricity picked up by each vehicle so that the owner/operator can
be charged for that amount. A contractor working with Electreon in Sweden noted
to an ENR reporter that “There is still some work to do concerning
standardization, industrialization, and the business model.” No doubt.
Let’s also do a bit of number-crunching about dynamic on-road charging. In the
Italian trial, Electreon told ENR that a small Italian Fiat 500 drove for four
hours on the closed track, and its small battery only went from 22% charged to
48% charged. On a highway trip, to get that modest increase in stored
electricity, an EV going at 50 mph would have to be charging while driving 200
miles. A larger EV, like a Tesla, would have to drive a lot further than that,
charging all the way, to get such a modest improvement in its stored
electricity. That would require a huge amount of in-road coils, at $1.6 million
per lane-mile.
Florida is also getting into dynamic charging tests. The Central Florida
Expressway Authority is planning a $10 million dynamic charging pilot project
on one mile of its upcoming Lake/Orange expressway. The roadway equipment, in
this case, will be provided by Evolgy, a European company. The project is being
coordinated by ASPIRE, an engineering research center at Utah State University,
with support from the National Science Foundation. ASPIRE is also working with
transportation agencies in Michigan, Indiana, and Utah on other dynamic
charging pilot projects.
As of now, my assessment is that this is a cool-sounding idea that very likely
will not make sense as an alternative to EV charging stations and has yet to
set forth any kind of plausible business model.
» return to top
Opposition Builds to FHWA GHG Mandate
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has received more than 39,000
comments regarding its proposed regulation that would require state departments
of transportation (DOTs) to track on-road greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with
the goal of achieving net-zero highway emissions by 2050. More than half of
Senate Republicans (27) sent a letter to the FHWA deputy administrator arguing
that there is no legislative basis for such a regulation. The American Road &
Transportation Builders Association also objected to the regulation. But 28
Senate Democrats sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
supporting the proposed regulation.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
(AASHTO), representing all 50 state transportation departments, sent a letter
to FHWA pointing out that “consensus support” for the regulation is lacking
among its members. AASHTO’s letter pointed out that “we do not see a provision
in federal law that requires FHWA to establish a GHG emissions performance
measure,” and that “FHWA’s [justification] of its legal authority for
establishment of this new rule can lead to consequences beyond the intent of
Congress.”
Critics have pointed out that a provision similar to the proposed FHWA
regulation had been included in the House transportation reauthorization bill,
but that bill was scrapped when Congress adopted the bipartisan infrastructure
law approved by the Senate, which became the IIJA law signed by President Joe
Biden. Hence, Congress had considered such a requirement but ended up rejecting
it.
This matters because of a recent Supreme Court decision: West Virginia v.
Environmental Protection Agency. The majority opinion by Supreme Court Chief
Justice John Roberts found that the EPA had put forth a mandate for states to
adopt a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions, after a bill to require that
had recently been rejected by Congress. In rejecting EPA’s assertion of
legislative powers, the court expanded on previous vague provisions in its
“major questions” doctrine. Under the clarification, a regulation may be
challenged if it is economically significant and is based on a broad
interpretation of a very vague statutory provision or no authorization from
Congress. (For more details, see “A Major Win for Limited Government,” Cato
Policy Report.)
I am not an attorney, but I think it’s highly likely that if FHWA proceeds to
enact this proposed regulation, there will be immediate litigation based on the
West Virginia decision, and that litigation is likely to lead to the regulation
being thrown out. That will hand the matter back to Congress, where it belongs.
» return to top
The Private Sector’s Historic Role in British Toll Roads
By Alan Rosevear, Dan Bogart, and Leigh Shaw-Taylor
Robert Poole’s Editor’s Note: I met co-author Dan Bogart when he hosted me for
my 2018 book tour appearance at the University of California-Irvine, where I
learned of his already extensive research on United Kingdom turnpike trusts.
This article is the concluding section of the authors’ new working paper on the
subject, which I highly recommend.
We have shown that before the expansion of railways, a network of good-quality
main roads across England and Wales provided a transport infrastructure that
was fit for purpose. This contrasted with the generally expressed view that
main roads had been in a poor state at the turn of the [19th] century.
Government had intervened during this period, but the extent to which it was
responsible for infrastructure improvement has been unclear. Our analysis
demonstrates that turnpike trusts were responsible for building 4,000 miles of
new, good-quality road in England and Wales, much of it between 1810 and 1838.
On a directly comparable basis, the not-for-profit trusts built 30 times the
mileage than had been built with direct government funding during the early
1800s. Nevertheless, government intervened successfully in less-direct, subtle
ways across the wider road network.
Firstly, it provided a framework in which interest groups and government actors
could explore both the problems and solutions to meeting demand. Member of
Parliament Henry Parnell described their input as “working with the trusts,”
though in practice, there was intervention for a short period in some trusts
and increased regulation and greater public reporting for all.
Secondly, although the government-funded works of Telford created an iconic
road to Holyhead, the exposure and approval given to McAdam and his methods in
government enquiries persuaded many more trusts to employ him. This ultimately
led to the age of standardization which was an indirect triumph for government
intervention. We believe that this voluntary adoption of the expert-led
approach resulted from the partnership of government with the not-for-profit
turnpike trusts. It left some localism and conveniently kept the costs of road
infrastructure on the road user, not direct taxation.
Finally, our analysis illustrates how the growing state capacity in England and
Wales did not directly lead to a large increase in public goods and road
infrastructure. In the main, it led to better regulation and support of
not-for-profit trusts which could hold and efficiently manage nationally
important infrastructure assets. The framework of support, targeted management
intervention, and regulation established by government made the independent
turnpike trusts of the early 19th century more capable than those which had
begun to fail in the late 18th century. As such, our work points to a synthesis
between the traditional view that turnpike trusts were the principal actors in
creating the good road network of England and Wales and the revisionist view,
which sees government as playing a large and leading role.
» return to top
News Notes
Two Possible Start Dates for New Charlotte Express Toll Lanes
The Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO) board is
interested in the proposed addition of express toll lanes on I-77 between
Charlotte and the South Carolina border, but the question it must decide is how
to finance and procure them. The North Carolina Department of Transportation
explained to CRTPO board members last month that if the state develops the
project, the earliest it could begin to receive funding is 2029. But if a
long-term toll-financed public-private partnership like that used to develop
the toll lanes now operational on I-77 north of Charlotte is used, the $2.1
billion project could begin several years sooner. NCDOT will pursue the option
CRTPO recommends.
Electric Truck Charging Network Planned for I-10
Startup company TeraWatt Infrastructure has announced that it will develop and
install charging stations sized for electric trucks along I-10 from California
to Texas. Freightwaves quotes CEO Neha Palmer saying that “We have brought in
the large amount of power that you need for large-scale EV charging, especially
for those [heavy truck] large-battery formats.” Unfortunately, the charging
stations cannot be located at existing rest areas on I-10, due to a federal law
dating to 1960 that forbids offering any commercial services at Interstate rest
areas. Hence, electric big rigs will have to leave I-10 and go to an offline
location to get charged.
Modernized Service Plazas Are Opening on New York Thruway
Under a 33-year public-private partnership (P3), 23 of the 27 service plazas on
the Thruway are being rebuilt and modernized. Last month saw the reopening of
the third plaza, Junius Ponds in Seneca County, with new retailers Shake Shack,
Starbucks, and an Applegreen Market Store. The revamped plaza includes outdoor
picnic space, room for food trucks, a dog walking area, and (soon) two EV
charging stations. The $450 million cost of the program is being met by Empire
State Thruway Partners, which will pay the Thruway Authority 0.84% of each
facility’s gross revenue for 33 years. Although most of the Thruway is an
Interstate (I-90), because it is a toll road that predates the 1960 ban on
commercial services, it and other tolled Interstates were exempted from the
commercial services ban.
Express Toll Lanes Opening in California and Utah
New express toll lanes (ETLs) opened at the beginning of November on US 101 in
the Bay Areaa and on I-15 in Utah. Both projects are extensions of existing
express lanes added in recent years. In Utah, the I-15 ETLs now extend 82
miles from south of Salt Lake City to Ogden to its north. Utah DOT says this is
the country’s longest continuous ETL corridor; it has one lane in each
direction. The new California ETLs are in San Mateo County, from Redwood City
to I-380 in South San Francisco. These 22 miles of new ETLs connect to recently
completed ETLs on US 101 in Santa Clara County. The latter offer one express
lane in each direction, rather than two in San Mateo County. The 101 express
lanes are part of the growing network of such lanes in the San Francisco Bay
Area.
Melbourne Airport Rail Line Found Not Cost-Effective
A benefit/cost analysis of the proposed $8.3 billion rail line between downtown
Melbourne and the Melbourne Airport has been found by Infrastructure Australia
to be not worth building at this point. The net present value of the project
was found to be -$2.4 billion, with a benefit/cost ratio of 0.5. Infrastructure
Australia used the same 7% discount rate as America’s Office of Management &
Budget (OMB). A business case assessment by the Victoria government used only
4%, with a benefit/cost ratio of 1.0. Infrastructure Australia noted that the
rail line may be justified in the future, but the Tullamarine Freeway between
the airport and downtown will not reach capacity until 2036.
Toll Traffic Volume at Pre-COVID Levels
Fitch Ratings on Oct. 17 reported that traffic volume on U.S. toll roads
returned to 99% of its 2019 level during the first six months of 2022. Toll
traffic lagged this average in the San Francisco Bay Area while exceeding 99%
on most tolled facilities in Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas. The data were
published in Fitch’s U.S. Airports and Toll Roads Traffic Monitor.
Gasoline Use Reached New High in 2022
Jeff Davis reported in the Oct. 20 issue of Eno Transportation Weekly that a
record 6.8 billion gallons of gasoline were sold in the United States in the
2022 fiscal year (FY); the previous peak was in 2018. The data come from the
year-end report from the Treasury Department on the receipts from the federal
gasoline tax—$27.5 billion compared with $26.25 billion in FY 2018. Federal
diesel tax receipts also reached an all-time high of $12.2 billion. Motorists
and truckers evidently drove more than expected in FY 2022, and larger, heavier
gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks are a larger component of the personal
vehicle fleet. Legislated increases in federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy
(CAFE) requirements and increasing electric vehicle penetration will reduce
fuel consumption in future years.
Audi Developing Anti-Pollution Devices for Electric and Conventional Vehicles
Rubber-tire vehicles operating on pavement generate particulate matter, 85% of
which is caused by abrasion of tires and roadways. German auto company Audi,
along with supplier Mann+Hummel is developing a filter in line with the
radiator (on internal combustion vehicles) to trap these fine dust particles.
On EVs, the filter can also be operated while the vehicle is stationary, and
being charged. The filter system has been tested on Audi vehicles, including
the electric e-tron.
Parkersburg Bridge Privatization Ahead of Schedule
The aging Memorial Bridge in Parkersburg, West Virginia, is being rehabilitated
by United Bridge Partners, which is buying the bridge from the city. The $50
million renovation cost is being paid by UBP, whose contract with the city
transfers ownership and operations to the company. UBP is also continuing to
pay part-time toll collectors during reconstruction, despite the bridge being
closed to traffic, and it is working on a severance package for them, since
tolling will go all-electronic when the bridge re-opens in Aug. 2023, three
months earlier than the original schedule called for. The toll when the
refurbished bridge reopens is expected to be $1 compared with the prior 50
cents.
$1.5 Billion Rail Complex to Relieve Los Angeles Ports Congestion
BNSF Railway last month announced plans to develop a $1.5 billion rail facility
in Barstow, 130 miles from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. The purpose
of the 4,500-acre facility is to allow containers offloaded from incoming ships
to be sent by rail directly to the Barstow International Gateway, where the
cargo can be transloaded from 40-foot international containers to 53-foot
domestic containers for onward shipment by rail or truck. BNSF already has a
rail yard on the property, which is linked to the railroad’s main lines heading
east.
Hurricane Leads to EV Battery Fires in Florida
Among the impacts of Hurricane Ian on the southwest coast of Florida have been
many vehicles damaged by flooding. State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis sent an
alert on Oct. 6 to first responders, noting that corrosion from having been
underwater has led to EV batteries catching fire. The next day the Fire
Marshal’s Office sent out a detailed warning outlining recommended procedures
from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). It outlined what EV
owners should do (and not do) if their vehicles experienced flooding and
procedures for firefighters to deal with battery fires.
General Motors Thinks You Will Drain Your EV During Power Outages
The giant auto company last month announced the launch of a new division, GM
Energy, that will sell electricity storage units to EV owners. The equipment
will enable the EV owner to use electricity from the EV’s battery and/or the
storage unit to supply electricity to their home during power outages. This
might be fine for a half-hour outage, but as someone who lives in hurricane
country, I’m very familiar with power outages lasting three to five days. One
thing I don’t want during such a period is to be stranded, immobile, and unable
to get to grocery stores or Home Depot to deal with other impacts of the
hurricane.
Infrastructure Asset Recycling Proposed in Ecuador
Ecuador’s Minister of Transport and Public Works plans to lease existing
airports and toll roads to investors, aiming to raise large enough up-front
payments to reduce the government’s $64 billion debt. Inframation News reported
(Oct. 21) that if Ecuador’s Congress approves a new investment law that would
permit asset recycling, it will engage in feasibility studies of long-term P3
leases of two airports, a seaport, and several highways.
Will Construction Cost Inflation Consume New Federal Spending?
The July-August issue of ARTBA’s Transportation Builder magazine contains a
graph of the sharply increasing costs of the inputs to highway and street
projects. The producer price index for these inputs (excluding labor costs) has
increased from 100 in 2014 to 150.1 as of June 2022, with most of that increase
taking place since 2020. American Road & Transportation Builders Association
(ARTBA) chief economist Alison Premo Black noted, “The average cost of
materials used in highway and street construction was up 15% in July [2022]
compared to July 2021.” With skilled construction labor also in short supply, a
significant fraction of increased federal IIJA funding will be absorbed by the
increased cost of already planned projects.
I-81 Syracuse Viaduct Removal Moving Forward
Engineering News-Record (Oct. 3) reports that the project to tear down the
elevated I-81 route through Syracuse, NY, passed a milestone in September with
the shortlisting of firms for the first phase of deconstruction. The total
expected cost of removing the 1.4-mile viaduct and replacing it with a
boulevard is $2.3 billion. Deconstruction is expected to begin by year-end and
continue through 2025.
» return to top
Quotable Quotes
“Not looking good in hindsight are two former California governors, Arnold
Schwarzenegger (R) and Jerry Brown (D), who backed the [high-speed rail] plan
as a way to reduce carbon emissions from cars and planes. Don’t feel too sorry
for California voters, though, who brought this mess on themselves—first by
approving the 2008 referendum, then by re-electing Brown in 2014 over moderate
Republican Neel Kashkari, who campaigned against what he called the “crazy
train.” . . . Full operation of a San Francisco-to-Los Angeles bullet train
would cut carbon emissions by the equivalent of 213 million gallons of gasoline
per year, according to the high-speed rail authority’s 2022 annual report.
That’s about a week’s worth of California’s fuel consumption in 2021. Surely
there is a cheaper, less-grandiose way to achieve the same savings.”
—Charles Lane, “California ‘Crazy Train’ Is Still Going Nowhere Fast,” The
Washington Post, Oct. 12, 2022
“Cal HSR is just the most dramatic example of the cultural framework that has
overtaken public policy/projects in the last 20 years, where there is a general
tacit agreement (diffused among several authorities, consultants, and elected
decision-makers) that outcomes don’t have to be taken seriously—and that
special interest orientation (ideology, mode, geography) is given the same
weight as engineering economics—especially if the project is supported by
‘someone else’s money.’”
—Stephen Lockwood, “Just Another Piece of Mega-Pork,” posted on a private
transportation blog, Oct. 14, 2022 (used by permission)
“The administrative state’s corrupting, fundamental forces are on full display
in our MARAD/FOIA case [regarding the Jones Act], which is indeed right out of
the textbooks. A federal agency tasked with supporting the U.S. transportation
system and Merchant Marine has evolved over decades to become little more than
a lobbying firm for a law (and industry) that actually undermines the agency’s
statutory purpose. Its ‘advisory committee’ is stacked with industry insiders
dedicated to preserving that harmful status quo, and its employees routinely
strategize with lobbyists and other industry players—‘elites’ by anyone’s
definition—to deliver [economic] rents, not to effectuate great policy,
regardless of the harms that such actions cause.”
—Scott Lincicome, “My ‘Treason’ Charge and the New Right’s Governance Fantasy,”
TheDispatch.com, Oct. 26, 2022
» return to top
The post Surface Transportation News: Gas stations and electric vehicle
charging, high-speed rail failure, and more appeared first on Reason Foundation.
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This issue of Surface Transportation Innovations is also available online here.
Previous editions of this newsletter are archived here and all of Reason
Foundation's transportation policy research and analysis is here.
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Robert Poole
Searle Freedom Trust Transportation Fellow and Director of Transportation Policy
Reason Foundation
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