Adding Roads Will Help Traffic Congestion

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- It's not a case of "build it and they will come." They are already here and more are coming. New road and transit capacity is part of the solution to growing traffic congestion in America.

Can you build your way out of traffic congestion?

Maybe not completely, but it's time for us to try, where feasible, to add new road and public transportation capacity. To do nothing will guarantee the outcome that's already been proven in the real world: steadily worse traffic congestion that retards the economy, contributes to unnecessary air pollution and robs American families of their most precious possession-time.

According to federal government data, since 1982, the U.S. population has grown almost 19 percent, the number of registered motor vehicles has increased 36 percent and vehicle miles traveled has ballooned 72 percent. Yet over the past 20 years, we've added less than five percent to road capacity and even less than that to public transit.

Three Zogby International surveys conducted in the past year that consistently found nearly 75 percent of voters believe the nation is experiencing a "transportation capacity crisis" with overcrowded roads, airports and public transit systems struggling to handle a growing population and economy.

The American people are clearly looking to their elected leaders to address the nation's 21st century transportation challenges. We are not only facing a transportation capacity crisis, but also a financial capacity problem. We are not providing the level of public investment necessary to maintain the existing highway, bridge and transit system, much less invest in needed new capacity.

That is why the American Road and Transportation Builders Association is calling for a minimum $50 billion per year federal highway investment as part of reauthorization of the nation's surface transportation programs. The real target is more than $60 billion per year. That is the federal share of the investment level the U.S. Department of Transportation says is necessary just to maintain current highway and bridge conditions and performance levels and add economically justifiable capacity.

With the U.S. population projected to increase by 60 million people and highway travel by more than 40 percent over the next 20 years, there are a number of things that Congress should consider now to help alleviate traffic congestion:

* Significantly increase highway and mass transit capital investment. No revenue raising option should be taken off the table-including the federal gas tax.
* The six-year, $375 billion highway and transit investment proposal being pushed by the bipartisan leadership of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee offers a practical public policy solution to address traffic congestion. The investment levels in the plan are what the U.S. Department of Transportation says is necessary to maintain and begin to make an overall improvement to the nation's surface transportation network.
* Congress should also support new ways to add highway and transit capacity. Toll financed truck-only lanes should be considered for existing Interstate highway right-of-way, where appropriate.

Double decking and tunneling in some urban areas should also be seriously considered as options.

A good example is the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway in Florida, where state officials are currently building a 9-mile, elevated, three-lane, reversible express down the median of the existing roadway.

When completed, it will allow people to get quickly into and out of downtown during rush hour, leaving the existing lanes below free from congestion for more localized traffic.

Also, the 20-mile Alameda Corridor rail project in southern Los Angeles County has been a successful project. There should be more new tunnels under cities similar to the "Big Dig" project in Boston.

Other solutions to reduce traffic congestion include improving the handling of traffic incidents to clear roadways quickly, increasing the use of synchronized traffic signalization and "smart road" technologies to increase traffic flow, and closing roads that need repair to traffic, when possible, so that contractors can get in and finish the work as fast as possible.

Ruane is president and CEO of ARTBA.

By Stephen J. Lehtonen

It could only happen in California. The State Compensation Insurance Fund has sued the insurance commissioner and the California Department of Insurance for injunctive relief. The official reason is to "clarify CDI's authority" and to determine the applicability of the risk-based capital statutes to the State Fund, but we all know the real reason: the State Fund does not trust the Davis administration or Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi.

The State Fund is, as they say, a "sitting duck." The State Fund does not make the enormous political contributions that virtually every other player in the California workers' comp market makes, so they are uniquely vulnerable to attack from Garamendi and Davis. "Attack" is an appropriate word in this situation, because the Davis administration and Garamendi have taken it upon themselves to drastically change the Fund's role in the marketplace.

Under the previous "minimum rate law" and during the open rating of the last nine years, the State Fund and private insurance carriers competed equally, but the State Fund had the additional burden of being the "insurer of last resort." Garamendi's plan restricts the Fund's ability to attract new business, placing it in a less-than-equal competitive position.

Hooray for State Fund President Diane Oki!

She says, "we have not taken this action lightly, but we must protect the interests of our 262,000 policyholders, their employees and California's economy. A takeover of State Fund would create further chaos in California's workers' compensation marketplace and ultimately be disastrous for California's economy."

Amen!

Is there anyone out there who believes that the Gray Davis Administration should be trusted with changes of this magnitude? The State Compensation Insurance Fund has earned our trust for almost one hundred years, while the Davis Administration has plunged us into a multi-billion dollar debt. Insurance Commissioner Garamendi and Governor Gray Davis would like this crisis to be about the State Fund, but it is not.

The State Fund responded to this crisis in a professional manner, completely fulfilling its statutory authority. The erosion of surplus was to be expected, given the market conditions and abuses prevalent in the system. Garamendi could have heaped praise upon the State Fund and asked the question "where would we be without the State Compensation Insurance Fund?

Garamendi could have argued that the risk-based statutes do not apply to the State Fund, and that the Fund receives its authority directly from the California constitution, but he did not; he attacked when he could have supported.

Garamendi says he is focused on solving the problems associated with underlying cost drivers in the system, and pending legislation, and that is where he needs to be focused. He also needs to begin to think of the State Fund, not as a state agency, but as California's strongest and best workers' compensation insurance carrier.

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