News
Traffic Falls Short of Projections Across Northwest. So Why Do We Need Mega-Highway Projects?
The Sightline Institute has an interesting survey of driving across the Northwest, which finds that traffic volumes have fallen in short of the projections that were made just a few years ago in cities across the Northwest, raising questions about the need for car-centric highway megaprojects like the deep-bore tunnel and the proposed $3.6 billion Columbia River Crossing bridge, a proposal an expert review panel just rejected
for its "costly, risky, and untenable" design.
In Vancouver: Traffic volumes and tolling revenues on the Golden Ears Bridge outside Vancouver, BC are falling short of expectations, "adding up to 'a cumulative shortfall of $63.8 million since 2009 for a bridge that was supposed to pay itself off in 30 years,' according to the Maple Ridge Times ."
Traffic on the current Columbia River Crossing bridge between Washington and Oregon, where planners projected 7,000 more cars per day, has actually declined every year since 2005. The bridge now carries 7,000 vehicles less per day than five years ago.
In Seattle, as I reported , traffic volumes throughout the city declined significantly, dropping from 975,000 trips a day in 2003 to 900,000 in 2009.
And the Portland area, traffic has dropped 12 percent since 1996, when traffic volumes peaked.
What does all this mean for highway megaprojects? For one thing, projects that are supposed to be funded with tolls may be in trouble. The Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project assumes $400 million of its budget will come from tolls; but as people drive less, that revenue may dry up. Same goes for the Columbia River Crossing, where tolling is supposed to contribute between $1 billion and $2 billion to the project.
The prospect that we may not be able to pay for megaprojects like the tunnel and the bridge crossing isn't inconceivable; as Orphan Road points out, a contractor in Queensland filed for bankruptcy after traffic on its tunnel megaproject failed to meet expectations, dropping from 60,000 to 20,000 (instead of growing to 100,000, as the company projected), even when they cut the toll in half.
On a higher level, the fact that people are driving less raises the question: Why are we still building '50s-style megaprojects for cars when the market (supposedly sacrosanct to the same conservatives who oppose transit and support massive road-building projects) is showing less and less demand for them? As Sightline puts it, "it may not make sense anymore—and might, in fact, be financially risky—for transportation planners to assume that demand for car travel will rise in the future the way it did in the 1950s."
In Vancouver: Traffic volumes and tolling revenues on the Golden Ears Bridge outside Vancouver, BC are falling short of expectations, "adding up to 'a cumulative shortfall of $63.8 million since 2009 for a bridge that was supposed to pay itself off in 30 years,' according to the Maple Ridge Times ."
Traffic on the current Columbia River Crossing bridge between Washington and Oregon, where planners projected 7,000 more cars per day, has actually declined every year since 2005. The bridge now carries 7,000 vehicles less per day than five years ago.
In Seattle, as I reported , traffic volumes throughout the city declined significantly, dropping from 975,000 trips a day in 2003 to 900,000 in 2009.
And the Portland area, traffic has dropped 12 percent since 1996, when traffic volumes peaked.
What does all this mean for highway megaprojects? For one thing, projects that are supposed to be funded with tolls may be in trouble. The Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project assumes $400 million of its budget will come from tolls; but as people drive less, that revenue may dry up. Same goes for the Columbia River Crossing, where tolling is supposed to contribute between $1 billion and $2 billion to the project.
The prospect that we may not be able to pay for megaprojects like the tunnel and the bridge crossing isn't inconceivable; as Orphan Road points out, a contractor in Queensland filed for bankruptcy after traffic on its tunnel megaproject failed to meet expectations, dropping from 60,000 to 20,000 (instead of growing to 100,000, as the company projected), even when they cut the toll in half.
On a higher level, the fact that people are driving less raises the question: Why are we still building '50s-style megaprojects for cars when the market (supposedly sacrosanct to the same conservatives who oppose transit and support massive road-building projects) is showing less and less demand for them? As Sightline puts it, "it may not make sense anymore—and might, in fact, be financially risky—for transportation planners to assume that demand for car travel will rise in the future the way it did in the 1950s."
