Brett Bader still doesn't get it

From this morning's Seattle Times:

I-912 supporters don't think HOV lanes and onramps would solve the state's traffic problems.

"We need new pavement that people can drive their cars on," said Brett Bader, spokesman for I-912. "Onramps and new HOV lanes don't reduce congestion for 95 percent of those who drive their own vehicles, and that's the problem."

I-912 backers complain the tax package doesn't include new general-purpose lanes for Interstate 5, or new lanes on Interstate 405 that would run from Bothell to Renton.

"There's no lane miles to get anyone anywhere faster. It's all designed for mass transit and to make our individual commutes so horrible we'll consider a train or a bus," Bader said.

It's official: Brett Bader is a clueless idiot.

He considers himself an "expert", but he doesn't understand transportation engineering. His quote even sounds stupid: "We need new pavement that people can drive their cars on".

The problem is that simply adding new pavement does not solve congestion. It never has and never will. If you add more pavement and more lanes, there will be more single occupant drivers to fill them. Traffic will simply get worse.

Let me explain what I'm talking about. Here is an excerpt from Suburban Nation, a book published in 2000:

The simple truth is that building more highways and widening existing roads, almost always motivated by concern over traffic, does nothing to reduce traffic. In the long run, in fact, it increases traffic. This revelation is so counterintuitive that it bears repeating: adding lanes makes traffic worse.

This paradox was suspected as early as 1942 by Robert Moses, who noticed that the highways he had built around New York City in 1939 were somehow generating greater traffic problems than had existed previously.

Since then, the phenomenon has been well documented, most notably in 1989, when the Southern California Association of Governments concluded that traffic-assistance measures, be they adding lanes, or even double-decking the roadways, would have no more than a cosmetic effect on Los Angeles' traffic problems. The best it could offer was to tell people to work closer to home, which is precisely what highway building mitigates against.

Across the Atlantic, the British government reached a similar conclusion. Its studies showed that increased traffic capacity causes people to drive more--a lot more--such that half of any driving-time savings generated by new roadways are lost in the short run. In the long run, potentially all savings are expected to be lost. In the words of the Transport Minister, "The fact of the matter is that we cannot tackle our traffic problems by building more roads."

While the British have responded to this discovery by drastically cutting their road-building budgets, no such thing can be said about Americans.

There is no shortage of hard data. A recent University of California at Berkeley study covering thirty California counties between 1973 and 1990 found that, for every 10 percent increase in roadway capacity, traffic increased 9 percent within four years' time. For anecdotal evidence, one need only look at commuting patterns in those cities with expensive new highway systems.

USA Today published the following report on Atlanta: "For years, Atlanta tried to ward off traffic problems by building more miles of highways per capita than any other urban area except Kansas City...As a result of the area's sprawl, Atlantans now drive an average of 35 miles a day, more than residents of any other city." This phenomenon, which is now well known to those members of the transportation industry who wish to acknowledge it, has come to be called induced traffic.

The mechanism at work behind induced traffic is elegantly explained by an aphorism gaining popularity among traffic engineers: "Trying to cure traffic congestion by adding more capacity is like trying to cure obesity by loosening your belt." Increased traffic capacity makes longer commutes less burdensome, and as a result, people are willing to live farther and farther from their workplace.

As increasing numbers of people make similar decisions, the long-distance commute grows as crowded as the inner city, commuters clamor for additional lanes, and the cycle repeats itself. This problem is compounded by the hierarchical organization of the new roadways, which concentrate through traffic on as few streets as possible.

Washington's 2005 transportation package is not about new pavement, which is why Bader is mad. It is, however, about improving public safety and replacing existing arterials. The package is also about replacing seismically unsafe bridges.

The package does include funding for 125 new lane miles of roadway. However, not all of these lanes will be in urban areas. Furthermore, this total includes HOV lanes within urban areas, which are designed to increase carpooling and reduce pollution.

Additionally, the "congestion relief" portion of the package includes money to fix problems at 48 high accident locations and corridors, reduce the number of injury accidents by approximately 2000 per year, and replace 27 older bridges.

The 2005 transportation package is not designed to have Washington build its way out of congestion. That's why Brett Bader & Co. hate it so much - they want a package that includes money for new pavement only.

The Legislature did a good job recognizing that our transportation infrastructure is in need of serious repair. They put public safety first and created a good package to address the problems.

Vote NO on Initiative 912 and protect this investment in Washington's future.