Here’s the post in the Sightline Daily that more fully explains Clark Williams-Derry analysis of forecast traffic on the Port Mann Bridge:
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I’m old enough to remember the episode of The Simpsons when Homer Simpson, after 22 minutes of serial idiocy, wraps up the show by proudly declaring: “Marge, my friend, I haven’t learned a thing.”
Well, it seems that BC’s transportation officials are now treating The Simpsons as an instruction manual.
As I pointed out a few months back, British Columbia’s transportation planners have long been nursing a delusion that traffic across the Port Mann bridge will magically start to soar any day now … even though actual travel across the span has trended downward for the better part of a decade.
And they’ve apparently done it again:
There are 5,000 to 6,000 fewer cars a day on the bridge, compared to traffic prior to the toll being introduced a year ago, said Todd Stone…”But we expect is that those numbers will bounce back as people really sort it out, and determine: how much is their time worth?”
Revenue forecasts for the next three years are being adjusted to 20 per cent lower than first anticipated: to $144 million for fiscal 2014, $159 million for 2015 and $174 million for 2016.
So revenue is down by 20 percent … but still projected to rise rapidly in the next few years!
I have yet to see the official traffic forecasts underlying those revenue projections. But I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that they’re projecting that revenue will rise in step with traffic volumes.
Port Mann tolls don’t vary with the time of day—a car pays $3 to cross the span, whether it’s at rush hour or the dead of night. And tolls are slated to rise only at the pace of inflation, capped at 2.5 percent. Reverse-engineering the traffic forecasts, along with estimates of traffic trends over the past two years, I get this chart:
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Just to be clear, the light blue dotted line may not be perfectly accurate. I haven’t accounted for changes in the mix of motorcycles and heavy trucks, or any shifts in enforcement or other toll revenue. Nor do I know what inflation rate the province is expecting. (I plugged in 2 percent into my estimates.)
Still, I bet that the blue line is pretty close. And if it is, it reveals something truly remarkable: rather than adjusting their their forecasts to match reality, BC’s transportation officials doubled down on projections that have repeatedly been proven wrong.
Marge, they haven’t learned a thing.
Happy as I am to embrace the truth of these challenges to official projections, this leaves me perplexed: does this mean we let go of the mantra that building new car capacity will only increase sprawl and auto traffic as induced demand fills up the new capacity?
This declining demand data seems to put an end to the statement that “nobody every built their way out of congestion.” It now seems that new capacity doesn’t affect demand.
Which is it: A new bridge will add new traffic? (another way of saying we can’t build our way out of congestion). or, Traffic will go down no matter what we build?
Spot on. Urbanists have their message a bit muddled.
Auto-dependent housing becomes a lot less attractive when you have to pay for a greater fraction of the infrastructure that makes it possible. Price is a better way of limiting demand than line-ups. It’s what we do with almost all services and goods, including essentials like food and clothing.
I’ve been surprised by how sensitive drivers are to increases in their marginal costs. For a typical weekday commuter, the toll adds about 15% to the total cost of car ownership and commuting ($1,440 on top of $10,000 annually).
The Port Mann looks like it has a lot of capacity, but its capacity is lower than the ultimate capacity of the Canada Line (i.e. with its full complement of trains) or even many surface light rail lines. You’ve heard a lot of whining about how the Canada Line won’t be able to handle future demand. The same applies to the Port Mann Bridge. It may yet become congested if the price isn’t high enough to keep demand sufficiently below its middling capacity.
The introduction of pricing might be the start of a process of price discovery. If the price to prevent congestion becomes high enough, new crossings might be justified on the basis of their projected revenues exceeding their projected expenses. Transportation projects of various modes might be compared and selected on this basis.
The City Program is holding a presentation later this month that I expect will touch on these ideas.
Possibly the lesson is that creating jobs in the City of Vancouver is becoming a lot less attractive, as stats show job creation in the ‘burbs occurring at a much higher rate. More jobs in the burbs, more people don’t need to commute. Great for them and the environment, perhaps not so great for the Resort Municipality of Vancvouver.
Growth rates depend on what already exists, so they form a nearly useless basis of comparison between new and established job centres. The rate gives no absolute measure of job creation.
Tolling is a big factor here. Also time. New roads have added to demand in the past, but that is over time. New developments and whole ways of working and consuming have developed around new roads eg suburban office parks and power centres. The question is whether tolling will negate the time factor. Another thing to consider is the traffic diverted to the Pattullo. That is strictly a story about price sensitivity and not the secular changes in driving patterns.
The fact that it is a tolled crossing is key. Road pricing is one way to control congestion. The traffic on the Golden Ears bridge declined markedly once tolls were imposed after the initial free period. I’m sure if the toll was removed from the Port Mann (and the Golden Ears for that matter) the traffic volumes would increase dramatically. Obviously people aren’t as rational about their route choices as Minister Stone would like.
I think you are conflating the issue. Free road expansion vs. Tolled Road Expansion. Two different scenarios. The first is connected to the induced demand theory. The second, the evaporating traffic theory.
Exactly, Graeme. Build a free road for commuters, and they will come and use it. Toll a road or bridge (or close them), and commuters will look for a free route elsewhere or take alternative transportation. Do both (as we are), and we perpetuate entitlement, car volumes, commuting, speeding, congestion, road rage, car accidents, harmful emissions, inflation, etc. Same old, same old. Will we ever learn?
The toll is INTENDED to reduce traffic over the bridge as a means of traffic demand management – so it does not get clogged up right away.
So its a case of damned if you do (be a “success” with lots of cars flooding over the bridge) and damned if you don’t (live up to projected volumes because the toll is working too well as a deterrant).
If the “do” is to build a new bridge and the “don’t” is to toll, you have a false dichotomy. The old bridge carried at least 115,000 cars per day, and the new bridge carries less than 100,000 cars per day. A toll alone would have sufficed to reduce traffic below capacity on the old bridge. The same is likely true of the Massey Tunnel.
The old bridge may have carried 115,000 cars per day – but it did so in an unacceptably congested manner.
… and placing a toll on unimproved infrastructure would be a non-starter.
See page 37 of the Gateway Project Definition Report here (from 2006):
http://www.pmh1project.com/Policy%20Planning%20%20Reports/10-016488%20%20Gateway%20Program%20Definiton%20Report%20PDR.pdf
Sooo… the tolls are working….
The tolls are working. They’re keeping demand well below the capacity of the old bridge. Because the additional capacity is not being used, nobody is benefiting from the additional capacity. The benefit – improved travel times – is entirely a result of the toll.
In other words, the toll is the improvement.
Yes, I think so (the new bridge is an excuse to allow the imposition of the toll) – and they’ve given themselves a buffer so that the benefit will be maintained til maybe 2031.
If the trend continues we won’t ever use that buffer.
If it takes 20 years for demand to rise high enough to justify the new crossing (at a toll rate that recovers 40% of bridge expenses), the opportunity cost of building the crossing too early will amount to billions of dollars.
the buffer being the additional capacity that will, over time, be used (but isn’t being used yet).
Exactly. You can’t BUILD your way out of congestion, but you can TOLL your way out of congestion. And the really great thing about it is that tools can reduce congestion with very little capital cost – no new road building required! And it’s very, very easy to adjust tolls up or down to meet the needs of the hour, day, or season.
We didn’t need to build a new Port Mann bridge, we just needed to toll the old one!
We don’t need to build a 10 lane bridge to replace the Massey Tunnel. If the tunnel is at end of life it needs to be replaced, but we don’t need to replace it with another 10-lane bridge, Instead, we can replace it with a tolled 6 lane bridge that can remain uncongested for its entire service life simply by choosing the right toll charges.
And the same principle applies to the Patullo.
Tolls are the best way to ensure that the traffic which uses our bridges is economically justified. But they’re only viable if commuters are offered improved transit to use as an alternative. Some of that transit money can come from the savings of not having to buy such big bridges.
Comment on the 10 lane bridge to replace the Massey Tunnel; the bridge is being built mainly to meet Port Vancouver Vancouver’s needs. Port Metro wants the tunnel removed so that ships with a deep hull can move up river. Before the Port made its demands, the engineers told the public that there were 50 years of life left in the tunnel, if it was adequately maintained, with major maintenance done every 10 years. Now, the politicians have started telling us that “the tunnel has only 10 years of life left”; this seems to be a way to make us accept the huge costs of a bridge, even if there is only marginal advantage to the bridge for commuters.
Port Metro Vancouver does a good job of greenwashing itself, but the reality is different.
I commute through the tunnel daily; it’s not a pleasure, it’s not so bad.
Tsawwassen via 17E through the tunnel to Richmond takes 30 minutes in rush hour, ignoring exceptions which happen once every couple of months (accidents, snow, etc).
Tsawwassen via 17 (the new South Perimeter Road) through the tunnel to Richmond takes me maybe a few minutes longer, but does at least give an alternative if there is an accident
Will a new bridge save me as much as 5 minutes? probably. Can’t see if being more than that. Not a good use of infrastructure costs (tolled or not tolled). The proposed new bridge is for Port Metro, not for the people.
hence no referendum
One again, it’s misleading to have an article on this that does not forthrightly deal with the issue of the nearby free options available to commuters. Overall traffic hasn’t decreased, so there’s no End Of Motordom story to see here. Move along folks.
At least the comments see that clearly this time.
I would like to add that while is not only tolling your way out of traffic congestion political fantasy, it’s also economic suicide. When it gets too expensive to go out and do things people stay home and stop spending.
Check out traffic volumes next time a big recession hits. Guarantee they slump.
Yet another foolish reason to assume anything based on two months of data…..
I see 10 years of data showing traffic across the Port Mann resisting the projections. The “inevitable” increases flattened long before the recession.
The current big drop is, as Bob pointed out, merely adjustment to new pricing. Traffic is way up on the Pattullo bridge.
I have to think that some people are spending more time in traffic and burning a lot more fuel to avoid the toll than is rational. I recall a letter to the editor from someone who was avoiding the Golden Ears toll by driving a pickup truck an extra 20 minutes each day. Not only is his time apparently worth next to nothing, but he burns a lot of extra fuel. If my brother did that in his truck it would cost him as much or more in fuel than he’d save by avoiding the toll.
When it gets too expensive for people to go out and do some things, they go out and do other things instead. Most Canadians below the top few percent spend every dollar they make and then some (based on growing home equity debt). That isn’t going to change if driving gets slightly more expensive. People will just make different choices and probably increase their support for local businesses. There’s no economic disaster looming behind reducing the subsidy given to drivers.
Good points David. As I pointed out in an earlier thread, we are a people who will drive miles and cross an international border to save a few bucks on cheese (and gas). People living in the downtown core don’t realize how commonplace an activity that is for those living south of the Fraser. As you say, people do not value their time properly, but that isn’t going to change.
In the case of Surrey, the residents may just take advantage of the massive new improvements at Guildford Town Centre. Staying closer to home for some activities is a good thing.
Traffic was flatlined for ten years because the bridge was at capacity. No question it has “dropped” (more like relocated) due to the toll. And while it may not be rational that’s not always the point – people are frequently irrational.
Driving has been getting consistantly more expensive and the only real result has been that those people spending every last dollar just dedicate more of it to getting around.
Either way trying to win people over with lousy data that doesn’t even try to tell the whole story is not to be encouraged.
One interesting thing in the data here:
http://www.pmh1project.com/Policy%20Planning%20%20Reports/Port%20Mann%20Bridge%20Traffic%20Report%20-%20January%202014.pdf
on page 4, the middle chart shows that the westbound AM peak has shifted from 6:00 am to 7:00 am – which reflects the time savings on the less congested bridge.
Commuters can leave home later than they used to to get to work.
Improving a major national and local highway, namely highway 1, is critical for people and goods movement. BC fell way behind other province in the 1990’s due to the anti-growth, high tax policies of the NDP. As such the bridge might feel overbuilt today but will look appropriate in 2025 or 2030.
Of course, not having the option of a rail link on it was a major mistake.
As the economy improves in BC so will car use.