Paying Thrice for the Same Road

With the arrival of the express toll lanes on 101 through B'game, gas powered vehicle drivers now get to pay three times for the same road- regular taxes that are supposed to pay for infrastructure, gas taxes of $0.539 per gallon that are supposed to pay for roads and toll charges.  Who knows where that money is going.  The Merc reports

San Francisco Bay Area motorists on Friday saw a new span of toll-based express lanes open on Highway 101, the latest move to ease congestion on one of the region’s most frustrating commutes.

The opening — from Whipple Avenue in Redwood City to Interstate 380 in South San Francisco — means one of California’s busiest corridors now has 22 miles of express lanes that are free to use for carpoolers carrying at least three people and give other drivers the option to pay for faster freeway speeds.

And of course, there is this "hack"

Q: Why aren’t the lanes reducing congestion for most drivers?

A: One of the central benefits of express lanes is that they incentivize carpoolers, thereby taking vehicles off the roads and freeing up traffic for everybody. Cars with at least three people ride for free, and vehicles carrying two people get a 50% discount. But as express lanes roll out around the region, it’s unclear if the system has encouraged more carpooling, while it is clear that it has encouraged drivers to cheat the system.

An early study from the MTC found that on I-880 in August 2020, the vast majority of drivers claiming to have three people in the car were lying. About 28% of drivers set their Fastrak responder to indicate three occupants, while only 2% of cars were carrying three people, the study found.  “It’s really expensive to do enforcement,” said Goodwin. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to still close the gaps.”

And also of course there is the obligatory "equity" bow

Q: These lanes sound expensive. Are there any options for low-income people?

A: Yes, for San Mateo County adults who are making $78,300 or less a year, there is a one-time $100 stipend for express lanes or public transit rides.

You can bet this program costs huge bundles of cash to design, operate, monitor and dispense a C-note.  MTC admits it barely works and is hard to enforce, but they need to expand it.

Comments

[Joe]

This person nailed it in a LTTE to the Daily Journal yesterday:

Editor,

Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesperson John Goodwin states “we know that pricing freeways is unpopular.” It’s way more than that; it’s criminal. The level of taxation is what makes San Mateo County unaffordable in the first place (“Highway toll feedback signals an uphill battle” in the Nov. 15 edition of the Daily Journal).

You can’t encourage the masses to use mass transit by charging us. We need to be where we need to be at certain times, on certain days, and under various shifting circumstances. Public transportation does not deliver. It is not a convenient option for everyday life, and most of us aren’t willing to make sacrifices when it comes to convenience, even if it costs us. Everyone needs free access to the roads — to get to work, to shop, to drive kids to school, etc. Our public transportation structure couldn’t possibly support a proposed increase of use.

The feedback from the public webinar hearings indicated that there simply are no factors that would incentivize the use of public transport. Maybe the Transportation Committee should put more focus on improving that rather than penalizing taxpayers for using what we already pay for.

Politicians continue to pursue any issue other than the source of it. Less people would solve so, so much. How about putting an end to the broken cycle of associating population growth with “progress.”

An agreement by all of us who use the freeways to ignore any bills in the mail for using them is something I could support.

Mike Hagmaier

San Mateo
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It took me awhile to acclimate to the term "freeway" back in 1981--they are called highways in most of the country. As they are slowing becoming un-free, do we start calling them highways?

His last bit about just ignoring the bills seems unlikely to work. MTC just needs to stay in its lane. Fix the roads and bridges and stop social engineering people against their will.