Frequent commenter trza pointed me to this op-ed by Kay Bailey Hutchison in Thursday's San Antonio Express-News.
Tolls are unpopular, I know, and she's running for governor, but this is particularly discouraging:
Recently, there have been renewed calls for tolls on highways that have already been built and paid for with federal tax dollars. I believe taxing Americans twice for the same asset is fundamentally unfair, and I oppose any effort to place tolls on existing interstate highways.
Gas taxes do not cover the cost of roads. But I understand the fairness argument. Suburbanites invested in their homes on the assumption they'd have a free ride (or drive); charging tolls changes the rules. Perhaps worse, the state doesn't want to toll all existing roads, only some of them. Tolling my road but not yours seems arbitrary.
But there is a difference between charging a toll solely to raise revenue and charging a toll to relieve congestion. It would be nice if once -- just once -- an elected official acknowledged the difference. A congestion toll is set just high enough to get traffic moving, which is zero when traffic is light. It is not levied to raise revenue but to force drivers to account for the harm they impose on other drivers. There is no fundamental right to inconvenience others.
At first glance, it seems arbitrary to congestion price some roads but not others. It's not really, particularly if we start with the most congested roads. By definition, a driver on the most congested road imposes a higher cost than a driver on any other road; there's a rough justice in charging the mostly costly drivers first. In any event, congestion pricing makes some people worse off but others better off. The equity issue is redistribution, not dashed expectations. If the redistribution is fair -- or we can make it fair through rebates or some other mechanism -- then it's fair to price one road even if we leave other roads congested.
Because Hutchison refuses to acknowledge the difference between revenue tolls and congestion tolls, she gets some stuff plain wrong:
Overemphasis on tolling has serious implications for community safety and local infrastructure. Studies show that motorists will change their driving patterns to bypass the tolls. This will redirect traffic from our highways to remaining free roads, and, in turn, congest our local streets, compromise neighborhood safety, and overburden small-capacity infrastructure.
We want to divert some traffic. Yes, pricing a highway might congest some local streets, but a congested street with a throughput of a few thousand per day is a lot less costly than a congested highway with a throughput of a few hundred thousand per day.
Furthermore, tolls on existing interstates will divert truck traffic to other roads. A recent study predicted that a 25-cent-per-mile toll on an interstate highway would cause nearly half the trucks to divert to other routes. Many of our communities are not equipped to handle heavy commercial traffic, and the safety of local drivers could be put at risk by the increased presence of trucks on small roads.
When we toll a congested highway, it is the through trucks which have the greatest incentive to switch to alternate routes. Through trucks won't switch to local roads. They'll switch to alternate highways. For example tolling I-35 wouldn't divert trucks to South Congress; it would divert them to SH 130. That's exactly what they want.
Because Hutchison doesn't get or won't acknowledge the difference between revenue and congestion tolls, she's introduced legislation to prevent states from tolling existing highways constructed with federal dollars. This would be a disaster, guaranteeing ever-worsening congestion with no hope of relief. The only solace is that it is grandstanding. There's no chance of a Democratic Congress enacting legislation proposed by a Republican short-timer.
