I read an interesting article on The American Prospect web site this weekend.  The article entitled “How the Stimulus Screws Commuters” makes the argument that Congress is missing a big opportunity by not putting enough funding into public transit.  By spending most of the transportation money on highways, they are not doing enough to help the environment.

Currently there is $27 billion proposed for highway projects that will create new jobs and address our aging roads.  Now I wrote a post last month called Transportation Headaches that examines how massive spending is not the answer to our problems.  This will create jobs, but I have a tough time with the argument that we will “save” money with this kind of spending.

The stimulus package also wants to allocate 11.5 billion in tax incentives for automobile purchases.  I understand the desire to help the Big 3 Automakers, but I don’t think putting more cars on the road is really the answer.  If the automakers had invested more research on alternative fuels, maybe they would be offering better cars today.  They were happy making big profits on SUV’s and we were too happy to buy them, but times have changed and they need to change with them.

Yes, the primary goal of the stimulus package should be to stimulate the economy.  So while road work and automobile purchases could provide a spark, they will not light a fire to long term growth.  I would rather see more money put into projects that would help our economy and our ecology.

When gas prices rose, so did transit ridership.  Investments in mass transit, alternative energy and reducing traffic should be our main focus.  We could boost the sagging economy while also addressing climate change.  That is the type of spending I could support, what about you?

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Today new toll rates went into effect for vehicles traveling on the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike.  Yes, I travel on both of these roads every week and I hate tolls.

These are not small increases.  On the Parkway, the price at most booths will rise from .35 to .50 or an almost 43% increase.  Where else can you raise your prices by 43% and get away with it?  The Turnpike is just as bad where the average ride will increase from $1.20 to $1.70 or an almost 42% rise.

photo credit: bovinity

Many drivers will continue to ride these roads and pay the increases since there are not many options.  Others will attempt to avoid the tolls and look for free alternatives.  This will result in more congestion on these roads and increase the already bad traffic.  Ultimately this means longer commutes with more wasted time and gas.

So why the increase?  These additional revenues are to be used to fund various construction projects at a cost of over $8 billion.  Yes, $8 billion, plus committing another $1.25 billion for a tunnel to Manhattan.

Am I the only one who thinks this is an incredible waste of our money?  Just what we need in a bad economy, higher commuting costs.

We need to ease the burden on troubled bridges and roads

When the Minnesota bridge crossing the Mississippi River collapsed during an evening rush hour, it caught the Nations attention.  Considering there are over 600,000 bridges in the US, it should serve as a real wakeup call.  Unfortunately there currently are not sufficient funds to perform all the necessary maintenance and repairs to prevent this from happening again.

photo credit: Mordac

This bridge disaster is a prime example of our crumbling infrastructure.  Recent studies found one quarter of the nation’s bridges have been classified as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.  Building new bridges is extremely expensive and the National Highway Trust Fund is severely under funded at present.

Weakening bridges and deteriorating roads could all benefit from reduced traffic through Pay4Rides.  It has been over a year since this tragedy, but have you seen any real action to adress this serious issue?

We can not build our way out of this

When you think of new construction as a solution to our traffic problems, first take a look at Boston’s epic construction story called the “Big Dig”.  Originally estimated at a price tag of $2.6 billion, the final cost soared to a staggering $14.8 billion.  The project has incurred criminal arrests, escalating costs, death, leaks, and charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials.  Planning for the project began in 1982, while construction started in 1991 and was finally completed in 2006.  This has been the most expensive highway project in U.S. history.

photo credit: frankh

WIth our current economic woes, many cities are finding it difficult to maintain our existing roads, never mind new construction.  More then a year after the bridge collapse in Minnesota, the AP finds there has been very little progress with repairs around the country.  Their review found that just 12 percent of the repairs have been performed on each state’s 20 most-traveled bridges with structural deficiencies.

Pay4Rides would help reduce the load now and give us more time to perform all the necessary repairs.  Maybe then we would not need so much new construction?

Automated system which is difficult to implement

photo credit: visulogik

Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is an interesting concept of an automated transportation system.  In a perfect PRT, 2-4 passengers would ride in computer controlled vehicles on elevated rails to avoid impacting surface activity.  The vehicles would follow these guideways to allow optimum use of time and space.  While this looks very promising on paper, the idea is very costly and has yet to be actually implemented.

Maybe someday this “dream” will come to be, but the people at Treehugger have their doubts.  In the mean time Pay4Rides would have the same benefits for 2-4 passengers, but instead of expensive robot podcars, the personal vehicles would be existing cars driven by actual drivers.