Jam City

Congestion management techniques can be divided into two broad categories, reflecting two widely opposing views of how to deal with traffic: Trip-reduction techniques attempt to lure motorists from single occupancy automobile commuting to mass transit, car-pools, walking, or cycling. This category also includes encouraging telecommuting and staggered work hours. Since the worst congestion occurs during peak commuting periods, the theory is that if citizens can be persuaded to forego driving to work, the roads will remain relatively clear.

The second category - Traffic System Management (TSM) - makes no attempt to get commuters out of their cars, trying instead to speed up traffic flow through techniques like signal light synchronization, widening intersections, and designating one-way streets and protected turn lanes. These techniques increase road capacity without the expensive construction of extra travel lanes.

Last year, the ATS allocated $500,000 for congestion management. Half of the funds went to a pilot trip-reduction program involving employees of six companies and government agencies. Much of the remaining money went for congestion-monitoring studies, while about $25,000 was provided for traffic light synchronization. (The City of Austin allocated another $250,000 for traffic light synchronization for fiscal year 1994-95.)

The preliminary ATS budget for 1996 called for spending another $285,000 on trip reduction, and $25,000 for traffic light synchronization. But this changed last February, when the ATS agreed to an amendment by State Representative (R-Austin) Susan Combs to increase funding for the latter. The proposal currently before the ATS (to be decided this month) cuts trip-reduction funds to $135,000, with between $200,000 and $300,000 designated for traffic light synchronization. As yet, no proposals have been made on how to spend another $1.25 million in federal money that the ATS has allocated for congestion management for 1997.

The shift in funding may be a reflection of the fact that state traffic engineers and some local politicians still tend to be skeptical of trip-reduction techniques. Basically, they don't believe that Texans will voluntarily give up driving their cars to work. Instead, they respond to Austin's deteriorating air quality by advocating more freeway construction and traffic system management. Anything that speeds and smooths the flow of traffic, they say, will reduce the noxious vehicle emissions, since slow moving or idling cars emit more hydrocarbons, which are ozone precursors. Officials cite a 1994 study by the U.S. General Accounting Office which found that improved signal synchronization can reduce air pollution by 14-20%.

Meanwhile, compulsory trip reduction is under fire in Congress and may be removed from the Clean Air Act entirely, eliminating much of the incentive for voluntary compliance and leaving open the question: Will Austinites ever willingly get out of their cars?

Big Streets, Bad Jams

Some Austinites may be willing to tolerate poorer air quality in exchange for the smoother traffic flow that they anticipate from traffic light synchronization and completion of the US183 and US290 freeways. But the bad news is that more roadway capacity not only worsens air pollution, but ultimately produces more traffic congestion as well, according to Anthony Downs, one of America's leading transportation experts. Downs' Principle of Triple Convergence states that any increase in a road's carrying capacity will encourage drivers to switch to it from other routes, increasing the number of drivers who use it during peak hours, and will encourage commuters using mass transit to switch back to driving. So while the expanded road may be capable of carrying twice as many peak-hour drivers as before, the cars will soon be crawling along at the same frustratingly slow speeds as before the capacity increase.

"It is almost impossible to eradicate peak hour traffic congestion on limited-access roads once it has begun to appear in a nonshrinking community," says Downs. In fact, he adds, what road improvements do is stimulate more suburban real estate development, rather than less traffic congestion. "In many cases, it is part of a vicious circle: authorities improve highways to fight congestion, but then those improvements create incentives to (1) increase vehicle ownership and use and (2) change the location and form of both residential and nonresidential growth," he writes. "Over the long run, these actions merely serve to intensify traffic congestion."

Local Solutions

One of the most immediate steps Austin could take is to offer the same incentives to commuters who take the bus as it does to drivers. Currently 87% of Austinites commute in their cars, and almost all enjoy free parking at work. In a recent poll conducted by the ATS, 41% of Austinites said that they would be more likely to consider alternative commuting if they had to pay for parking. Austin's 40,000 state and 10,500 city employees have fully taxpayer-subsidized parking, which averages an annual $900 per space downtown.

Last March, ATS head planner Mike Aulick proposed that the ATS send a resolution to the legislature requesting that the state at least allow its employees the choice between a transit subsidy and a parking subsidy. (Current Texas law allows no transportation subsidy for state employees, but does allow free parking.) However, the ATS declined to upset the status quo by passing a resolution for even this modest request.

Another possible solution to Austin's congestion problems is the proposed light rail line, which may come up for voter approval next year. In fact, ATS' recently adopted 25-year transportation plan depends heavily on light rail to accomodate booming metropolitan growth. "All of our eggs are in the light rail basket," says Aulick. "If we don't get the light rail line, we're going to have very serious congestion problems that we may not be able to solve along I-35, MoPac and US183, because essentially the era of building freeways is over, not only because of policy, but because there isn't enough money."

Austin's pro-growth business community seems to be divided on the light-rail issue, between skeptics who say Texans will never use transit, and those who see light rail as a safety valve to relieve traffic congestion and allow continued growth. Many Austin environmentalists support light rail as the best alternative to more urban sprawl, while some environmentalists and fiscal conservatives see it as just another subsidy for suburban commuters.

Let congestion mount to the point of intolerance, say the latter, and it will provide a restraint on growth. Not likely, reply the former, pointing to Los Angeles, where commutes of two hours each way are increasingly common. It's more likely, they say, that congestion will drive new jobs to suburban "Edge City" office parks constructed on freeway loops.

Future Vision

In the midst of this controversy rises the lone voice of Ted Kircher, a local computer systems consultant. Every month, like an Old Testament prophet returning from the mystical wilderness of cyberspace, Kircher warns the ATS that Austin is plunging backward full-speed into 20th-century transportation planning, even as the rest of the world is preparing for the 21st century. Asphalt highways are going to be replaced by the information highway, says Kircher. Giant airports and other infrastructure will become obsolete as the need for physical transportation is replaced by electronic communications such as videoconferencing. Neither light rail nor suburban freeways are necessary because suburbanites will be working, not in the central city, but in their homes or at computerized suburban workstations. Cities that pile up debt building useless infrastructure will be abandoned by workers seeking to avoid taxes, who will be able to live and work anywhere they wish in the global village.

So far, Kircher's warnings have generally been pooh-poohed by road planners, who probably have more important things on their minds, like how to meet highway engineers' payrolls. Transit advocates, on the other hand, take Kircher's prophecies seriously, warning that American society could become even more economically polarized and alienated as educated elites entrench themselves in country club suburban enclaves surrounded by walls and security guards, while inner cities crumble into chaos. (Though on the bright side, at least hundreds of thousands of cars wouldn't descend on the city every day.)

Meanwhile, as we wait for a new generation of technological wizards to save us from the excesses of earlier waves of technology, here's a parting word of advice for the tired masses of Austin, huddled in rush hour traffic and yearning to be free: Try to get used to it. n