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
This article appears in August 11 • 1995 and August 11 • 1995 (Cover).