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Reducing congestion in Atlanta
Voluntary express toll lanes provide real relief
by Brett Harrell, Executive Director, Evermore Community Improvement District

Metro Atlanta suffers today with serious traffic congestion, whose direct cost is estimated at $1.75 billion per year to our citizens and our businesses. The Governor’s Congestion Mitigation Task Force, on which I served, recommended a dramatic change in the focus of transportation planning by weighting a projects congestion mitigation benefit at 70 percent with a goal of substantially reducing Atlanta’s average travel time by 2030.

Recently the Georgia Public Policy Foundation released a study prepared by the Reason Foundation titled “Reducing Congestion in Atlanta: A Bold New Approach to Increasing Mobility”. Much of the reporting on the studies release focused on one of the proposed mega-projects – a double-decked, six lane tunnel parallel to the downtown connector through Atlanta. Too much focus is being placed on this single project, I believe, rather than the really BIG idea of variable priced express toll lanes (ETL).

Why ETLs? Virtually everyone involved in transportation planning agrees additional and new revenue sources are desperately needed, and ETLs provide new revenues without new taxation. Funding instead comes from the drivers who use the ETLs, which is a highly equitable way of paying for such infrastructure expansion. Also, most agree that a cost-effective, flexible public transportation system is a key component to reducing congestion and providing a competitive economic environment. ETLs provide a virtual equivalent of a region-wide express bus network without a major investment of limited transit dollars. ETLs also preserve consumer choice, improve response times for emergency vehicles, and greatly reduce costs associated with enforcing rules about which vehicles are allowed to use toll lanes.

According to the Reason Foundation's estimates, user fees in the form of tolls would pay for more than 80 percent of the project cost. The remaining amount is already available in the regional transportation plan for a High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) network, which the Reason Foundation suggests be redeployed as a network of much more effective ETLs. A complete network of variable priced express toll lanes on the existing freeway system would provide reliable, uncongested travel for buses, vanpools, and voluntary paying vehicles. Adding separate, voluntary truck only toll (TOT) lanes, as recently suggested by the State Road and Tollway Authority study, would allow trucks the option of bypassing Atlanta’s congestion in exchange for paying a toll.

Essentially ETLs provide congestion insurance to drivers in the Atlanta region by enabling them to bypass traffic jams and arrive at their destination much more quickly when the need arises. Voluntary ETLs, priced to offer significant travel time savings, by allowing those drivers who are willing to pay for a faster and more reliable trip, also greatly increase the number of vehicles that can pass through an otherwise congested stretch of road.. Variable priced ETLs operating during rush hour produce about 50 percent more functional capacity than the highly congested free general-purpose lanes alongside.

Metro Atlanta will continue to face considerable congestion after 2030, but implementation of ETLs, much of which could be accomplished as early as 2009, would be an immediate improvement that will pay benefits for many years to come. ETLs are not the sole solution; we must continue to advance all reasonable transportation improvements including existing system enhancements such as freeway ramp metering, improved incident response, signal timing, and intelligent transportation systems (technology). Further, public transportation, transit, pedestrian facilities, and land use decisions will continue to play and important role in improving our future transportation system.

Transportation agencies:
Georgia Public Policy Foundation http://www.gppf.org
Reason Foundation http://www.reason.org
Atlanta Regional Commission http://www.atlantaregional.com
Georgia Department of Transportation http://www.dot.state.ga.us
State Road and Tollway Authority http://www.georgiatolls.com
Georgia Regional Transportation Authority http://www.grta.org
Highway 78 Community Improvement District http://www.78cid.org
 

Brett Harrell is the Executive Director of the Evermore Community Improvement District (CID) whose district represents 460 property owners, 1,585 businesses, $465 million in property value, 16,800 jobs, and over $1 billion in annual sales. Mr. Harrell served on Governor Perdue's Congestion Mitigation Task Force representing the State Road and Tollway Authority.