The recent vote to support funding for the Tampa Bay Express (TBX) in the Hillsborough County MPO’s Transportation Improvement Program illustrates the difficult choices we face to improve transportation in the Tampa Bay region. The Florida Department of Transportation’s plan to construct variable priced toll lanes on Interstate 275, I-4 and I-75 has sparked much public debate over the past year about the proper ways to invest in our region’s transportation network for future economic value and quality of life.
Tampa Bay Express system map. Source: FDOT.
FDOT asserts that TBX accelerates construction funding for the downtown and airport interchanges, provides an envelop for future regional transit service, and will reduce peak period congestion and improve travel time reliability between regional destinations, such as the Pinellas Gateway district, the University of South Florida, Tampa’s Westshore, downtown Tampa and the Gulf beaches. Managed express lanes exist with regional express bus service in Miami and Broward County, and are under construction for I-4 through metro Orlando.
Despite that perspective, TBX is a tough decision for many. The opposition speakers against the project weren’t merely passionate; they were well-informed and coherent in their arguments about what they see is a need for a different approach to transportation and economic development that favors reinvestment in recovering neighborhoods, expanding quality transit and other options for accessibility. There is a real impact to people, families and businesses with any type of transportation project. Some impacts and benefits are direct, such as buying homes, churches and businesses in the project path, or travelers having the option of taking a faster, less congested route. Other impacts play out indirectly or over a longer time, such as changes in market economics, costs of development or attractiveness of a neighborhood or region to the next generation of employers, workers and residents.
A Resolution of Support
Forward Pinellas representatives Whit Blanton and Clearwater City Councilmember Doreen Caudell speak to the Hillsborough County MPO on June 22nd in favor of TBX.
Forward Pinellas, in its role as the Pinellas County MPO, voted to support TBX from a regional transportation and connectivity perspective. For instance, employers in the Pinellas Gateway area, Pinellas Park, Largo and St. Petersburg recruit workers from a four county travel shed. The Gulf beaches, which contribute $9 billion in economic value to the region, depend on regional access, as do the manufacturers, port facilities, cultural venues and sporting events that help to define the Tampa Bay region’s identity. We’re one region and the barriers to connectivity resulting from perpetual congestion hinder regional growth and vitality.
However, the Board conditioned its support for TBX on the need to expand regional transportation choices, particularly public transportation strategies that better link our downtowns, tourism destinations and employment areas. Forward Pinellas leaders recognized a large and growing imbalance in transportation funding that favors highways, and the potential inequity fostered through a managed lanes toll pricing strategy. It is ironic that 102 years after the nation’s first inter-city airline service began operating between Tampa and St. Petersburg there is not even bus service that connects the region’s two prominent downtown destinations. Perhaps soon a ferry will do the job.
Elections Have Consequences
The reality is that elections and public decisions have consequences. We live in an era when politicians of all persuasions are extremely cautious or outright hostile to the idea of raising new revenue for infrastructure, no matter how well-documented the need. On both sides of Tampa Bay and throughout Florida, voters have generally shown indifference or strong opposition to tax proposals for roads, transit and the like. The nation’s last gas tax increase was in 1993. Florida’s choice to expand the use of tolls to generate revenue for needed interstate expansion and maintenance is a policy decision made in a highly competitive funding environment when few other funding options are viable.
Until we are able to devise a clear vision and support complementary actions for transportation in the Tampa Bay area, we are going to continue having these difficult and challenging debates about growth and transportation. This is a dynamic region undergoing generational, social, physical and economic changes. The investments we need to make to handle those changes cost far more than we expect to have in available revenue. Just in Pinellas, we have a roadway funding shortfall of $1.2 billion by 2040, no defined funding to expand transit or replace aging buses, and lack sufficient funds to complete the Pinellas Trail loop or make our surface streets substantially safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.
So we have to prioritize what’s important to us. We have to decide what kind of economy we want in Tampa Bay, what kind of growth future we want, how our neighborhoods of all types can flourish, and how transportation can best serve those interests. Meeting those needs means setting funding priorities. It may also mean shifting more responsibility to the private sector, to the users of our transportation infrastructure, or to future generations at a potentially much higher cost.
Setting Priorities
In September, Forward Pinellas will formally transmit its project priorities for 2020-21 to FDOT for state and federal transportation funds, an essential function of a metropolitan planning organization. In parallel, we are beginning a process of setting performance measures and targets for what we expect our transportation system to achieve. Those two activities will go hand in hand in the future, serving to shape how we move and how we function as a cohesive community and region.
There’s simply never going to be enough money for all the projects people want or believe we need. Here are six key issues that will influence our decisions about transportation funding priorities in the next several years:
- Safety. Despite a downward trend in traffic crashes and fatalities, 2015 experienced an upswing in deaths, primarily due to an improving economy and lower gas prices. Bicyclist, pedestrian and motorcycle traffic deaths far outpaced the increase in automobile fatalities. Making our roads safer for all users – the Complete Streets approach – takes money to design better facilities and educate people.
- Infrastructure maintenance. FDOT has a preservation-first approach to funding when it comes to its highway network, and Florida generally does a good job maintaining its roads and bridges. Local governments face a very different challenge. The recession and competing fiscal demands have deferred needed maintenance and the bill for reconstruction, resurfacing and rehabilitation of our roadways and bridges, replacing buses and upgrading stormwater/drainage systems is coming due.
- Regional highway connectivity. The missing segments of Gandy Boulevard, 126th Avenue, and the US 19 interchanges at Curlew Road and Tampa Road illustrate the critical gaps in network connectivity that come with a very high price tag.
- Public transportation. Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) is about to launch the Tampa Bay Premium Transit Feasibility Study, funded by FDOT to help Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas decide on a regional transit investment strategy. Meanwhile, pressure is on the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) to buy more expensive electric buses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We have aging bus fleets, and most of our commercial corridors lack frequent bus service. The Forward Pinellas and PSTA boards will meet July 29th in a workshop format to discuss including transit projects in the MPO’s annual priority projects list.
- Technology. The market is responding to rapid advancements in data and technology to improve travel choices, which can lower costs and provide on-demand services to users throughout our region. But there are important considerations that entail investment in communications and adaptive technologies that will have an impact on budgets.
- Downtown redevelopment and community accessibility. Downtowns across our region, throughout Florida, and elsewhere in the country are thriving. Their continued revitalization depends equally on access, not just high-speed mobility. Transportation strategies must fit within a tightly built context, meaning we need to get more out of the relatively small footprint of construction projects and enable better connectivity through private on-demand ride-hailing services and other options.
The success of other regions, from places as distinct as Charlotte, Portland, Denver or Salt Lake City, is based on foundational, agreed-upon regional growth strategies like the Mile High Compact or Envision Utah. As we take the next steps forward for our economic and transportation future in the Tampa Bay region, what actions do we need to undertake to come together and make similar commitments here?
Dear Whit, The TBX “variable pricing” scheme since announced has always struck me as a piece of backwards economics. Economics 101 theory clearly postulates since Adam Smith an upward limit on demand elasticity relative to pricing. In short, FDOT’s variable pricing sets limits to the “upper” region of demand/usage. At some price point people will choose NOT to take a speed lane for much the same reason that people complain about Uber’s surge pricing. At the very time the extra lanes are needed to absorb “excess” autos (high demand) the price may appear too steep.
Like other FDOT “don’t worry, we have that covered” early and rosy projections, I will not be surprised if “variable pricing” suffers a head on collision with basic economics.
Yes, there is much for the local tax payer to consider.
Neil Neil C McMullen, MBA, MDiv 813-532-5245 Nmcmullen220@gmail.com
Good points, Neil. Thanks for responding. I believe the upper pricing limit will be the point at which the toll express lane maintains a steady flow of 45 mph. The seminal book behind this approach is Anthony Downs’ “Stuck in Traffic,” written in 1992. Downs is an economist with Brookings, and argued that the only viable financially feasible strategy to significantly reduce or eliminate peak period congestion is through tolling, with pricing that varies according to demand. He acknowledges the difficult political reality of adopting a tolling strategy, as well as the equity impacts on those who may be able to afford the toll or change their driving behavior. It’s a very good book and I commend it to you. I have a copy in my office if you’d like to borrow it.
Pursuant to my previous comments regarding FDOT’s TBX, now the “Tampa Bay Next” demand pricing” tolling concept, I raise two thoughts that should be, but presently are not, in the public consciousness.
First, regardless the approach (and economics) of Anthony Downs, pricing idea (I call it “bearable pain economics”) still turns Adam Smith and traditional economics upside down. A greater number of widgets (let’s call them automobiles) “produced” should cost LESS at rhe margins – that is, rather than a higher price during high traffic counts, a lower one. Demand pricing does exactly the opposite – the more the cars, the more the cost (and thus draws the sobriquet “Lexus Lane.”)
Perhaps the best way to bisect the two approaches would be to charge a slight “fixed” toll that though still amounts to a regressive tax (as certainly is the demand pricing scheme) but set to be lower than the anticipated average demand pricing toll.
Even that, though, does not address the crux of rhe matter – too many vehicles on the road.
FDOT’s planning for TBN and HOV lanes: I traveled recently on I-95 in the north Virginia through to north of Washington, DC.; reputedly the most congested stretch of any U.S. interstate. HOV lanes (and there are at least two in either direction) were widely used – and free. With auto occupancy no less than three per car, HOVs take at least two vehicles out of the mix for every one on the road. The capital and ongoing (and largely hidden) costs/expense associated with tolled road management must be much in excess to costs of HOV management and a DEMAND PRICING toll strategy creates not one incentive to reduce the NUMBER of cars on the TBN stretch of interstate.
In interest of full disclosure, tolled stretches exist contemporaneously with HOVs – but, then, the Metro also runs in the area, too.
Perhaps FDOT is planning to incorporate HOV lanes in the TBN project – but you couldn’t prove it by FDOTs messaging/communications. All attention seems focussed on tolling a stretch of “public” roadway the public has already paid for; generating revenue for pockets and purposes of which the public has not been adequately apprised (what happens to the tolls revenue?) and not giving any incentive for John Q Public to leave his car parked at home. Again, the weakness of this approach is that Florida/Tampa Bay citizens remain captive to the seemingly never ending cycle of population increase creating demand for ever more “concrete” to generate more “capacity” – at least until the general public cincludes that mass transit, what I call a “transportation force multiplier” is worth their tax investment.
The problem facing folks living in the Greater Tampa Bay Area is how to ease the commute from their home to their workplace. For far too many years the standard solution is to put down more concrete to add more lanes for traffic to use during peak commute times. The cost of putting down the concrete is very high and the folks most in need of the relief face added congestion during the construction process. By the time the new roads are completed it suddenly becomes apparent the new roads are inadequate for the traffic growth realized during the construction process.
What needs to happen is folks must take a fresh look at the problem and realize there is a need for a 21st century solution. Such a solution is available in the form of Community Commerce Centers, which provide true relief by moving the workplace closer to the workers regardless of where they live. Such Community Commerce Centers can be created at much less expense than putting down new concrete, and in the process workers not only have a shorter and more energy efficient commute but also the workers wind up being closer to home and their neighbors. For more information on Community Commerce Centers go to the following: https://amzn.com/B01BO725GY