Managed Highway Lanes in Colorado: Everyone Benefits from Including Carpools and Public Transit April 2014 By Will Toor and Mike Salisbury In its ongoing effort to relieve urban traffic congestion, Colorado’s Department of Transportation has shifted its traditional focus. Instead of adding new general purpose highway lanes that quickly fill with ever more single- occupancy vehicles, the state now will focus on “managed lanes” which serve carpools, toll paying vehicles, and bus riders. This paper examines the rationale behind the new policy and proposes state legislative initiatives to further define and support it. In order to achieve the greatest public benefit, managed lanes should support carpooling and the expansion of public transit. Introduction The Colorado Department of of way and public funds are invested in Transportation (CDOT) adopted a managed lanes. Survey data shows that “Managed Lanes Policy Directive” in users of tolled express lanes are largely, January 2013 requiring that managed although not exclusively, members of high lanes be strongly considered during the income households. However, both planning process for new capacity carpools and bus service are used by a far projects on congested highways. Colorado broader range of income levels, so is well served by this policy. Managed managed lanes can be made much more lanes provide a long-term solution to equitable by designing them to include congestion, unlike new capacity that carpools and express bus or Bus Rapid simply fills up in a few years. Tolling is a Transit (BRT) service. fair and economically efficient mechanism for generating revenue for transportation, Using managed lanes to serve high as the people who get the most benefit occupancy vehicles and to expand bus pay tolls to help pay for the projects. transit gives travelers more choices and However, there are questions of equity offers greater transportation benefits. across income ranges when public rights Managed lanes with effective bus services SOUTHWEST ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROJECT | 1 | APRIL 2014 MANAGED HIGHWAY LANES IN COLORADO can carry many more people than those housing, declines in driving, and that accommodate only single-occupant increasing public transportation usage vehicles, so for the same capital continue over the long run… This expenditure the state is able to move week's U.S. Census Bureau data significantly more people if transit is showed a shift to more multifamily included. development in urban areas and that public transportation usage hit an all- There are also broad social changes time high. In our view, the underway that make it important to focus transportation needs of the next 50 limited transportation dollars on truly years will be markedly different from multimodal approaches. After a 50-year those of the past 50 years. U.S. period during which per capita driving policymakers must begin adapting increased every year, per capita driving their current decisions to these future has been flat or decreasing every year needs. If these trends persist and since 2004. Young people (aged 16-34) meaningful policy changes are not drive almost 25% fewer miles today than made, the risk to the public a decade ago.1 A much greater share of transportation system would have housing growth is taking place in denser, negative implications for the entire multifamily housing in urban economy. 2 neighborhoods that leads to more trips by walking, biking and public transit. This paper provides analysis, based largely on locally available data on the In response to these trends, the Fitch demographics of transportation use in the bond rating agency recently issued a Denver metro area, as well as information warning: on the existing I-25 High Occupancy Toll Public transportation investment (HOT) lanes and the US 36 HOT strategies will need to transform if lanes/BRT project currently under trends toward increased multifamily construction. Policy Recommendations Numerous agencies are involved in Governments (DRCOG), transit agencies making decisions about transportation such as the Regional Transportation programming in Colorado. The following District (RTD), and local governments. recommendations are intended for consideration by the state legislature, the 1. Require that any significant Colorado Department of Transportation addition of new roadway capacity (CDOT), the High Performance by CDOT be in the form of managed Transportation Enterprise (HPTE), lanes. metropolitan planning organizations such as the Denver Regional Council of SOUTHWEST ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROJECT | 2 | APRIL 2014 MANAGED HIGHWAY LANES IN COLORADO This serves the state in three This will help to focus managed lane important ways: 1) it allows this new projects in ways that best serve the capacity to function over the long public interest, both increasing the term, rather than becoming congested equity across income levels and like new free lanes; 2) it provides a increasing the transportation benefits revenue source to help pay for the provided by the projects. This is project; and 3) it properly allocates consistent with CDOT’s evolution costs to those who most directly towards a true multimodal benefit. It also provides the greatest transportation agency. opportunity over the long term to affect travel behavior, which is the 4. Require that CDOT analyze the primary means CDOT has to manage a inclusion of express bus service or transportation system that serves a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in all growing population base. managed lane projects, and include transit in any corridor where it is 2. Require that managed lane feasible. projects allow toll-free access for carpoolers and that this policy be This will help to maximize the public applied consistently throughout benefit of these projects, by providing the system. access to a broader range of income levels, and by enabling the lanes to This makes the projects more move more people. equitable, allowing residents of all income levels to benefit from the 5. Require that some portion of toll highway investments. It also revenue is invested in transit increases the number of people who service in these corridors. are moved by the managed lanes by increasing the average vehicle This will help to both make the occupancy. However, CDOT must be projects more equitable across able to set the required occupancy income ranges, and to implement levels high enough to maintain free transit service that will increase the flow in the managed lanes. On transportation benefits of the corridors like the I-70 mountain managed lane. corridor, where vehicle occupancy is already quite high, the required 6. Seriously consider optimizing occupancy level will need to be higher current highways by converting than in traditional commuter some existing capacity to managed corridors. lanes 3. Broaden the mission of HPTE to This could provide many of the explicitly focus on moving people, benefits of adding managed lanes not just moving vehicles. while significantly reducing the SOUTHWEST ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROJECT | 3 | APRIL 2014 MANAGED HIGHWAY LANES IN COLORADO amount of public expenditure roadway widening on adjacent required. In addition, it avoids the communities and the environment, negative impacts (such as air and makes it feasible to invest more pollution, noise, water pollution, and toll revenue into public transit takings of private property) of options. Building more free lanes won’t solve our traffic problems Historically, attempts to solve traffic problems by expanding highways have not been very successful. The fundamental problem is that expanding roads actually generates more demand for driving. Many people intuitively describe this as “if you build it, they will come”, and the data suggests that they are right. When additional free highway capacity is provided, people make Photo by Andy Cross, Denver Post file photo multiple choices that increase traffic on over time. Typically, the studies conclude these lanes. Some of these choices can that over the long term, 70-100% of the include switching from other routes to new capacity is filled by new induced the new lanes, switching from off-peak to demand. peak travel times, and switching from public transit to driving. Over the longer While roadway widening may reduce term, land uses often respond by congestion temporarily, it rarely offers a providing more auto oriented long-term solution. We can already see development that must be served by the this in the Denver metro area on I-25. added capacity. Despite the large-scale “T-Rex” expansion completed in November of 2006, I-25 is In the last 20 years, numerous academic again suffering from significant studies have analyzed the impact of congestion. According to the DRCOG 2012 roadway expansion on total traffic levels.3 Report on Congestion, I-25 in the heart of While the studies come to somewhat the T-Rex expansion experienced four different quantitative conclusions, hours per day of severe weekday virtually all find that a significant congestion in 2011. Clearly, the road percentage of new roadway capacity is expansion did not provide a long term taken up by new traffic generated by the solution to congestion in this corridor.4 existence of the new capacity, and that this effect increases SOUTHWEST ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROJECT | 4 | APRIL 2014 MANAGED HIGHWAY LANES IN COLORADO Tolled managed lanes offer greater benefits than general purpose lanes Tolled lanes are often presented as an One key innovation is the use of unfortunate necessity that is imposed congestion pricing; i.e.,