congestion price

I've argued before that even if we don't congestion price I-35 for all drivers,  we should at least price the road for truckers, which will give them the incentive to take SH 130.

  Some have suggested that we simply require through truckers to detour to SH 130.  Atlanta apparently does something like this.

Frequent commenter trza pointed me to this op-ed by Kay Bailey Hutchison in Thursday's San Antonio Express-News.

Tolls are unpopular, I know, and she's running for governor, but this is particularly discouraging:

Frequent commenter trza pointed me to this op-ed by Kay Bailey Hutchison in Thursday's San Antonio Express-News.

Tolls are unpopular, I know, and she's running for governor, but this is particularly discouraging:

I understand that people bitterly oppose tolling roads.

I really do. I was discussing congestion pricing the other day with one of my co-workers. I told her that if I were dictator, the first thing I'd do is congestion price I-35.

Market Urbanism has posted a fairly technical explanation why the congestion price that maximizes throughput also maximizes total revenue.

I'm not sure his explanation is correct because he ignores drivers' sensitivity to price.  If they are relatively insensitive, then the revenue-maximizing toll will be higher than the through-put maximizing toll.

We have plenty of real-life examples. TxDOT charges tolls for SH45 even when traffic is light.

Market Urbanism has posted a fairly technical explanation why the congestion price that maximizes throughput also maximizes total revenue.

I'm not sure his explanation is correct because he ignores drivers' sensitivity to price.  If they are relatively insensitive, then the revenue-maximizing toll will be higher than the through-put maximizing toll.

We have plenty of real-life examples. TxDOT charges tolls for SH45 even when traffic is light.

I think one thing that confuses people about my support for congestion pricing is that they're not clear what I mean by "congestion pricing."   

There are two kinds of road tolls.  One is a flat rate or flat charge per mile or some variation thereon.  This is the kind of toll TxDOT levies.  I've called these "revenue tolls" in the past, just to distinguish them from congestion pricing.

I should have made this point, too:  Our failure to congestion price our roads really screws up our decisions on increasing capacity.

When roads are congestion-priced, the revenue tells us when we need more capacity.  On this, see this (pdf):