MN I-394 HOT: Guv quietly kills HOT project

Governor Arne Carlson called his commissioner for transp James Denn Oct 9 and firmly ordered him to can the I-394 HOT lanes project (see TRnl#19 Sept 97 p1). He amazed Denn by saying simply “It won’t happen while I am governor.”

Denn was left to devise a face-saving way of dropping the project that he had promoted. The governor who has said nothing about the project publicly, before or since, had expressed little interest in it, but he apparently judged it politically disadvantageous. He intervened just days before it was due to be voted on by the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council. Its sponsors at the Minnesota Dept of Transp were pretty confident that they would get support there, though the proposal was the subject of strident public criticism, including flyers and newspaper ads from Mark Dayton, a rich liberal running for Dem nomination for governor. The project had been supported by the Minnesota state legislature and gained quick approval from the Federal Highway Administration.

Oct 10 Denn wrote the Metro Council and issued a press release which both defend the project and announce its withdrawal. The press release quotes him: “Solving the congestion crisis is of vital importance to the region’s long term economic success and I do not want to eliminate any potential congestion relief strategy from future consideration by pushing it forward prematurely... Unfortunately despite the support of the legislature, the FHWA and MnDOT, I do not believe the proposed I-394 demonstration project enjoys the level of public understanding that is necessary for it to receive the objective analysis and fair consideration we seek.”

Three kinds of criticism hit the project:

• that it was “encouraging” more traffic and detracting from the special status of carpool lanes — the anti-car/pro-transit line

• that it was instituting “privilege” for the rich in so-called Lexus Lanes — the egalitarian argument

• “Free the Sane (HOV) Lane” — the populist-conservative line that all restrictions and pricing are wrong

However without the Governor’s intervention to stop the project it would probably have proceeded.

Road pricing will remain on the shelf in Minnesota to be dusted off for another Guv, but next time they’d better make sure he’s on board before they proceed too far. It struck us also that advocates of the HOT project in Minnesota failed to emphasize the potential advantages to motorists of the scheme. It was a dour sell. Elsewhere HOT has been given more upbeat advocacy with talk of the time savings to be gained, the greater safety and lower frustration level, and the choice it opens up — When you must get there on time, then pay to fly by; when time is not so critical, save and take your chances with the congestion. Moreover all the surveys of public attitudes (done by K T Analytics) have found that road pricing faces majority opposition, unless it is linked with proposals to use revenues generated to support specific capacity enhancement or service improving projects. The traffic management argument alone strikes too any people as a kind of social engineering — being pushed around by wonks. But the focus group work suggests that when the management aspect of pricing is linked with extra service supported by the revenues it gains major new slabs of public support.

The world’s first congestion pricing project, a cordon toll around the downtown of Trondheim Norway would have never gained acceptance, its principal sponsor Tore Hoven says, if it had not been coupled to new highspeed highway bypasses and bus improvements. (Contact Adeel Lari MnDOT 612 282 6148, Tom Higgins KT Analytics 510 839 7702, Tore Hoven, Public Roads Admin Trondheim 47 7396 9103)