Lee Co Florida to price 'congestion'

"Congestion pricing, with its elegant theory of moving excess demand to periods of excess capacity, has the ability to be a powerful force in meeting and controlling future transport demand in Lee County. Relatively small changes in demand have the ability to translate into large savings on future capital projects." This is how Chris Swenson transport director in Lee County Florida sums up the case for what is likely to be America's first working example of time-variable tolls on a system of bridges. Of course the real world is likely to behave less elegantly than theory and you have to admire the elected officials here for having the courage to tread toll ground that hundreds of other jurisdictions have shied away from as too treacherous. These guys are real pioneers!

Balmy climate: Lee County is on the Gulf of Mexico two-thirds down the western edge of the Florida thumb. Av highs are 84°F(26°C) average lows 64°F (16°C). Metro population now 400k has been growing 5%/yr and is expected to be 600k by 2010. Development is centered on Fort Myers on the southern bank of the tidal part of the Caloosahatchee River. Upstream close by the center of Fort Myers there are two non-tolled bridges not including I-75 (Detroit-Atlanta-Miami) the interstate on the eastern or inland fringe of the metro area. The competitive free bridges are the 4-lane Caloosahatchee bridge carrying the old major west Florida coast arterial US-41, and another called the Edison bridge, 6-lanes. The northern bank of the river is rapidly developing and there is a 4-lane toll bridge named the Cape Coral 14km downstream (west) of the free bridges that carries 45k v/d and is considered congested by the locals in rush hours. To provide extra capacity over the river and better east-west connections the county floated bonds in 1995 to finance another toll bridge, the 4-lane Midpoint bridge, midway between the free bridges and the Cape Coral bridge. Together with its associated east-west connecting roadways the Midpoint bridge is costing about $200m and is due to open in the autumn of 1997.

Background: A conventional no-tolls "needs study" showed $1.7b of new roadway required by Lee Co by 2020 to maintain existing levels of service, and a prospective funding of $1.2b. With congestion pricing (CP) spreading traffic loads more evenly through the day it is hoped to save hundreds of millions of new highway construction. A county commissioner John Albion heard of federal money going for a congestion pricing demonstration project in 1993 and got the county involved in devising the CP plan which promises $16m in fed$s and $4m from the state. The $20m covers extensive before-and-after surveys of traffic flows, consultants' fees and a revenue reserve to compensate for an expected loss of revenue in the first years of the scheme.

Shoulder discounts: The initial CP proposal is to set toll rates on the Cape Coral and Midpoint bridges for motorists using electronic transponders at half price during shoulder periods on either side of the rush hours. (Cash-paying customers will not get any discounts.) E-tag tolls will be 6.30-7am 50c; rush-hours 7-9am $1; 9-11am 50c; 11am-2pm $1; 2-4pm 50c; rush-hours 4-6.30pm $1; 6.30-7pm 50c; 7pm-6.30am $1. The idea is to provide strong incentives to rush hour drivers to move their trips to immediately before and immediately after the present rush hours. Middle-of-the-day and night-time tolls are being kept at the full $1 rate in order to preserve revenues on the hypothesis that these trips have a low price elasticity of demand. A further toll station on the Sanibel Causeway leading to a resort island is not part of the congestion pricing plan on the grounds that too many of its users are occasional visitors who are unlikely to be influenced by toll rate variations.

New e-tags: Regular users of the Cape Coral and Sanibel bridges currently get a barcoded sticker placed in the rear window. A laser barcode reader under the toll plaza canopy acts as a primitive kind of automatic toll collection device. Local officials say the system works poorly especially after rain or in misty conditions and want to scrap it and plan to buy a modern electronic toll system. This will almost certainly be an Amtech system since the recent choice of Amtech for the statewide Sunpass system. 70k tags are wanted for 25 toll lanes. Swenson told us he has proposals from system integrators and is recommending to county commissioners negotiating a contract with Syntonic. He says the lane controllers at the plazas are already fitted out to accept multiple toll-rate schedules. If all goes well the county hopes to have the e-tolling up on the Cape Coral this summer even before the new bridge opens.

Uncertainties: There are two great uncertainies in this project: (1) how far will the new Midpoint bridge will compete for traffic in competition with the 10 lanes on the two untolled bridges 8km upstream? (2) how far will the increased capacity of the Midpoint relieve congestion? Despite strong population growth in the area (over 4%/yr) traffic over the Cape Coral, US-41 and Edison bridges in Lee County has been stagnant at around 120k v/d the last several years, possibly because each side of the river is gaining a better balance of jobs and facilities, so the doubling of toll bridge capacity when the Midpoint bridge opens in the fall of 1997 may well see rush-hour congestion on the toll bridges largely disappear. Swenson says current backups on the Cape Coral toll plaza typically reach 5 minutes in rush-hours during the seasonal peak (winter), which he concedes is hardly 'congestion' by the standards of most large cities. And as for competition from the free upstream bridges Swenson says the Midpoint bridge will have a major advantage over the 'free' bridges of superior road connections on either side as well as reduced distance.

The idea of introducing congestion pricing simultaneously with the doubling of toll crossing capacity (4-lanes to 8) and with a better than 25% increase in total crossing capacity (14-lanes to 18-lanes) led to this awful thought: the first congestion pricing scheme in the US opens to great fanfare and finds no congestion to price! Like going to war and finding no enemy. What a disaster for the FHWA?

Of course the people down there in Lee Co are most interested in getting places fast, not in being FHWA guinea-pigs. Swenson says the whole idea of the project is to get in the electronics and accustom people to time-variable toll rates ahead of serious congestion, to anticipate it and to pre-empt it with variable pricing. So maybe it will be a very long demonstration project.

Floridian 'congestion': About 5 mins from where TRnl is published, the I-270 bridge over the Monocacy River is 4-lanes and carries 85k v/d, with no plans to widen. The NY State Thruway runs 115k v/d on 7-lanes across the Hudson River's Tappan Zee bridge with no congestion, the Lincoln Tunnel's 6-lanes NYC-NJ carries 110k v/d a bit slowly but steadily, and on the Washington Beltway at the Wilson Bridge they get 180k v/d on 6-lanes with horrendous backups. LA has some freeways with nearly 300k v/d on 10-lanes. So 20k to 30k v/d/lane is commonplace in the northeast and west coast and yet Leo Co will have 125k v/d on 18-lanes later this year or 7k v/d/lane over the Caloosahatchee. Swenson agrees the present traffic problems in Lee Co are mild but says projections are that by 2010 traffic could double, and people there have decided they don't want to have to finance that much extra highway capacity.

"We think we can cut 10% off the peak flow with variable toll rates and redistribute it through the day and since you are under pressure to build capacity solely for the peaks, that can save you real big bucks on the capital side over the longterm."

Swenson says the county will have to be very flexible with its toll rates and schedules because it is impossible to be sure beforehand how people will react to toll rate differentials. There will be a lot of trial and error. (Contact: Chris Swenson, Lee Co FL tel 941 335 2220)

FHWA: Message to the guys at 400 7th St SW (FHWA): "When you're through with the playpen games under the palm trees down in LuLu land where a traffic signal ranks as congestion what about trying congestion pricing on some real congestion — back home here in the northeast. Goddamit we are the people who really need this stuff."

Taking cloth: Lee Co FL seems to attract a lot of clergymen at its toll facilities. It is not that there are an extraordinary number of churches or sacred sites for clergy to visit across the Cape Coral toll bridge, just that local law makes it easy for toll patrons to go toll-free status as clergy! So a host of 'clergy' show up at the plazas, most in plain clothes. The subject was an issue during recent hearings on congestion pricing with lay citizens indignantly demanding the toll authority crack down on the freeloading 'clergy' before it adopt time-variable tolls. Officials sympathize but aren't sure what the law allows. There's obviously a hot consulting job here. And maybe some fed$s for a "Demonstration Project for Innovative Solutions to Optimization of Interdenominational Transportation Eligibility Selection Procedures." (Contact Martin Weiss FHWA tel 202 366 5010)