Highway Expansion - Creating Tomorrows Transportation Problems Today

Automobile dependency benefits some industries at the expense of others, as summarized in Table 5. Only if “Better Off” firms provide more regional economic activity or employment than those in “Worse Off” might automobile dependency support economic development. There is little evidence that automobile and truck dependent industries provide more economic benefits than other industries.

Some people might argue that these regional economic losses may be offset by national economic development gains if vehicles and petroleum are produced in other areas of a country. However, both the automobile and petroleum industries have low labor input, and a significant portion of their input value is imported at the national level. Even if cars are assembled in a country, many of their parts are imported.

Although economic losses may be smaller in a country that produces vehicles and fuel, expenditures on these goods appear to be far less beneficial to both the regional and national economy than most other consumer expenditures.

This analysis shows that expenditures on automobile travel provide much less economic development and employment than most other consumer goods, and far less than public transit expenditures. This indicates that automobile dependency is likely to have significant negative regional economic impacts, and policy changes that encourage more balanced transportation and reduce total transportation costs are likely to increase economic development and employment.

Automobile dependency has various impacts that affect economic development. These are summarized below.

1. Increased Mobility And Convenience For Motorists

Automobile dependency directly benefits vehicle users: favorable pricing, investment, facility design, parking and land use practices make driving relatively fast, convenient and affordable. It also allows businesses to use more centralized distribution systems and Just-In-Time production, and to access a wider range of possible employees and customers, which can cause certain types of agglomeration efficiencies, such as large retail centers.

These savings and efficiencies can increase economic development if they increase the productivity of local industries. These productivity benefits are separate and in addition to consumer benefits from increased mobility.

However, not all increased vehicle use by producers represents increased productivity. As automobile dependent transportation systems and land use patterns require more travel to provide a given level of services.

2. Increased Vehicle And Fuel Expenditures

Automobile dependency increases per capita vehicles and fuel expenditures, often increasing average annual household transportation expenditures by thousands of dollars, and reduces expenditures on other consumer goods.

This can have significant economic impacts, particularly because most vehicles and fuel are imported from other regions.

3. Increased Road And Parking Expenditures

Automobile dependency increases expenditures on roads, traffic services and parking facilities, often averaging hundreds of dollars annually per household. Annual per capita road expenditures average $264 in automobile dependent U.S. cities, $135 in less automobile dependent European cities, and only $88 in the least automobile dependent Asian cities, representing savings in both absolute terms and as a portion of Gross Regional Product.

4. Increased Traffic Congestion, Crash Damages And Environmental Impacts

Increased automobile travel tends to increase total traffic congestion delays, crashes and environmental impacts such as air pollution and impervious surface coverages. Although some impacts may be relatively low per kilometer in automobile dependent areas (for example, traffic congestion is often high in older, multi-modal cities, and per kilometer crash rates are often high in developing countries where automobile ownership is low), total costs per capita tend to be higher due to high levels of vehicle use.

These costs can reduce regional productivity: Traffic congestion reduces the efficiency of businesses and services that involve local travel. Crash damage costs are borne directly through increased insurance fees and lost worker productivity, and indirectly through taxes to cover injuries and disabilities.

Environmental damages can cause illnesses and disabilities, and degrades environmental amenities that have market value to real estate and tourism industries.

5. Automobile-Oriented Land Use

Automobile dependency has many land use impacts: buildings become lower and wider, building are separated from each other and sidewalks by parking lots, activity centers (businesses and other public facilities) are located along arterials and highway intersections rather than in clusters and traditional commercial centers, and large areas are devoted to single uses (for example, residential areas may lack retail businesses and public services). Automobile dependency also increases the amount of land that is paved for roads and parking facilities.

These impacts have several costs that affect economic productivity and development. They can increase the total amount of vehicle travel required for access, increasing travel time and vehicle expenses. They reduce the amount of land available for other productive uses and increase the costs of providing utilities, public services and stormwater management.

6. Reduced Travel Choices

Automobile dependency reduces the quantity and quality of transportation choices. At the street level, increased automobile traffic makes walking and cycling more difficult and unpleasant. As middle-class consumers drive more and depend less on other modes there is less political support for these alternatives. As demand for public transit decreases service quality declines.

Although most automobile dependent communities subsidize public transit, such subsidies cannot offset the structural inefficiencies of operating public transit in unsuitable conditions. In addition to the direct costs and inequity that this reduction in mobility choices imposes on non-drivers, it can also reduce economic productivity if it limits access to education and jobs.

In automobile dependent areas, a lack of travel choices for non-drivers can be a major barrier for welfare-to-work efforts, and for many employers who rely on lower-income workers who often have limited access to an automobile.

In summary, automobile dependency has both positive and negative economic development impacts. Benefits are associated with more efficient local travel that affects productivity and some retail efficiencies. Offsetting these are various inefficiencies and increased costs that are borne throughout the economy. By creating more dispersed land use patterns, fewer travel alternatives and a more travel intensive economy, a portion of the increased mobility is offset by reduced access: more driving is needed to reach goods and activities. This offsets the productivity benefits of increased mobility.

What is Sustainable Transportation?

Sustainability has significant implications for transportation planning, since transport activities tend to be highly resource intensive, have numerous external costs, and frequently distribute impacts inequitably. Sustainable transportation requires using each mode for what it does best, which typically means greater reliance on non-motorized for local travel, increased use of public transit in urban areas, and a reduction (but not elimination) of personal automobile use.

Sustainable planning challenges the assumption that increased vehicle travel reflects legitimate consumer demand, since consumers lack viable alternatives and markets are distorted in ways that underprice driving. While the first increment of motor vehicle travel (measured for example, as average per capita vehicle miles) may provide significant benefits to society, marginal benefits tend to decline with increased use.

Doubling mileage does not double benefits for the simple reason that consumers select their most valuable trips first.

Sustainable planning focuses on outcomes, such as the quality of access (the ability to obtain desired goods, services, and activities), rather than simply measuring quantity of mobility (such as travel speed or total mileage). Mobility is seldom an end in itself. Even recreational travel usually has a destination. Increased movement is not necessarily beneficial, it may indicate inefficiencies that require more travel to meet needs.

John Whitelegg states, “It is the ease of access to other people and facilities that determines the success of a transportation system, rather than the means or speed of transport. It is relatively easy to increase the speed at which people move around, much harder to introduce changes that enable us to spend less time gaining access to the facilities that we need.”

Only by measuring transport in terms of access can options that reduce the need for travel (such as telecommuting and more efficient land use) be properly evaluated. The disciplines of geography and urban economics often measure access, but the analysis tends to be theoretical. The professions that implement transport policies – transport planners and traffic engineers – tend to measure vehicle movement, using indicators such as level of service (LOS), V/C ratios, congestion delay, and average vehicle speeds.

These are inappropriate because:

• It is impossible build enough urban road and parking capacity to satisfy
  potential demand.

• Motor vehicles impose significant economic, environmental, and social costs.

• Some people cannot own or drive a motor vehicle.

Sustainable transportation requires fundamental changes in our transportation planning practices. It demands more comprehensive analysis of impacts (including consideration of indirect and cumulative impacts) and consideration of a broader range of solutions than usually occurs. It also requires that the public be involved in determining alternatives to be considered and evaluation criteria. Those are principles of good planning that are particularly necessary for sustainability planning.

Sustainable transportation planning requires public involvement for two reasons. First, because sustainable development reflects a community’s values, the public must be effectively involved at each stage of the planning process. Second, because sustainable transportation often involves changes in community design and residents’ behavior, residents need to feel a stake in decisions if they are to be implemented effectively.

Modern transportation planning considers a wider range of impacts and options than was previously common, which supports policies and programs that improve transport options, encourage more efficient travel patterns, and increase land use accessibility.

These provide multiple benefits. Some people want to return to traditional planning practices that favor automobile travel and ignore other planning objectives. They advocate highway expansion to reduce congestion.

Automobile dependency consists of high levels of automobile use, automobile-oriented land use patterns, and limited travel alternatives. Automobile-dependency can impose significant economic, social and environmental costs. Automobile dependency can cost an average household thousands of dollars per year, and increases problems such as congestion, road and parking facility costs, crash damages and environmental degradation. Automobile-dependent transportation and land use patterns reduce access, which increases the amount of vehicle travel required to maintain a given level of productivity, and reduces travel alternatives, making non-drivers worse off in absolute and relative terms. These costs are disperse through the economy and can reduce productivity.

It would be difficult to underestimate the economic and social benefits of basic access, that is, the ability of people and industry to reach the goods, services and activities they need. To the degree that automobile use provides basic access it supports economic and social development. But additional automobile use provides little economic development, and is economically inefficient to the degree that it results from market distortions.

There is both theoretical and empirical evidence that excessive automobile dependency reduces economic development.

The theoretical evidence includes the principle of diminishing marginal benefits, which means that increased driving provides ever smaller incremental benefits; the observation that a significant portion of automobile dependency can be explained by market distortions which favor automobile use; the fact that many perceived benefits of increased automobile use are economic transfers rather than true productivity gains; and the tendency of automobile dependency to create less efficient transportation and land use patterns.

Empirical evidence also indicates that excessive automobile dependency reduces economic development.

Although automobile use often increases with wealth, there is little evidence that automobile dependency causes economic development.

Economic growth rates tend to be highest before a region becomes automobile dependent, after which growth rates usually decline. Automobile dependency can be considered a luxury consumer good which does not itself increase productivity or economic development. 

International comparisons indicate that beyond an optimum level (which appears to average about 7,500 annual kilometers of vehicle travel per capita, but may vary depending on conditions), increased driving reduces economic development. Excessive automobile dependency may reduce productivity due to increased facility costs, congestion, accidents, more dispersed land use, and less efficient travel alternatives.

Automobile expenditures provides less economic benefit than most other consumer purchases, and far less than public transit expenditures. This is to be expected since automobile and petroleum production are capital intensive with little labor input, and because vehicles and fuel are largely imported goods in most regions.

Although historically vehicle manufacturing was an important contributor to economic development in some regions, the automobile industry is now mature, not very profitable and highly competitive. Except where automobile production is already established, other industries are likely to provide greater economic returns. Economic development associated with automobile dependency results primarily from exporting vehicles and fuel.  

There is no indication that inceased domestic consumption of automobiles and fuel increases economic development.

Regions that already have adequate paved highways are unlikely to see major economic development benefits from increased road capacity.

Alternative investments and management strategies that lead to more efficient use of the existing transportation system are likely to provide greater economic benefits. Many benefits associated with roadway capacity expansion are economic transfers rather than true productivity gains.

Roadway improvements can have negative as well as positive impacts on a local economy, for example by encouraging consumers to shop elsewhere.

Automobile dependency is particularly burdensome to developing countries that do not produce vehicles or petroleum. In such countries, vehicles and petroleum often account for a major portion of import value. This weakens the value of their currency and constrains investments that could increase productivity.

Market-based transportation reforms are likely to significantly reduce automobile dependency, increase economic development, and make consumers better off overall.

These include changes in transportation planning and investment practices, pricing reforms and changes in land use development policies. There is currently political and institutional resistance to such reforms, in part due to various interests that benefit directly from automobile dependency, and in part because many consumers have little experience with a balanced transportation system and are skeptical that they could benefit from less automobile use. These reforms may become more acceptable as they are better known, and as consumers realize the diminishing benefits of increased driving.

A number of European and Asian cities are making progress developing more balanced transportation systems and appear to be benefiting economically as a result.