In fact, the proposed technology for VMT explicitly does NOT do that. It doesn’t need to, the proponents don’t want it to, and nobody is suggesting it should.

The proposed technology is little more than a glorified odometer. Your odometer records how many miles your vehicle has traveled — it does NOT record what roads those miles were accumulated on. The proposed VMT chip would do essentially the same — it would weight the mileage by the class of road and time, multiple them together, and save the result. The result is no location and and time information — and no threat to privacy.

Surely there are sufficient real and present threats to our privacy that we can and should focus on managing those, rather than imagining threats that don’t exist.

To add to your disquiet:

A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors’ OnStar to snoop on passengers’ conversations.

I guess it could be as simple as saving your EZ Pass statements and your gas receipts from out-of-state travel and using them to reduce your MA VMT. But that system, while avoiding the “big brother” objections, would lose the ability to impose different rates based on time and/or geographic location of travel.

The point is that most of us have some expectation, based on our history, that even when we venture out from a private place, our every movement is not being tracked by the state. Yes, there are police and cameras in certain places. But a chip that knows precisely where your car has been and where seems to me a bridge too far.

I’m not saying it couldn’t be gamed. I’m saying that I think it can be engineered so that most people don’t bother. We’ve already stipulated video cameras to capture out-of-state license plates. If your car rolls through, has a MA plate, and is NOT communicating with the chip (not just once, but ten or twenty times), then I think it would be appropriate to ask you to explain why.

If there were a hefty fine associated with being caught attempting to evade the VMT, I think the carrot-and-stick mix could solve the problem in a not-too-invasive way.

Nobody’s going to pay for that and it doesn’t happen. Under that theory I should get a tracking chip in my wrist just because the state could hire a cop to tail me morning, noon, and night.

The cop would need a warrant, and a separate warrant at that, for each and every place you enter that is not public… like your home, or somebody elses home, so your analogy breaks down: tracking all your movements is a whole different animal than tracing all your public movements.. A video camera, or similar stationary tracking device, that is essentially a substitute for a cop who could stand in same place, or even mobile tracking, provided it remains public, is merely collation of existing data. You private sphere of actions, however, is, and ought to be, entirely separate from that.

If you work in, say, Connecticut, you’d get a credit on your Mass. return for what you paid to CT, up to the amount of your Mass. liability. But the state’s choice to allow a credit for tax paid to another jurisdiction doesn’t change the Commonwealth’s authority to tax its residents for work done somewhere else.

a new plastic-covered 5,000 s.f. stop next to BC

What the extended green does is *hold* the green light for folks coming down the major road, if folks are coming. It increases the chance that you get a green light on the main road while simultaneously not forcing folks on the minor road to wait for a light change any longer than the crosswalk clearance time if no cars are coming on the main road.

That you can’t observe it on a case-by-case basis doesn’t mean you wouldn’t notice it in the aggregate. If Green Line gets TSP installed on 4 traffic lights, you’d likely get the advantage in 1-2 cases, getting a green instead of a red. That reduces your trip time by 1-3 minutes just about every journey. It also reduces the frequency of doubling up trolly kits and the frequency of long waits for the train.

To answer your Boston questions…
> How many of Boston’s lights actually have such system
No idea. I’d *guess* most traffic lights on major roads which have been re-engineered within the last 10-20 years. Keep in mind though, when NStar et al cut open the road, they sometimes end up cutting the inductor loops — and those rarely get fixed. This wouldn’t be a problem with the T because the T has direct oversight of every single work project on their right-of-way, unlike road work.

> and if most do, then why do drivers have to sit at lights so often when there are no cars going through the green?
Much of the time, it’s to allow the crosswalks to clear. If I recall correctly, federal guidelines/standards (ADA) call for crosswalk timing that is no shorter than a pedestrian speed of 3.5 feet per second. Figure roughly 12 feet per lane — an intersection with two through lanes and a dedicated left hand turn lane means five lanes of traffic, 60 feet. That means the crosswalk must have either WALK or a flashing DON’T WALK for a minimum of 17 seconds. 17 seconds feels like a lifetime when nobody’s coming.

Unlike some (all?) neighboring communities, BTD can control the Boston traffic lights from a central location. Maybe not all of ‘em, but many. They’ve got some bunker somewhere, with cameras and sensors and computers. If they know they’ve got a big backup somewhere, they can tweak the timings to help resolve the issue. They likely can’t do much more than tweak though, lest they create terrible backups in another direction.

Perhaps there are sensors on Comm/Beacon Streets, but they don’t really keep you from stopping extremely frequently even when there is no cross-traffic = but, perhaps that is intentional. I do know that I was stuck on Beacon Street in Brookline last week because of the construction and waited for quite a long time at several lights when there was no cross street traffic (because of the construction). Clearly there was either no such sensor in play at those intersections or they were not smart enough to deal with that situation (or they were turned off due to the construction?).

In any case, since you seem to know about this. How many of Boston’s lights actually have such system, and if most do, then why do drivers have to sit at lights so often when there are no cars going through the green?

Ideally, there should also be sensors that detect when traffic is backing up far away from the light. If you only have sensors in the immediate vicinity of an intersection you won’t be able to tell whether one direction should be favored.

Anyway, if such systems would help the trains without screwing up traffic, by all means put them in. It does seem like a relatively cheap thing to do.

Of course it doesn’t have to be aluminum foil, but the point remains — all I’ve got to do is disable that thing for some of the year, and I’m gravy.

I can tell you with certainty that you’re wrong on both Comm Ave and Beacon Street, because I’ve seen the traffic light timing diagrams. In both cases, the major arterial will “hold” the green to allow more automobiles to travel along the arterial without stopping at the light. This basic system doesn’t apply, however, to Green Line trains. It should, at the very least. But it doesn’t.

(b) road category of the miles, and (c) time of day

without tracking exactly where the car was at a given time and date? I think that’s the issue.

I support a tax on mileage added to a car (though I put a lot on myself), but I agree with liveandletlive’s privacy concerns on this.

Targeting it to specific times/areas might be good public policy in terms of reducing congestion and promoting alternatives, but I don’t know how you do it without raising serious civil liberties concerns.

Not all of it, but substantial shares.

Springfield, for instance, gets more than $300 million this year in state aid. That’s more than 60% of the budget.

Quibble if you like about how this wealth is distributed, but don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.

And “replacing an old traffic-clogged nightmare with a new traffic-clogged nightmare” is exactly what we did. So far, the massive wave of NH traffic is not flooding side roads the way it used to, but I expect it will before long. I see people living in the area complaining once again about not being able to get out of their driveways. Moar hiwaze is not an good answer to problems of moving people around.

I am also open to an increased gas tax, with the provisio that I am not interested in using the revenue thereof for multi-billion dollar capital improvements in Boston.

And whether massive traffic backup caused by badly timed lights is technically “gridlock” or not, I have experienced it in Boston especially and I would like to make sure we don’t cause any more of it. In any case, I am sure that anyone playing around with the lights for the T would take that into account.

While I get that $6.5M is not a huge amount of money, I’m just reluctant to embrace privacy concerns as a barrier to a significant revenue source while we simultaneously embrace far more threatening assaults on our privacy using federal funding. You might use cash to buy your Charlie Card, but I’ll wager that it won’t be very long before any authorities who want to can identify you using face recognition software from the videotapes that they surely take of you feeding your Charlie Card (never mind the tape of each time you enter and exit the turnstile).

The failure to do the extension harms the entire region. The current terminus, at Lowell, is totally unworkable even from surrounding towns in MA, because of the many challenges of getting to IT from just about anywhere. I lived in Billerica, and even the North Billerica station is (or was, it’s been more than 20 years) a commuter’s disaster. The proposed stops in Tyngsboro and behind Pheasant Lane Mall would have made Boston and also Manchester and Concord accessible (assuming reasonable service intervals).

I suspect that the entire Rte 3 project was a mistake. I do welcome the safer roadway (the old highway, while beautiful, was dangerous because of the trees and boulders in the old median), but the project as a whole only demonstrates the futility of attempting to build our way our way out of situations like this.

We can only imagine what the region might be like had all those funds been invested in commuter rail instead of replacing an old traffic-clogged nightmare with a new traffic-clogged nightmare.

Maybe a border toll would help overcome the NIMBY opposition. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake to widen Rte 3 all the way to the NH border. They should have stopped when they got to Tyngsboro.

<random-tag>Just testing</random-tag>

Out-of-state license plates can be captured and assessed through conventional border tolls and video technology.

Don’t get me started on the yahoo freeloaders who move to NH, whine and bitch on talk radio about MA taxes, and drive to MA jobs every day (and generally fly in and out of Logan when they need to go somewhere, and generally send themselves and their loved ones to Boston hospitals when they need medical care).

NH has had tolls on the roads used by MA vacationers for decades — border tolls on Rt 3, I-93, and I-95 (the northern end) are a fine idea. Yes, we have to work some magic regarding the federal restrictions on interstate tolls to make that happen. I’m old enough to remember when the state of NH promised to extend commuter rail from Lowell to Concord NH in exchange for federal approval to rebuild (and widen) Rt 3 from the state line through Nashua. The highway construction happened immediately. The commuter rail has never materialized.

&#60flame>We’ve coddled and subsidized our NH commuters long enough. I think it’s time to toll them, tax them, and maybe even suggest that they make their living in NH. I hear Manchester is a great place to launch new companies. I’m sick to death of their whining. (For Christopher: that’s how I sound when I do insult a group of people )&#60/flame>

The T has no idea who I am. They could probably guess which neighborhood I live in based on the rides, and could also determine which other places I like to board often. But, they only name they have on me is Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin.

Boston-area projects are more expensive per mile, BUT we have far more tax revenue per mile to help pay for it… and fewer miles. Western Mass projects, though cheaper per mile, are more miles, and have far less tax revenue to pay for it.

You and others have gone out of your way to poo-poo the idea of everybody in the state paying for everything in the state, as you don’t want to pay for Boston-metro infrastructure.

I wonder: why does my reciprocal feeling engender such frustration?
Note: I would gladly raise the toll price, excise tax, and use fees for tractor trailers significantly, and then the consumers of those products [and the sellers] would eat the cost, not the folks who happen to live along the delivery route.

And by the way, aren’t you asking the people of Boston to pay for the privilege of folks driving through their town so your banks can be managed, your companies have good legal firms, etc.? It’s the same argument there, too.

However, I just want to state point blank that which maybe I’ve only hinted at. Paved highways too are a vital part of our transportation infrastructure. They should be maintained and upgraded to handle the evolving traffic patterns and capacity. I want no part of looking down our noses at a supposedly debased culture of roads and cars. This was a key part of the post-WWII economic boom this country experienced. It gave us suburbia and lifted untold numbers of Americans into the middle class. Instead of forcing people whose lives still depend on this, or who frankly just like the culture and lifestyle this represents to pay through their noses in an effort to change behavoir why not just force standards that will ultimately get the same result?

Progressive priorities IMO should be the aforementioned greater access to public transit and greater required efficiency for vehicles, or even require fossil-fuel free cars by a certain year. Those who call for yet more targeted taxes are doing a horrible job dispelling the stereotypes attached to liberals about wanting to tax anything that (in this case literally) moves and trying to dictate how people live their lives. Make this about opportunity and potential rather than cost and sacrifice.

I did, however, get to know the side-roads (like Rt 28/38) really well.

I’ll let stomv argue his own case. My posture is that we have made the mistake of subsidizing highways and automobiles for generations, and have a created a monstrous and self-destructive habit that threatens ALL of us. I think that a culture (not individuals, but a culture) who claims that commuting 45 miles each day should continue to be subsidized in order to maintain “convenience” (ie, no increase in costs) is a broken culture.

So, to answer your question, no I do not ask people who live in Chicopee to pay for the privilege having trucks pass through to stock my CVS. Instead, I’d rather set up economic incentives so that those goods travel by rail into, say, the North Station yards (oh, I forgot, we dismantled them to build highways) and get moved by truck from their to my CVS.

If I could I would not have spent so many pleasant hours on the Orange Line

Because the point above was that stomv wants people who live quite far from Boston to pay more– seemingly quite a bit more– for the privilege of using roads because our roads are so much more expensive to maintain than metro-Boston, and gee metro-Boston already pay too much and should capture the cost savings from living where they do.

The roads in the west are so much more expensive to maintain because it bears a greater proportion of damaging truck traffic– a significant chuck of which are carrying goods to and from dense areas in metro-Boston.

Isn’t that asking people who live in Chicopee to pay for the privilege of having trucks pass through so your CVS can be fully stocked?

Dear God(0+ / 0-) View voters

Please bless us all.

… but entirely orthogonal to the discussion.

It also seems to me that the probably-accurate picture you paint is why VMT is a better answer. No toll plazas to backup . No patronage hires sitting in toll-booths. No forty five mile backups at toll plazas.

Unless people LIKE sitting in those backups, I’m not sure why there is any resistance to VMT — I would think such an approach would be welcomed.

For example, the distance between the Framingham exit (exit 12) and the Newton exit (exit 17) is 16.1 miles and there are six interchanges. By comparison, the distance between West Stockbridge (exit 1) and the I-291 interchange (exit 6) is 48.2 miles — about a factor of three.

Each truck that travels six exits (chosen randomly) — those trucks that do 160,000 times as much damage as a passenger car — destroys about three times as much road in the west as in the east. I don’t have the statistics (does anybody?), but my impression is that the truck-to-car ratio in the West is MUCH higher than in the East.

Some of this is just the basic geography. A through-truck that starts at the eastern terminus (at milemarker 137.8) travels 47.3 miles to get to Auburn, and roughly twice that (90.5 miles) to get to the western terminus. The halfway point (by mileage) is somewhere between Palmer and Sturbridge — I’m not sure where folks divide “Central MA” from “Greater Boston”, but I suspect that it’s well east of Sturbridge!

Consider a highway like Route 3 between Chelmsford and the NH line or I-93 between I-495 and Boston. During drive time, the road is so totally overwhelmed with commuter traffic that ALL the interchanges freeze, excess traffic clogs all the local roads in the vicinity, and nobody gets anywhere. The brute-force solution that we always seem to end up with is to build out the highway and interchanges to try and handle these periods of peak density. Sadly, we’ve learned at least two lessons from this: (1) All that capacity is devastating to the surrounding environment, hugely expensive to acquire and build out, and sits empty and idle most of the time, and (2) The added capacity, if it temporarily eases the problem, motivates MORE people to move into the area, MORE people to drive, and ultimately makes the problem worse rather than better.

The patterns we see on I-93 before and after the Big Dig confirm the projections of this that were made during contentious negotiations around the Big Dig. The old central artery was enough of a bottleneck that I-93 (north of the city) ended up being used primarily by commuters going somewhere accessible from I-93. It was thick at drive-time, but it was possible to get from Woburn to Boston in something like thirty minutes even at 8:30a. Not now. What we see now is that I-93 is literally a parking lot from the entrance to the tunnels (and the connector) all the way past Reading. I’m not talking about stop-and-go, I’m talking about sit-and-read-the-paper stopped.

I therefore think that an aspect of congestion pricing that we need to keep on the table is to use it to provide strong incentives for commuters to find alternatives. I also think it should be priced to essentially prohibit truck traffic during periods of high congestion — I can’t believe that gasoline tankers, rubbish haulers, delivery trucks, grocery trucks, and so on HAVE to be on that road at that time.

I’m therefore strongly drawn to a model that says we charge premium prices for those who choose to commute on those overly-clogged routes, and use the resulting revenue to provide affordable, convenient, and reliable public transportation alternatives. Our region is criss-crossed with dozens and dozens of former railroad and inter-urban right-of-ways. I suggest that rebuilding a vigorous and robust light-rail network is a winning strategy that we should pursue (I write this in anticipation of brick-bats from dhammer ).

I rather strongly suspect (though I haven’t done the engineering) that a self-propelled electric streetcar on steel rails, powered by some combination of solar and batteries (maybe with some form of induction energy transfer if we want to get exotic) could outperform ANYTHING using soft tires rolling on hard surfaces.

It sure seems like the eastern portion should require more maintenance, because it is used more.

We here in metro-Boston require various improvements to public transportation, especially rail, which is quite expensive. Here, non-metro-Boston, have yourself a big tax hike to pay for same, and enjoy the indirect (trickle-down?) benefits thereof.

I am not necessarily opposed to a VMT, though I would have questions on the workability and “big-brother” issues.

I reject state-wide solutions to fund metro-Boston projects. Been there, done that, no thanks. I’m not sure how Chicopee benefits economically from the “improved” traffic on I-93, but I’m pretty sure that such benefits are pure BS.

My 18 mile commute, completed at 65 mph does not have the environmental impact of a much shorter commute, stuck in traffic for 40 minutes at Exit 17 (Newton). You want capital improvements to the T, then impose London-style congestion pricing in metro-Boston, and leave those of us who neither work nor drive in Boston alone.

It seems to me that VMT is a way to finesse the restrictions on tolling I-93 and others — that’s the beauty of not recording the location where the data is gathered.

I’m absolutely on the same page as you regarding the dilemma you pose about fairly allocating the cost of all these roads. I think this dilemma may offer the political “stick” to go with various carrots (like removing tolls on the MA PIKE altogether).

I’m as sensitive about privacy most of us. Hacking the auto is, I suspect, harder than you might think. Just about any kind of reasonable encryption scheme can be configured to simply break the device (and presumably create a very loud and/or visible ruckus at the same time). I also wonder if you’ve oversimplified the dilemma about where the data is stored. If the data is aggregated (including time stamp) when collected, so that the ONLY long-term storage is the total VMT due (in whatever units make sense), then that storage can be maintained by the state as easily as on board the vehicle with no change in privacy implications. The technical challenge of making each vehicle “call home” occasionally (as in daily, weekly, even monthly) and upload its total — or even do it at the gas pump — is just not that big. In short, I think the privacy considerations are readily addressed and easily managed.

By the way, the privacy implications of the Charlie Card dwarf anything we’re talking here, so I think we have some flexibility to work with.

What we have now is not balanced. What we have done until now is not balanced. There is a world of difference between proposing to “become Amish” and where we are.

An enormous portion of the problems we face today are the direct and indirect consequences of our decision to subsidize roads and highways, starting about WWII. This drives the multiple catastrophes of global warming, foreign petroleum dependence (and the trillions of dollars we spend on efforts to “stabilize” petroleum production), US land use, a host of social and environmental consequences.

I’m not sure what you mean by “sacrificing convenience”, but I am sure that ALL OF US will have to either pay more for transportation, use our cars less, think of our cars differently (I’m thinking of ZipCar here), or some combination of all these.

If by “balance”, you mean “zero new fees”, then I strongly disagree with you. If, instead, you mean that we need to find an approach that both puts our transportation infrastructure on a sustainable footing and does so by spreading the increased costs in an equitable way, then I’m sure a solution exists.

Regardless of the technology used to implement it, I think that some form of VMT is the best of the approaches put forward so far. Any increase in the income tax, unless we somehow get a graduated tax in place, will hurt the poor, working, and middle classes far more than the contemplated VMT.

Road damage is a function of the fourth power of the vehicle’s weight. That means a 5,000 lb SUV vs. a 4,000 lb car: (5/4)^4 = 2.5 times more damaging. Use a 6,000 lb SUV and you’re at more than 5 times more damaging. Here’s the kicker though. A tractor trailer weighs on the order of 80,000 lbs, and those guys are doing 160,000 times more damage than the car.

Damage to the road is already unfairly allocated to personal vehicles. Some states add extra tax to diesel to roughly cover the added costs, but nowhere near the difference in damage.

Besides, it’s not that hard to require a separately metered plug-in for electrics, and tack on a kWh tax for vehicles there. Given that most garages will have to be retrofitted for the charger anyway (not likely to use 110-120 V at 15 amp, too slow a charge), there’s little added difficulty to doing that.

We can just do dynamically priced open road tolling on the Pike. We can’t toll I-93 without an unlikely-to-get waiver or a significant change in Federal law. Same goes for 495 IIUC.

The dilemma I have is this: if we are to fairly allocate the cost of the roads, the folks in central and western mass will have to pay *more* than they do now. After all, the cost of maintaining the Pike near Newton is roughly the same per mile of road as the Pike west of Springfield — however, the number of cars per day is much higher near Newton, which means that each car should have to pay *less* to drive on Newton roads (when there is no congestion adder) than to pay on the Pike out west. Why shouldn’t urban dwellers, who pay more for real estate and other cost of living indicators and miss out on the lovely greenery, at least capture the cost savings associated with density?

P.S. RE privacy: Right now, the Federales know my total miles driven per year, and know the timestamp every time I go through a toll [EZ pass or no, they've got cameras, and could well be logging the data now]. If I stay off of the Pike, they know an annual total. If the recording technology is logged just on the auto (rolling total of dollars owed, for example), then anybody can hack their device and change what they owe. The underlying data has to reside with the state, not with the auto. If so, they know the time I’m on the road and what kind of road, and every time I change road class they know a little more information about where I’ve gone. It’s far more information about my travel habits than the total number of miles I drive per year (and my Mass Pike trips).

Yes, quite frankly I DO in 21st century America expect to not be expected to become Amish. We should have the ability to get where we want, when we want, and how we want. Make it more efficient to do this without sacrificing convenience and I’ll be more than happy to go along. There are competing values at work here and I see absolutely nothing wrong with trying to find some balance.

In my neck of the woods, $370M just to keep the current mess going is not “nickle-and-diming”.

It IS possible to “locomote” on foot and by bicycle. You seem to have the mistaken notion that we have some sort of God-given natural right to drive wherever we want whenever we want, and it sounds like you expect society to just somehow magically pay for it.

Of all the things that compete for our government spending, it seems to me that transportation is the ONE area where it makes the most sense to adopt a pay-for-consumption model — such a model is good social policy, good economic policy, good tax policy, good environmental policy, and even good health policy.

I am, frankly, mystified by your apparent attachment to this mistaken idea that taxing highway use is some kind of affront to human rights.

I also oppose the VMT, not so much for privacy concerns as it is just more nickle-and-diming. I swear we are going to bring our economy and quality of life to a halt if we keep coming up with ways to tax for every time we locomote. There needs to be freedom of movement which will be constrained if we have to pay the tax man everytime we leave our residence.

You already report annual mileage on you inspection sticker and state-mandated insurance. Your vehicle already has an odometer.

I’m trying to understand the basis of your privacy fears.

I’d like to see the several studies about privacy referred by Mr. Aloisi. As a technologist, I can imagine that some sort of RFID device, embedded in or near the roadway, could respond to a logging device embedded in the license plate (for example), and log only the “class” of the roadway (so that superhighways can be taxed differently from neighborhood streets), the distance traveled, and the time. There are zero privacy implications, that I can see, in that approach. The only information collected is not very different from information owners already provide to the state (albeit indirectly) for inspection stickers, mandatory insurance, and so on.

The dilemma I have with the gas tax is that a vehicle that doesn’t use gas puts causes the same wear and tear and requires the same highway infrastructure as a gas-guzzling monster of the same weight. As the state’s vehicle fleet migrates away from gasoline and towards alternatives, the revenue needed by the transportation infrastructure either dries up or gets held hostage by the same political forces that have blocked gas tax increases for so long.

The proposals offered in the thread-starter do both (as well as some other things). I think both are needed.

I’d like to see a dynamic VMT completely replace the current tolls. I think we must impose a VMT on I-93, I-95, I-495, and both ends of Rt 3 (from Chelmsford north to the state line and from Braintree south).

I am confident that such an approach solves the infrastructure revenue problem and does so without adding undue burden on Central and Western MA.

The proposal offered in the thread-starter that I quoted below quite explicitly spells out how improvements in public transportation would be paid for — through premium pricing applied to urban drivers. The proposed VMT would, in fact, reduce costs for most Mass Pike users. The proposed VMT would, in fact, apply to users of I93.

In short, it appears that you are objecting to strawmen that simply aren’t on the table.

Are you sure you want to have a reasonable conversation?

However, simply taxing gasoline serves to do two things:
1. It’s wicked easy, with no opportunity for cheating from individuals and very limited opportunity to cheat by the retailers. VMT — the opposite.
2. The gas tax provides a direct incentive for fuel efficiency; VMT does not explicitly do that.

The real problem is that the legislature is simply too afraid to increase the gas tax. If gas tax revenue isn’t keeping up with road maintenance requirements, the correct answer is to raise the gas tax. Hasn’t happened. What the legislature should do is
(a) raise the gas tax a dime, and
(b) automatically increase the tax by 0.25% each month. Not twenty five percent — one fourth of one percent. Let it slowly, slowly drift upward. Then the tax keeps up with inflation without requiring future legislatures to muck with it… AND there’s very little incentive to put a temporary freeze on the increases because each increase is something like one twentieth of a cent per gallon.

Finally, I’d add that the idea of pricing folks who use uncongested roads seems a bit strange. After all, if a road is always uncongested, it means that it’s not bringing enough revenue in to pay for itself. It’s the congested roads which would be self-funding, not the quiet rural routes. This isn’t to say that I oppose congestion pricing — I love it. It just seems to me that providing low prices in rural areas guarantees an even larger cross-subsidization than we have now.

I hadn’t thought about it that way. Now, what I can say is that “it could be that the profit margin for the provider is a little nicer” is almost certainly not the case. The utilities are entitled to a very specific return on investment from the ratepayers, as settled by the DPU. I’m not arguing that the Commissioners always get it exactly right, but that’s the idea anyway.

Still, within a utility the rate is the same, and Boston and Bellingham almost certainly don’t have similar transmission and distribution cost structures.

Another round of raising the tolls in Pittsfield to pay for the Big Dig, while tolls on users of I-93– i.e., the Big Dig– remain unthinkable. Yet liveandletlive’s “attitude of entitlement” makes reasonable conversation impossible.

No thank you.

The VMT would require big brother monitoring of travel habits(0+ / 0-) View voters

I will never support that – NEVER! I am beside myself with electronic health records going through without a thoughtful discussion about it from the people of this country.

With respect to VMT, I have to ask… suppose we were to implement just such a tax with the proviso that all tracking were done, as it were, manually? Instead of using computers we’d hire umpteen more cops who’d have to keep manual logs of your public travel. Would this still meet your criterion of ‘big brother monitoring?” I mean, I can manually track your travel habits now and today if I’m willing to put in the time and the effort: I’m doing nothing illegal if I wait for you to exit your home and follow you wherever you, publicly, go. We’re talking about making this process more efficient but we’re not talking about going from a formerly private activity to a fully public one…. we’re talking about collating information that’s already accessible. The argument can be made that public infrastructure shapes travel habits and, being public already, there’s no expectation, whatsoever, that you’re travel habits are private. They’re just dispersed and not easily collated accross the entire population.

I agree with you about health records: they are not, never have been and ought never to be publicly available. If I were to make your records publicly available I’d have to commit a crime to acquire them. So it’s a lot different.

I think it will be more helpful to explore the areas of concern than to categorically reject otherwise attractive alternatives.

I meant and mean no offense by talking about choice, I simply speak from my life experience. In my view, “blame” is very different from “consequences”. I have had to pay, financially and economically, for the choices I made. I moved away from my family of origin — and I am now surrounded by my five children and their friends (and families, as they mature — my oldest married a year ago). I did all the things you did — school, job, several homes — in my view, every one of those was an intentional choice I made. So — again — I’m not attacking anyone, I’m instead attempting to remind us of the responsibility each of us has for our own actions.

First, regarding “proportionate shares” of transportation funding, I think we need to be very careful about what we’re discussing. Are we talking about total cost? Are we talking about cost per household/person? Are we talking about cost per roadway mile? Are we talking about cost per occupant mile? I think a reasonable case could be made for each one, and I think the results are wildly different. The lower population density of Western and Central Massachusetts is a huge factor in why people live there. It also means that the roads that are built there carry far fewer occupants, and the per-occupant cost is therefore far higher. Spending the same amount of money on roads therefore translates to a higher per-occupant spending in Central and Western MA than in Greater Boston.

The good news, in my view, is that Mr. Aloisi has put a proposal on the table that address all this — his proposed “Vehicle Mileage Tax” (VMT). From the third link of the thread-starter (emphasis mine):

Second, in 2007 the Transportation Finance Commission made a strong argument for introduction of a pure user-fee system to raise transportation revenues. This so-called “VMT” system (for Vehicle Miles Traveled) would charge motorists a small fee for each mile they drive each day on major state roads and highways. Pilot programs conducted in other states have proven conclusively that VMT can be structured in a manner consistent with legitimate privacy concerns, so that origin and destination data are not retained.

VMT would be fair and transparent, and it would generate funds well in excess of the current gas tax. VMT could be dynamic, charging motorists less while driving off-peak or in rural areas, charging them more while driving on congested urban roads or during peak hours. If we raise the gas tax as I suggest, and add VMT, we can start bringing adequate revenues back into the system. The Transportation Finance Commission concluded that a 5-cent-per-mile VMT on the Interstate system alone (excluding state highways) would generate $550 million a year, or $5.5 billion over 10 years. That figure assumes that VMT replaces turnpike tolls on Interstate 90, and it is net of the cost of collection. For most motorists using Interstate 90, this 5-cent-per-mile fee would end up costing them less than the current cost of turnpike tolls. If you include state highways like Routes 3, 20, 9 and 7 within the VMT regime, the revenues generated are more robust than any we have known in our lifetime – well over a billion dollars of net new revenue.

Perhaps the best aspect of VMT is its adaptability. VMT by definition is fair: you pay for what you use. VMT doesn’t charge you for Main Street, or other local roads. Out-of-state license plates can be captured and assessed through conventional border tolls and video technology. VMT can charge you more if you are using the roads at a premium time or in a congested area, and less if you’re driving in more rural areas.

We have talked and talked about congestion pricing. VMT enables us to do something about it. Think of it: we can have a base VMT price, applicable to everyone. We can charge motorists in rural areas like Berkshire and Franklin counties, where people must typically travel longer distances between destinations, the base price. Then we could charge premiums above the base charge for a variety of reasons: premiums for travel within more suburban and urban corridors, or within chronically congested corridors or during rush hour. Those premium charges – the “delta” between the base VMT price and the premium price – can be dedicated to public transportation needs across the Commonwealth as a way to improve the system’s service and reliability, encouraging and sustaining modal shift.

The approach that Mr. Aloisi proposes does not raise taxes on Central and Western MA in order to fund public transportation. In fact, it is the occupants of those daily miles-long parking lots that occur every day on I93 and similar roads that will pay for public transportation under the “congestion pricing” of Mr. Aloisi’s proposal.

Doesn’t this proposal address the bulk of what we’ve been arguing about here? The claim (emphasized above) is that MOST turnpike users would see a decrease in their travel expenses, while the State as a whole realizes enough revenue to put our transportation system back onto a sustainable financial footing.

After all the “candid and frank exchanges of views” that we’ve had here, doesn’t it make sense to at least discuss the specifics of these proposals?

Tom, your emphasis on “choosing” where we live is what brings blame into the equation. If you choose something, you pay the consequences. Saying we have a choice where we live doesn’t do justice to the many factors involved in that decision. Technically, I could have chosen to live far away from my family and friends. But having grown up, gone to school, found a job, bought a house, all these things militate against my moving. I think we agree that living in certain places, we incur certain costs. I think we disagree on the logic that gets us to that agreement. That’s all.

The fossil fuels problem is a problem in the aggregate, not in the individual. It takes tons of individuals doing the same thing to effect serious change. Any effect on global warming derives from the aggregate. If everyone in Massachusetts drove an electric car and I drove a gas-powered vehicle, my carbon footprint wouldn’t matter.

Stomv, I was just supplying you with data, which neither you nor Live and Let Live had. I didn’t do any serious crunching. Some of the communities I looked at in the Eastern part of the state saw population grow by 6-8% a year. I never said anything about hemorrhaging.

In terms of what we receive out here for money, it depends on where you look. Our court system has always gotten the shaft. Libraries the same. Electricity poles and wires? I think you know about this stuff, but hasn’t it been in place for several decades and been paid for? Do your electrical bills pay for my electricity?

Repeat after me: “stomv is seldom (as in *never*) an ‘ass’.”

As for electricity (and natural gas for that matter), I have seen numbers but I can’t share them, because they were confidential data as part of CPCN and rate cases from utilities (day job).

Per mile, urban electricity distribution is more expensive. But, per electric meter (or per kWh usage), urban areas require far less distribution due to density. Distribution charges are system wide for every single rate making case I’ve ever seen — all residential customers of the same utility pay the same transmission charges per kWh. That’s simply how its done. One reason why is simplicity — to do anything else would require remarkably complex bookkeeping.

Gridlock is almost imporssible in New England because we don’t have city grids. This is gridlock:

Now, poor light timing can result in traffic backing up, including folks blocking the box because the *next* traffic light is all the way backed up to this one. That’s not gridlock, strictly speaking, though it is a problem.

The B-Line runs down Comm Ave — the major road. Same for the C with Beacon and the E with Huntington. They all have a number of traffic light intersections with very minor roads. There are also traffic light intersections with very long left hand turn lane buffers.

I’m not arguing that every single traffic light should be made to give the T the green light no matter what. I’m arguing that there are a number of traffic lights for which giving the T the green light some or all of the time would cause no problems and would result in much better service.

That we already do this kind of thing for autos but haven’t gotten around to it for the Green Line only makes it that much more exasperating.

This entire thread is getting out of hand with the insults.

As used here, it may be a sarcastic assignation of pretended authority used to belittle, but I’d bet it’s a humorous reference to that sarcasm, rather than the actual thing.

P.S. Your own collection of wiki-data doesn’t demonstrate that “our least populous counties are losing population.” Hampshire grew, Franklin held flat after growing two decades in a row, and Berkshire is losing population. Even Berkshire County is losing 3 people out of 1000 every year. That’s not exactly a hemorrhaging of population.

You and Christopher seem to be off on a tear that has NOTHING TO DO WITH what I’ve been trying to say all along. Either I’m being really unclear in my effort to explain myself, or the two of you are misreading what I’ve written, or some mix of that.

I don’t “blame” Western and Central MA “for residents driving cars and causing global warming by not possessing enough people to support a more robust mass transportation system. ” I don’t see how to construe anything I’ve written to mean that.

Your decision to drive 45 miles a day is just that … your decision. You are fortunate that you can afford a Prius. Your Prius causes as much wear and tear on the roads you use as any other vehicle in its weight class. Your Prius requires the same amount of sanding, salting, and similar winter-time services on those roads as any other vehicle (at least as long as we still have winter). Our current transportation policies have been subsidizing all those services that you and your Prius require at the expense of public transportation all over the state.

Nobody is saying that you’ve done anything WRONG. I am saying that your decisions cost more. Nothing more, nothing less.

A significant part of the traffic that comprises those rush-hour traffic jams is people commuting just like you. If you are willing to define “Boston metropolitan area” to include employers on and inside I495, then that portion is even larger. Presumably Springfield and Worcester have similar (albeit smaller) traffic issues.

While we collectively sort out how to solve our addiction to petroleum and foreign fuels, all of us have to accept the costs of solving that addiction %#8212; in my view, this is simply facing facts. Mr. Aloisi has provided a framework that addresses those costs in a reasonably objective manner.

Yes, people who live in more rural areas and drive trucks will be hurt more (meaning they will have to pay more). That is not about “blame”, it is a simple statement of unavoidable reality.

Western Massachusetts, an immense area, ranging from densely populated the Springfield-West Springfield-Holyoke-Chicopee metropolitan area to the nearly empty hill towns of the Pioneer Valley, is somehow to blame for residents driving cars and causing global warming by not possessing enough people to support a more robust mass transportation system. Who chooses where they lived based on their carbon footprint? You want people to move into cities, deal with the education system.

On the other hand, the Boston metropolitan area, which receives more than its proportionate share of money for everything, is virtuous for turning short trips into hours-long commutes.

Wikipedia has all of the population info from censuses. In Hampshire County, population is grew by 3.8% over the last ten years . Hampden County has grown a little, about 2% in the last 20 years. Franklin County, which is sparsely populated, shrunk by .2%, after growing 2% and 9% in the last two decades. It looks like Berkshire County has been steadily losing 3% of its population every ten years since 1970. In short, our least populous counties are losing population, albeit at different rates.

Western Massachusetts has seen some progress in infrastructure. Springfield will have a new train station and more stations and trains are planned for up and down the Western New England. The Amherst-Northampton area has free bus transportation. Springfield and Holyoke have bus service too.

Me? I drive a Prius and commute about 45 miles a day. I don’t mind paying a higher gas tax, but it will hurt people who live in more rural areas, many of whom drive trucks. The fact is, individual action won’t affect our aggregate dependence on oil. It will take action on the state and federal levels.

Why not update the system so that as the Green Line is approaching, the lights change their timing cycles, if only slightly, so that the Green Line *on average* waits shorter times for lights?

The benefits are enormous. The average trip time goes down. The variance [randomly faster or slower] for the trip time goes down. This means the chances of two sets of trolleys bunching together is reduced, which reduces wait time at the 90th percentile *and* reduces the frequency of forced express runs. It also reduces the frequency of forced OT.

Improve the quality of service of the B-, C-, and E- Line, and you’ll get more riders. Same cost structure, more fares. That’s good revenue for the T, reduced automobile congestion on roads and parking lots, improved service for the folks riding mass transit, and so forth. Hell, even if it cost $1M per light, you could do 8 for the B Line, 4 for the C Line, and 8 for the E Line.

P.S. Not to say somervilletom’s note isn’t a good choice too.
P.P.S. I “neglected” the D Line because it has exclusive right of way tracks — it never has to wait for an automobile intersection red light.

But residents of Brighton and Newton are mostly dead-set against the construction: a 225-ft long 23ft-wide station in the middle of Comm. Ave. just before the current final stop for many reasons, including the fact that the 75-80% of people who get on at the stop don’t have to cross any streets now to get on the train because they walk up Lake Street and turn right.

They will have to cross to the center of Comm Ave to get on and off there if the new station is built. And, there are so many B-line stations that aren’t accessible right now it seems nuts to do this. Plus the T hasn’t done any real studies to support the expenditure.

Why does the T appear determined to do it? Boston College wants it and comes to every meeting where they are given a special speaking spot. The funny thing is BC students don’t use the T, they use BC buses or have their own cars.

1. Transportation. Folks tend to (a) drive shorter distances because things are closer, (b) drive smaller autos because of parking and cultural considerations, and (c) use other options like walking, cycling, and riding mass transit more often.

… owning and operating a car becomes a liability and not an asset. This point is most starkly seen when people pay more per month to park their car than they pay in rent. When considering the total costs of owning/operating a vehicle, parking costs inclusive, it sometimes makes no sense at all… unless people become as emotionally attached to cars as they do to other things upon which they spend money.

which way are people moving, and how are we converting our actual communities from one category to another? My bet is that rural areas aren’t growing or shrinking per se. Some rural areas are becoming exurb or suburb for sure… but the ones which were rural and are still rural — I’ll bet that their population is roughly flat. If they were shrinking, really shrinking, you’d see 10% of homes abandoned in town after town. That just isn’t the case. Sure, individual towns might have that due to a single large employer shutting down, but it’s the exception, not the norm.

Are rural towns really shrinking? What’s the evidence?

That last word was used to help ensure that it does serve as a quick way to shut down the conversation.

It’s very hard to have any discussion when you argue against what I didn’t say rather than address what I did say.