I-5 Widening, Freight, Questionable Priorities: At the MPO Tuesday

Our local Metropolitan Planning Organization meets on Tuesday and they'll be formally adopting a couple of I-5 widening projects into our regional 2015-2020 plans. (Agenda and meeting packet here.)

They're not obviously "bad" projects per se, but they do show the brokenness of our process, the feebleness of our regulatory scheme, and misplacement in our current priorities. It should be easy to find better projects - but currently that's difficult.

Location for proposed I-5 widening

The two:

• Add one travel lane in each direction to Interstate-5 between Kuebler Blvd. and Delaney Road. ($48 million)
• Start the planning for widening Interstate-5 to three lanes in each direction from the Delaney Road (Battle Creek) Interchange south to Albany. ($3 million)

From the FASTLANE application on the primary project:

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) wishes to complete the widening of I-5 through the Salem urban area as described in the Final EIS. I-5 is a National Highway System (NHS) route and is also on the state freight system and the National Highway Freight Network. In the area of the project, the 2-lane section of freeway carries almost 58,000 vehicles daily. Of that total, over 22% are single unit and multi-trailer trucks. Due to traffic volumes and grades in the area (5-6% in some locations) which slows large trucks, this section is subject to frequent congestion. Daily traffic in the project area is projected to grow to over 84,000 vehicles by 2040.

The proposed project includes the following elements:

• Adding a third travel lane southbound beginning at the Battle Creek Road overcrossing and extending to the Delaney Road interchange including replacement an overcrossing of an off-ramp to Commercial Street that is not wide enough to accommodate a third travel lane (MP 248.41 – 250.32);
• Adding a third travel lane northbound between the Kuebler Boulevard and Delaney Road interchanges including replacement an overcrossing of an off-ramp to Commercial Street that is not wide enough to accommodate a third travel lane (MP 248.41 – 251.53); and
• Replacing the Battle Creek Road overcrossing (MP 250.32). It is not currently wide enough to allow three travel lanes on the freeway and has substandard vertical clearance.

The project location is illustrated on Figure 3. The estimated total cost for the project is $48,000,000. The FASTLANE grant requested is $20,000,000.

Since the funding is mostly coming from the new Federal transportation bill and comes from a set-aside for highways and freight, this is probably a "use it or lose it" situation. It's not like we could reallocate that money to a better project list. (See below for a little more detail.)

So there's a limit to the sputtering and complaining that is possible.

Nevertheless, there's probably a case for "lose it." It will not be possible to argue this in any detail here, and this will have to remain a suggestion. You may not therefore find it persuasive.

But we'd probably be better off calling a halt to major freeway widening. The benefits of widening are increasingly dubious, perhaps even bogus, and depend on faulty assumptions.

Update and Addendum

ODOT's new seismic assessment

Wait! Doh! There is an obvious alternative project for highway money. A pot of money this size could do a bare-bones seismic retrofit of either the Marion or Center Street Bridges. It probably wouldn't be enough to retrofit both, or to do much enhancement or other fixing, but it would go a ways towards creating a simple "lifeline" route for critical transportation across the river in the event of a quake.

Update 2

SKATS Staff send in a clarification. Some of the money could be used for a seismic retrofit, some cannot:

The funding for this project is coming from formula funds from potentially three sources: The National Highway Freight Program, a grant application to FASTLANE and ODOT state funds.

The National Highway Freight Program funds can only be used on the National Highway Freight Network (NHFN), which does not include OR-22. In fact, the NHFN is currently defined as consisting only of I-5 in the Salem area.

FASTLANE is a nation-wide competitive grant program for projects that are either on the NHFN, on the NHS, a railway-highway grade separation/grade crossing project or is freight intermodal or freight rail. OR-22 is on the NHS so an application could be submitted for an eligible project. There is $800 million available nation-wide this year.

Assumed Growth Rates Doubtful

From the traffic modeling:

In the existing year, the northbound lanes operate just at the OHP mobility target while the southbound lanes operate slightly below the mobility target. In 2020, the existing lanes in both directions will exceed OHP mobility target in the nobuild scenario, but will operate well below both OHP and HDM targets in the build scenario. In 2040, in the no-build scenario, both directions not only exceed OHP and HDM mobility targets, but will be over capacity. In the build scenario, I-5 will operate at the HDM mobility target and will be below the OHP target. In summary, the proposed project, will improve capacity, flow, level of service, average car speed, and density. Further, these benefits will especially be realized by the freight industry as approximately 22% of the fleet through the study area is comprised of medium and heavy trucks.

It looks like the modeling uses the old rate of 2% growth:

The segment is near its peak hour capacity and traffic volumes are increasing at the rate of two percent per annum.

The new Federal growth rate of 1.04% has not been incorporated into the analysis. So that's a problem.

There is also reason to think that the nature of freight and its place in our local economy is also changing. Modeling that projects great increase is also suspect and deserves a closer look.

"The Myth of Oregon's Freight Dependent Economy"

"The Myth of Oregon's Freight Dependent Economy"

A Cost-Benefit Analysis is not Useful

The project packet has a goofy cost-benefit analysis that might as well be gibberish. At the very least it is totally written to an insider audience assuming specialized knowledge and cannot be parsed in any way by an interested citizen:

A benefit-cost analysis has been prepared for the project and is summarized below. The complete report is attached to the application. The baseline analyzed is a pavement preservation project with no added capacity in the project area. The project analyzed is the addition of approximately five lane miles of general purpose lanes, an overpass and an undercrossing replacement, and complete upgrades of the segment’s safety features. This $48 million capital project (in year of expenditure dollars) has a net present value of $25.3 million and a benefit:cost ratio of 1.65 (3.15 using a three percent discount rate). The results of the analysis are summarized in Table 4 [not included here]...

I-5 is the principal highway freight route for the west coast of the United States. As a result, a large proportion of this segment’s traffic consists of commercial vehicles and intercity buses; totaling 17.5 percent at the nearest automatic traffic recorder. This percentage is likely higher in the actual project area. The segment is near its peak hour capacity and traffic volumes are increasing at the rate of two percent per annum. Before discounting, that means the value of reduced vehicle hours of delay (VHD) resulting from the project will grow rapidly. VHD is only calculated for weekdays.

While the time savings produced by the project are large for the segment, they are small in comparison to the intercity nature of the trips most common to this segment. Therefore, induced travel in terms of trips is expected to be minimal.

The value of reduced vehicle operating costs is normally noticeable for a new project. However, the project analyzed would include a preservation component that would replace planned pavement preservation activity. Therefore, reductions in vehicle operating costs resulting from improved pavement conditions resulting from the project will be zero. Finally, as this is an application for capital funds, the present value of maintenance costs (a set of operating expenses) was treated as a negative benefit rather than as another investment cost. Under either method, the effect on the benefit:cost ratio is minimal.

I have no idea what most of that actually means. Can you make any sense of it?

Because it is a summary of conclusions only, I read it as contextless factoid, bombast to satisfy a bureaucratic requirement, not anything that actually informs a citizenry. It is a pro-forma citation to support a pre-determined conclusion, not an actual argument.

The one assumption of 2% growth we already know has been abandoned by the Feds.

I have a real hard time imagining that that the project really scores so much better than a baseline "pavement preservation project." At the very least it's not proven here.

It's great that there's a cost-benefit analysis, but we are still a ways away from full implementation of "least-cost planning," it seems. At any rate, the analysis isn't anything that a non-expert, including the members of the Policy Committee themselves, could read and independently assess. It is wholly an argument from authority and offers no other evidence or value.

Funding Plan

From the funding:

You may recall the nearly $200 million in extra funding that the OTC allocated with a very minimal public process. The "Strategic Investments reserve" and "funding strategy" here is part of that. Most of it though is for specific freight projects and can't be reallocated to, say, a protected bike lane. (Though you wonder if a funding source like this could build a protected bike lane on OR-22 through town.)

Nothing here is "wrong," but it all is a little dodgy. It's a system biased for hydraulic autoism that advantages widening and disadvantages other ways of improving mobility.

There's something of a double standard here. We invoke "freight" and like magic tens of millions of dollars for a single project glides frictionless through the process. It steamrolls critique. We invoke "bike lane" and there's a staggeringly slow process, and it is wrapped in velcro outreach to attract criticism. When we weigh projects by dollar amount, the ratio of outreach:cost is low on highway projects and high on bike projects.  

Air Quality and Emissions Modeling

Currently we operate under a regulatory scheme for carbon monoxide and ozone emissions. Reading it, it looks like it is rather a Potemkin air quality assessment! The focus on carbon monoxide and ozone only also underscores ways we urgently need to fold carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollutants into the regulatory scheme:

OAR 340-252-0120 and 40 CFR 93.111: Latest Emissions Model
As of March 2, 2009, SKATS is not required to perform regional emissions modeling as part of the conformity process. Thus, no modeling was performed as part of this amendment....

Carbon dixoxide not included in any modeling

OAR 340-252-0200 and 40 CFR 93.119: Emission Reductions in Areas Without Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets
OAR 340-252-0230 and 40 CFR 93.122: Procedures for Determining Regional Transportation-Related Emissions
OAR 340-252-0270 and 40 CFR 93.126: Exempt Projects
OAR 340-252-0280 and 40 CFR 93.127: Projects Exempt from Regional Emissions Analyses
OAR 340-252-0290 and 40 CFR 93.128: Traffic Signal Synchronization Projects
These sections of the OAR deal with areas that are required to perform regional emissions modeling. Federal regulations for areas with an adopted CO limited maintenance plan state that regional emissions modeling is not required to demonstrate conformity. No regional emissions analysis was performed for this update to the SKATS 2015-2035 RTSP.

OAR 340-252-0200 and 40 CFR 93.119: Emission Reductions in Areas Without Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets
OAR 340-252-0230 and 40 CFR 93.122: Procedures for Determining Regional Transportation-Related Emissions
OAR 340-252-0270 and 40 CFR 93.126: Exempt Projects
OAR 340-252-0280 and 40 CFR 93.127: Projects Exempt from Regional Emissions Analyses
OAR 340-252-0290 and 40 CFR 93.128: Traffic Signal Synchronization Projects
These sections of the OAR deal with areas that are required to perform regional emissions modeling. Federal regulations for areas with an adopted CO limited maintenance plan state that regional emissions modeling is not required to demonstrate conformity. No emissions modeling were performed for this update to the SKATS 2015-2035 RTSP.

OAR 340-252-0100 and 40 CFR 93.109: General
In order to demonstrate conformity of a transportation plan and/or TIP, specific criteria listed in OAR 340-252-0110 through 340-252-0200 (40 CFR 93.110 through 93.119) must be addressed. These criteria include using the latest planning assumptions and the latest emissions model and undertaking interagency consultation and public involvement....

As of June 15, 2005, the SKATS area is not required to show conformity for HC and NOx, the precursors to ozone; and from March 2, 2009, is operating under a limited maintenance plan for Carbon Monoxide (CO), and thus not required to perform regional emissions modeling for CO.

OAR 340-252-0120 and 40 CFR 93.111: Latest Emissions Model
As of March 2, 2009, SKATS is not required to perform regional emissions modeling as part of the conformity process. Thus, no modeling was performed as part of this amendment.

If the scheme is this toothless, why even bother!

Broken System

So in summary, I don't see a path to saying "we should want to kill this project." Then what? a person reasonably says. I don't see a way to offer a substitute that is immediately actionable.

More than a dubious project, I see a system and process that is broken:

• We haven't incorporated best modeling for ordinary car traffic
• We haven't adjusted freight modeling
• The cost-benefit analysis is totally opaque
• The funding plan is the result of a back-room deal
• Our air quality and pollution scheme is mostly a sham

It's a classic "Garbage in, Garbage out." This is a kind of SNAFU, really.

New Source of Bike/Ped Funding?

Also on the agenda is what looks like new eligibility for Federal Congestion Management and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program:

ODOT and FHWA staff recently came to agreement that both the SKATS and Central Lane (Eugene/Springfield) MPOs are eligible for a portion of the CMAQ funds that Oregon receives. Staff will describe the next steps that ODOT and the MPOs will take to consult -- over the next few months -- on the allocation of these funds.

It's all about the choices we want to make, but if we wanted to, we could use CMAQ funds for more bike/ped stuff. We don't have to use them on widening activities that operate under the guise of "congestion relief" or electric car support that operates under the "alternative fuels" heading, or new diesel engine technology for freight. We can use it for fully non-autoist congestion relief and air quality improvement. If we wanted to.

Look for the historic sign
next to the entry

It's not clear how much funding is actually in play here, so maybe this would be only a marginal improvement in funding. More to come!

SKATS meets Tuesday the 26th at noon. SKATS is at 100 High St. SE, Suite 200, above Bar Andaluz and Table Five 08.