Peak VMT in the rear view mirror?
July 24th, 2011The Federal Highway Administration reports travel on all roads and streets was down 1.9% compared with May 2010. Cumulative travel for 2011 is now down 1.0% compared with 2010.
Bill McBride at Calculated Risk posts this chart showing VMT (rolling 12-month average) since 1971.
McBride notes that in the early ’80s, VMT (rolling 12 months) stayed below the previous peak for 39 months. Currently, VMT has been below the previous peak for 42 months – a new record for longest period below the previous peak – and still counting. Hold in your mind for a moment the possibility that the 2008 peak in VMT might never again be reached.
In Oregon, VMT in May was off 2.4% from May 2010. Cumulative VMT for 2011 is now down 2.5% from 2010.
It’s not just total VMT that seem to have peaked. Truck tonnage was down in May, too. Truck tonnage has yet to regain 2008 levels, much less retouching levels last seen in 2005.
Evan Manvel at Blue Oregon has been out in front hammering at the proposed Columbia River Crossing (CRC), arguing that the financing plan is pure fantasy:
While blowing through $130 million of taxpayer money, project managers have told themselves a story: roughly one-third of the nearly $4 billion cost would come from the federal government, one-third from the states, and one-third from tolling (the $4 billion estimate may well be another fantasy).
All three of these pots of money are highly suspect. U.S. House Transportation Chair John Mica is pushing to cut federal transportation funding by a third. Neither the Oregon nor the Washington legislature has contributed their share of the project, beset by maintenance costs and other projects, as well as having healthy skepticism about the CRC fantasy. And perhaps the weakest link — though admittedly the competition is fierce? Tolls. . . .
Let’s be clear: the tolling financing is a balloon payment, predicated on ever-increasing traffic and toll levels. Ever-increasing traffic at the projected levels is a falsehood. Ever-increasing tolling rates are a political nightmare.
It looks like the project’s pushers’ projections of ever-increasing traffic loads are already proving illusory. The need for this white elephant – for additional capacity to handle ever more commuters and ever more trucks – will never materialize. The money to finance it will never materialize, either.