$750M Lane Expansion Won’t Solve Congestion – The Virginian-Pilot

In a recent unanimous vote, the Central Virginia Transit Authority decided to commit federal, state and local funding for a 29-mile extension of Interstate 64 through Newkent County. This project is currently open for public comment.

One claim was that the highway expansion would remove bottlenecks and relieve local congestion. This is a public-pleasing decision that no one can oppose.

The only problem is that America has gone through decades of adding lanes to its interstate highways while traffic continues to overtake our efforts.

Between 1993 and 2017, Richmond increased highway lane miles by 106%. During the same period, the population he increased by 45%. Despite being built at a faster rate than population growth, congestion increased him by 203%. Virginia Beach has a similar trend. Population has only increased by 6% for him, but congestion has increased by 120% for him.

If those numbers sound counterintuitive, just look to the regions of the US that haven’t hesitated to invest in roads. For example, in Houston, the widest freeway in the United States, which now has 23 lanes, it took just three years before the congestion was worse than it was before the 2008 widening.

What happened and why aren’t we avoiding it?

The simple answer is demand induction. Investing in car infrastructure will encourage car use. We are not avoiding cars because we have confused increased mileage with economic growth.

It was Anthony Downs’ conclusion that mileage would come into equilibrium with lane capacity. When lanes are added to highways, people tend to drive more cars, causing congestion to return. In his 1962 he called it “The Basic Law of Road Congestion”. This is supported by Robert Cervero (2002), Robert Noland (2001), and Gilles Duranton (2011).

To see this in action, let’s look at the two goals of this highway expansion project through the lens of how they compete.

• relieve congestion
• boost local economic activity

To reduce congestion, additional trips along the route cannot be increased significantly. The number of trips should remain the same. Or, if increased, it should be increased by an amount less than the capacity added to the interstate by lane widening.

In order to revitalize local economic activities, it is necessary to increase the movement of vehicles. Travel time savings alone cannot offset this expensive project. Economic growth to justify $750 million can only come from a massive increase in vehicle travel. Whether these additional trips will exacerbate congestion is a question to be answered in the next highway expansion project.

The balance between these two goals nuances our understanding of projects that promise to solve congestion. Even if the lane widening project eliminates the congestion, it may end up being a sunk cost with no return on investment. Even if the lane expansion project were to be very successful economically, it is unlikely to solve congestion in the long term.

As the project is open for public comment and construction continues, policy makers must be held accountable for promising conflicting results. Otherwise, this current $750 million lane expansion that promises to “solve congestion,” followed by another his $750 million lane that also promises to “solve congestion.” Expansion will take place.

We face the reality that the commitment to escalating costs towards tepid traffic solutions will not generate enough economic activity for such highway expansions to cover their own costs. We are facing a distracting future (see The Wall Street Journal on July 4, 2021). Article “Why Higher Highway Spending Won’t Recover the Economy” by David Harrison).

christian chic is a full-time content designer in financial services and part-time local leader for Strong Towns of Richmond, a 501(c)(3) non-profit media advocacy organization.