A viewer asked this question on 7/21/2000:
Just three questions:
a) Why is traffic congestion a government problem?
b) How many more freeways should government provide?
c) How could the government instead use markets to reduce traffic congestion?
JesseGordon gave this response on 7/21/2000:
a)
The road and highway system is generally considered a "public good" and hence within the responsibility of the government to maintain. The idea of "public goods" is that no private company would benefit by providing a highway on their own (at least, not without annoyingly many toll booths and high tolls).
The free flow of traffic is another "public good." Police departments everywhere consider that one of their more important duties. Losing the free flow of traffic does have economic consequences, i.e., a lot of wasted time by a lot of people. A private company would have even more trouble profiting from reducing congestion than they would from providing highways in general, so this service falls to government.
Your questions sound like they come from a libertarian perspective, so I'll try to answer in that light too: The constitutional basis for the government dealing with traffic congestion is that the US Constitution empowers the federal government "To regulate Commerce... among the several States." (Article I, section 8, clause 3). Regulating commerce includes truck traffic and hence includes auto traffic and the highways in general.
b)
This one sounds like an environmentalist perspective instead of libertarian. There's an environmentalist theory that says that traffic will ALWAYS expand to fill ANY number of highways that are built. (This really only applies to urban traffic, but if you're talking about congestion, you're talking urban). In other words, people switch from mass transit to private cars when new highways are built, until the new highway gets congested enough that it takes longer to drive than to take the bus or train. Hence, it's impossible to actually reduce congestion (or at least impossible to reduce the amount of drive time) no matter how many more highways are built.
The solution to urban congestion is to build more mass transit. Buses and trains DO reduce congestion, since there's no such thing as a bus-and-train traffic jam.
The problem with this answer, if you're a libertarian, is that it requires yet more government intervention (and another item in the "public good" list = mass transit). So...
c)
The key to using markets for this problem (and for most environmental problems) is to account for "externalities." "Externalities" are costs which are imposed on others when you do something (i.e., they're "external" to what you're doing). External costs from private car use include air pollution, the costs of building roads, and the increased cost of my wasting my time in traffic because you're driving your car in the same place. None of those costs are accounted for when you buy a car, or when you buy gas to drive your car.
If those costs WERE accounted for, more people would take mass transit. That means taxing car sales or gas sales, or some other means of imposing fees for the real costs of you driving your car around.
(In the interest of full disclosure,
"externalities" are certainly not accepted as a market concept by many libertarians.)
A successful example of this is in Singapore. They impose special fees on cars that drive downtown during rush hour (you have to buy a sticker in advance, then pay a toll as well). People avoid the fee by parking outside the special-fee area and taking mass transit into town.
You could set up a system like that pretty easily by having a toll booth that charges a lot more than usual at rush hour, with a big parking garage right before the toll booth that has a train going downtown.
But the details don't matter -- the way to use markets is to charge extra fees for bringing a car into the city at congested times. That doesn't happen much in America, so it's more likely we'd just have a gas tax (like Clinton tried to do in the early 1990s). If you don't like taxes or tolls at all, you could achieve the same thing by making mass transit LESS expensive, i.e., by subsidizing parking at train stations, making the train itself very cheap, etc.
Hien143Alex rated this answer:
Thanks!
Anonymous asked this question on 8/17/2000:
This is my essay topic. But I have no idea.....Please help me with this.
Should governments spend more money on improving roads and highways, or should governments spend more money on improving public transportation (buses, trains, subways)? Why? Use specific reasons and details to develop your essay.
madpol gave this response on 8/19/2000:
The short answer is "yes!" Both need additional funding. But, of the two, priority should be given to public transport for a variety of reasons.
Expanded use of Public transportation decreases dependence on foreign oil, improves air quality, relieves traffic congestion and parking problems and helps hold off wage inflation by providing a lower cost alternative to the increasingly expensive driving habit.
Anonymous asked this question on 8/17/2000:
This is my essay topic. But I have no idea.....Please help me with this.
Should governments spend more money on improving roads and highways, or should governments spend more money on improving public transportation (buses, trains, subways)? Why? Use specific reasons and details to develop your essay.
stevehaddock gave this response on 8/18/2000:
Goodness! Why can't we do both! It's only money.
Okay, okay. Let's assume for a moment that our supply of money is limited. In fact, either public or private transportation require huge capital expenditures and neither really pays for itself nowadays. That's why so few private companies in the present day build either when in past eras it was quite common.
But may I suggest New York as a good case study. It's been through both phases. Prior to World War II, both private and public money was spent building the world's largest commuter network while roads got little attention. In fact, the bridges and tunnels that replaced ferries were generally built to handle trams, busses and subways. However, from about 1945 to 1980, subways were starved while money was lavished on freeways and bridges (The Verrazano Narrows bridge was built during this time). However, New York's traffic has been in chaos for close to 150 years now (subways did nothing to relieve much of the street congestion).
Right now, Toronto, my home town, is going through the same debate. It is estimated that in the next 20 years, the time to drive along the main east-west highway in rush hour will double. The question becomes, build more roads or build more subways?
Anonymous rated this answer:
Thanks! You are so good and your answer is really helpful and informative.