Surface Transportation News: Rethinking the Department of Transportation’s role

In this issue:

• Is it time to rethink U.S. DOT’s role?
• INRIX report details global traffic congestion
• State bills banning driverless vehicles
• Can New York’s congestion charge actually finance $15 billion in transit?
• Michigan bill seeks to mandate cash tolling
• U.S. EV sales increased in 2024, at a slower pace
• Cliff Slater, RIP
• News Notes
• Quotable Quotes

Is It Time to Rethink the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Role?

Prior to last November’s election, there was considerable concern over the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 report, which proposed major changes across the federal government. The only part of it that I have read is Chapter 19, on the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). That chapter, edited by policy researcher Diana Furchtgott-Roth, includes a number of reasonable ideas. In a discussion of this chapter in his newsletter The Dispatcher, editor Michael Sena summarizes its message as “DOT is not doing what it should be doing and is doing things that either should not be done at all or would be better done by states and the private sector.”

Sena also notes the chapter’s statement that much of the DOT “has become a de facto grant-making organization, choosing winners and losers and neglecting the real needs of American citizens.”

Rather than further summarizing what that report recommended, let’s take a look at the first DOT policy notice released by the new Trump administration. The copy I received and printed comes from the Office of the Secretary and is signed by Sean Duffy, but it has no date. Its subject is: “Ensuring Reliance Upon Sound Economic Analysis in Department of Transportation Policies, Programs, and Activities.” It’s hard to argue with that objective, but this DOT Order goes well beyond that. It applies to all of DOT’s operating administrations, including the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA).

The heart of the document is section 5, “Policies.” The first states that all grantmaking, lending, policymaking, and rulemaking activities “shall be based on sound economic principles and analysis supported by rigorous cost-benefit requirements and data-driven decisions.” In explaining this, it goes on to say that “benefits must be estimated to outweigh the costs.” (I would have changed “estimated” to “demonstrated.”) It also notes that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator has been ordered to issue guidance on calculating the “social cost of carbon.”

The next several paragraphs go on to require that transportation department policies, programs, and activities must avoid “adverse effects on families and communities” and maximize benefits for families and communities. Another paragraph states that all DOT-assisted programs and activities “shall not be used to further local political objectives,” and all such projects must “not depend on continuous or future DOT support or assistance.”

But the really radical part of the document is “5f,” which has five requirements:

• Utilize user-pay models [good, in my view]
• Direct funding to local opportunity zones, where permitted [OK]
• Mitigate impacts of DOT activities on families…and give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average…[Huh?]
• Prohibit recipients of DOT support or assistance from imposing vaccine and mask mandates [???]
• Require local compliance or cooperation with Federal immigration enforcement.[!!!]

Also, every Department of Transportation Operating Administration is directed to: “Review their existing grant agreements, loan agreements, and contracts, and, to the extent permitted by law, unilaterally amend the general terms and conditions to ensure compliance with Federal law and consistency with this Order.”

For those who worried about radical change after reading the Heritage Project 2025 document, there was nothing in its Department of Transportation chapter to compare with this. Republicans and conservatives have often complained about federal agencies imposing all kinds of policy changes on recipients of federal grants, loans, etc., imposing things never enacted by Congress. They complained repeatedly about the Biden administration imposing whole-of-government “equity” policy mandates on grant recipients. It now appears that the Trump administration is doing the same kind of thing—imposing its own social policy preferences.

There was nothing in the Heritage Project 2025 report’s transportation chapter about devolving much of the transportation department’s funding to the states, as some critics expected or feared. But it strikes me that if DOT proceeds with these kinds of social mandates in its grant and loan programs, there could well be a backlash that revives interest in something like the kind of devolution that was on the congressional agenda in the 1990s. The high point of that effort was the devolution bill sponsored by Sen. Connie Mack (R-FL) and Rep. John Kasich (R-OH). It would have phased out over two years all but two cents of the federal gas tax, with that remainder dedicated to roads on federal lands and Indian reservations plus some FHWA oversight. In that scenario, FHWA would be more of a regulatory and research agency than a grant-maker. There was support for this idea from Brookings scholar Alice Rivlin and Harvard Kennedy School scholar David Luberoff. I wrote a Reason Foundation policy study, “Defederalizing Transportation Funding,” that year and spoke about it at transportation conferences.

Given this background, I wouldn’t be surprised if new support for devolution came from the center-left rather than from the right.

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INRIX Report Details Global Traffic Congestion

Last month, data firm INRIX released its “2024 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard.” Its congestion data elements are from 2024, with mode choice data from 2023. So, the congestion data are more current than the 2022 congestion data that I reported on in the Jan. 2025 issue of this newsletter.

INRIX uses data collected from smartphones in vehicles traversing 946 urban areas in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The scorecard does not list all of these; its tables generally focus on the top 25 metro areas in each of the three countries. Other tables zero in on the most congested roadways in these countries.  Overall, 55% of the metro areas saw increased congestion in 2024 vs. 2023; 28% experienced less; and the remainder had negligible change.

The average annual amount of travel delay was 43 hours in the U.S., 43 hours in Germany, and 62 hours in the U.K. The estimated annual congestion cost per driver was $771 U.S., $726 U.K., and $489 Germany. The estimated total cost of these delays was $74 billion U.S., $9.5 billion U.K., and $3.9 billion Germany.

One data element tracked by INRIX is the average commute distance. Figure 8 in the report is a bar graph showing the range for U.S. commuters. These figures range from a low of 3.7-4.2 miles to a high of 9.5 to 10.1 miles. As a former commuter in Los Angeles, I’m skeptical of those numbers. I realize that super-long one-way commutes are outliers, but I wonder what fraction of large metro areas are included in INRIX’s data collection. Interestingly, the average INRIX commute distance by country is reported as 7.2 miles in the U.S., 8.8 miles in the U.K., and 9 miles in Germany. That’s the opposite of what I would expect, given widespread images of U.S. urban sprawl versus denser and more compact urban areas in Europe.

Of the world’s largest cities, 2024’s 25 most-congested ones range from Istanbul at #1 to Toronto at #25. On this list, three U.S. metros are in the top 10 (New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles), and of the top 25, 10 are American cities (adding Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Houston, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Seattle). In the table of the 25 most-congested U.S. metro areas, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston retain the top four positions, with Philadelphia moving up to #5 (from #6 in 2023). The only newcomer to this top-25 is Tampa, which was 28th in 2023. The 2024 cost per commuter ranged from $1,825 in New York to $609 for Tampa.

Total congestion cost in the top 10 U.S. metro areas according to INRIX is as follows:

New York	$9.5 billion
Los Angeles	$8.5 billion
Chicago	$6.6 billion
Houston	$3.5 billion
Miami	$3.4 billion
Philadelphia	$3.3 billion
Atlanta	$2.9 billion
Washington, D.C.	$2.8 billion
Boston	$2.7 billion
Dallas	$2.4 billion

The INRIX Scorecard also reports changes in U.S. telecommuting, in this case relying on 2023 Census Bureau data. Its headline finding is “telecommuting drops most in tech-heavy metros.” Its Table 3 shows work-from-home decreasing by between 33% (San Jose) and 14% (D.C.) in 2023. But to put those numbers in context, Table 4 compares 2023 with pre-pandemic 2019 and shows that telecommuting is still 234% greater than 2019 in San Jose, 185% greater in New York, and 248% greater in Washington, D.C. I expect those percentages to be somewhat lower when 2024 figures are available, given many firms’ attempts to get employees to spend more time in the office. The same Census Bureau (ACS) data show that as of 2023, transit use was down 40% in San Jose, 49% in San Francisco, and 37% in Washington, and nobody knows how much of 2019 transit use is gone forever.

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State Bills Banning Driverless Vehicles Introduced
By Marc Scribner

The automated vehicle (AV) industry may on balance have a more supportive federal policy environment under the Trump administration, which I discussed in last month’s newsletter. However, the state AV policy landscape in 2025 may be trending in the wrong direction. Union-backed legislation would require commercial vehicles equipped with automated driving systems to operate with human operators inside the vehicles. This would outlaw driverless vehicles and undermine the business case for AVs—and thereby prevent the realization of the safety benefits promised by AV developers.

California was the first state to propose a statutory ban on driverless vehicles exceeding 10,000 pounds with Assembly Bill (A.B.) 316 in 2023. As I highlighted in the Feb. 2023 issue of this newsletter, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters made no secret that they were responsible for this bill, hosting a large rally with the bill sponsors outside the state capitol in Sacramento just days after it was introduced. Bill sponsor Assemblymember Ash Kalra told the union truck drivers in attendance that his legislation was aimed at protecting “the jobs that you all rely on.”

The Teamsters also framed their campaign in California—a union-friendly state controlled by a single-party supermajority—as a national bellwether for protecting the union’s ability to collect dues from human drivers against the tide of robot competition. “So goes California, so goes the rest of the nation. If we lose this, we’re never getting them back,” Teamsters Vice President Lindsay Dougherty told the crowd, according to a Los Angeles Times report on the rally.

A.B. 316 passed the California State Assembly in a lopsided 69-4 vote and the Senate in an equally lopsided vote of 36-2. Then something surprising happened: Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill. When legislation to ban AV trucks was introduced again in 2024 as A.B. 2286, and again passed the legislature in lopsided votes, Gov. Newsom again vetoed the bill.

Two back-to-back failures have so far deterred California legislators from reintroducing the bill in 2025. But the Teamsters’ prediction of California as a national bellwether may have been premature. In the current legislative session, various bills to ban driverless vehicles have been introduced from Delaware to New Mexico. They vary in their drafting and application, but each bill would require a licensed driver to be seated inside a driverless-capable vehicle while that vehicle is operated on public roads.

Some bills focus on banning driverless vehicles based on their weight. Following California’s failed approach, Maryland House Bill (H.B.) 439 and its companion Senate Bill (S.B.) 405 would require any autonomous vehicle weighing more than 10,000 pounds to have a human driver “fully present” in the vehicle during operation. Colorado’s H.B. 1122 adopts the California approach with a superficial difference by prohibiting driverless “commercial motor vehicles,” which are defined in state law as vehicles weighing over 16,000 pounds designed to carry freight or at least 16 passengers.

Other bills focus specifically on banning driverless semi-trucks. In Delaware, S.B. 46 bans driverless operations by any vehicle that “requires a Class A commercial driver license without an O restriction”—which is the license required to drive a tractor-trailer. In Indiana, both H.B. 1057 and H.B. 1377 would ban driverless “automated tractor-trailers.” In North Dakota, H.B. 1614 would ban driverless “automated truck tractors.”

Indiana’s H.B. 1057 and North Dakota’s H.B. 1614 which would prohibit driverless semi-trucks are especially interesting because they were introduced by Republicans in states with right-to-work laws that prohibit “closed shop” workplaces that condition employment on union membership. This would have been politically unthinkable just a few years ago, but the increasingly populist Republican Party has been wavering in its skepticism toward organized labor.

This anti-AV unionism on display within the GOP is perhaps most surprising in Tennessee. The Volunteer State is not only one of the 26 right-to-work states but also the most recent of nine that enshrine right-to-work laws in their state constitutions, with 70% of Tennessee voters approving the right-to-work constitutional amendment in 2022. Tennessee’s recently introduced S.B. 310 would outlaw driverless vehicles carrying both property or passengers “for hire or compensation.” This ban would encompass autonomous semi-trucks on Interstates as well as robotaxis on Nashville streets.

Nashville is attempting to position itself as a technology-focused regional economic powerhouse, much like Austin before it. Leading robotaxi developer Waymo has already announced plans to expand to Austin and Atlanta in 2025, and Miami in 2026. Nashville’s future growth and the state’s general reputation for business friendliness will undoubtedly be damaged if Tennessee adopts pro-union legislation that was rejected in California for being too extreme.

With S.B. 310, Tennessee’s proposed ban on driverless vehicles operated “for hire or compensation” is only slightly more permissive than legislation introduced in union-friendly New Mexico (H.B. 148) and Washington State (S.B. 5042) that would ban all driverless vehicles, regardless of whether they are operated for commercial or non-commercial purposes. This could have significant consequences for transportation safety.

The latest research conducted by leading reinsurance company Swiss Re and Waymo analyzed 25.3 million miles of driverless operations and insurance claims at the ZIP code level in the Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco metropolitan areas. The researchers found that Waymo’s automated driving system was far safer when compared to a typical human driver—with an 88% reduction in property damage claims and a 92% reduction in bodily injury claims.

The safety benefits of AVs are real and are already being realized. State legislators pursuing anti-AV legislation should understand that they are preventing their residents from enjoying a safer transportation future. Fortunately, it is not too late for public officials to prioritize the public interest over special interest groups and avoid most of the potential harm of anti-AV policies.

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Can New York’s Congestion Charge Actually Finance $15 Billion in Transit Improvements?

The original congestion pricing plan for Manhattan called for financing $15 billion worth of transit improvements based on a new congestion charge for all motor vehicles in the busiest part of Manhattan. However, when Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced the revised plan in December (implemented last month), the original charge for passenger vehicles was reduced from $15 to $9 to make it more palatable politically. Less widely known, the plan calls for increasing that charge to $12 in 2028 and increasing it again to $15 in 2031.  But can a plan with lower initial revenues still finance $15 billion worth of improvements?

That question was raised in a standing-room-only session at the annual Transportation Research Board (TRB) conference in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 7. Prof. Jonathan Peters of the City University of New York gave a presentation that raised numerous questions about the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) plan, one of which was how this phased-in congestion charge affects the bond issue. These are still early days in the program, and no one yet knows how paying customers for Manhattan streets will adapt to the $9 charge over time, let alone to the two planned increases.

I asked Prof. Peters how bond buyers might react if the two planned increases did not take place as scheduled. There are no current disclosures of how bond buyers could be protected from the increased rates being deferred or not implemented at all, given potential changes in the state legislature or office of the governor. Perhaps this is analogous to toll-financed express lanes, which have been revenue-bond financed based on “investment grade” traffic and revenue projections. However, in those cases, there is a growing body of empirical evidence from successful projects that gives bond buyers confidence. Furthermore, these public-private partnership-type agreements often have toll escalation clauses included in the agreement so that bond buyers have a legal commitment by the operator to increase tolls in accordance with that contract. Because of that contract, the developer/operator can typically bond against the additional revenue provided by future increased toll rates.

In his TRB presentation, Peters showed several alternative financing plans for the MTA’s congestion-revenue bonds. Assuming $15 billion ”triple tax-free bonds with a 20+ year maturity at 3.50% interest,” he modeled the original project with the $15 charge from the outset. His spreadsheet showed 21 years to pay off the bonds (assuming the revenue met expectations). His second spreadsheet showed the payoff projections if they kept the initial $9 charge indefinitely. In that case, the bonds would take 61 years to pay off. Peters’ third spreadsheet assumed MTA again issued $15 billion worth of bonds, but with reduced revenues in the first six years until the $15 rate finally kicked in as of 2031. The lower revenues in the first six years made a significant impact, with the bonds not paying off before 26 years. And that assumes that the government will hold to the stated increases. If they delay the increases or change the rates, the payoff could be 30 years or far longer.

The problem here is likely MTA’s insistence on borrowing the original $15 billion in order to pay for all the promised transit improvements. I wonder if anyone at MTA has considered prioritizing that whole set of improvements, reducing the total to downsize the bond issue to match the reduced revenue in the early years.

Another question, beyond my financial knowledge, is what assurance can MTA, New York City, or New York state provide to bond buyers (of the $15 billion bond) that the increases to $12 and then to $15 will actually take place? Even once MTA has a year’s worth of traffic and revenue from the first year at the $9 rate, how elastic will the response to higher prices be? Even if the increases have solid political “guarantees,” will the revenues increase proportionally?

These questions all need to be answered before MTA attempts to issue its bonds.

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Michigan Bill Seeks to Mandate Cash Tolling
By Baruch Feigenbaum

While most states and other countries are moving to All Electronic Tolling (AET) cashless toll collection systems, a group of Michigan lawmakers wants to move the state in the other direction. Michigan House Bill (HB) 4015, introduced in the Legislature and referred to the House Transportation Committee, would mandate all toll roads and bridges accept cash as a form of payment.

One goal of the bill is to strengthen privacy and provide choice, two important elements in any transportation system. The authors worry that toll transponders could be used to determine the location of a vehicle. And they want drivers to have multiple payment options.

However, multiple payment options already exist on different toll roads. Instead of mandating cash, the bill’s sponsors should amend the bill to ensure choice.

Before detailing the other options, let’s examine the problem with cash. First, the cash collection costs are about three times higher than those with AET. Cash collection requires building toll booths and hiring and paying tollbooth operators. Cash collection is prone to “shrinkage,” or lost revenue. For example, if drivers pay $100 million in cash tolls, the state might collect only $98 million because the rest disappears, often into toll collectors’ pockets. Sometimes, drivers who don’t have a transponder account will not have the cash, especially exact change. How many people carry a bunch of quarters, dimes, and nickels in their wallet these days? Sometimes, toll booth operators will allow vehicles through who do not or cannot pay.

Second, the quarter mile on either side of a toll plaza is the most dangerous section of a limited-access highway. Vehicles must change speed and change lanes to enter a queue to pay a toll. Occasionally, a toll booth operator will walk across the highway to speak with a manager. A nationwide U.S. Department of Transportation study found that removing toll booths reduces crashes by 73%. A second study of 750 miles of toll roads in Florida found that AET reduced crashes between 68% and 80%.

Third, toll booths create traffic congestion, especially in metro areas. The Florida study found that vehicle throughput can increase by up to 18% when toll booths are removed. That might not seem like a lot, but even an increase of 5% can significantly reduce congestion. Eighteen percent is roughly equivalent to adding two lanes to an eight-lane highway. And unlike new highway lanes, which will cost millions if not billions of dollars, the cost of removing toll booths is a rounding error.

But the Michigan bill sponsors are correct that Michiganders, and all U.S. drivers, deserve options. Thankfully, we have two options, both of which have low collection costs, no safety problems, and do not worsen traffic congestion.

The first option is license plate tolling. Approximately 20 states use license plate tolling, with the top five being Florida, New York, California, Texas, and Virginia. Drivers pass through the toll gantry and are sent a bill. License plate tolling usually includes an administrative fee, but in most states, if the driver goes to the toll operator’s website within 48 hours of driving on the road, the fee is reduced or waived. For example, Florida’s Turnpike charges a flat $2.50 administration fee for all of the tolls drivers incur over a 30-day period. Drivers do not need an account. They do not need to install a transponder. Often, the state does not have their information since a private contractor collects the tolls.

However, for customers who have privacy concerns and/or want to avoid any administrative fees no matter how small, another option long popular in Europe is roadway vignettes. With a vignette, drivers purchase a sticker for a given number of days that a motorist can drive in a given geographic area or for a distance that a motorist can drive on a highway. For example, when I was in Austria for a conference, I purchased a 14-day vignette to drive on tollways in the country.

In Michigan, drivers could go to gas stations or toll road service centers and purchase a pass based on the distance that they planned to drive. They would not need a credit card; they could purchase the vignette with cash or a debit card. Motorists who don’t buy a vignette, or who try to manipulate the system by buying a vignette for five miles and then traveling 20 miles, would be subject to license plate tolling. But as long as drivers pay for the amount of roadway that they use, their information will not be collected, the government/private sector will not have any information about where they traveled, and they will not need to buy a transponder.

I applaud Michigan lawmakers for wanting to give their constituents options. But mandating cash tolling is not the answer. Offering options such as license plate tolling and vignettes will give drivers choices without burdening transportation agencies with high collection costs, worse roadway safety, and added traffic congestion.

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U.S. Electric Vehicle Sales Increased in 2024, But at a Slower Pace

Several readers questioned last month’s article about setbacks for electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States. The reference in the article to “declining EV sales” should have referred to a reduction in the rate of increase rather than a net decline.

Traffic consultant Ed Regan sent me a detailed spreadsheet after the January newsletter went out, with data on U.S. light-duty vehicle sales per month for the years 2011 through 2024 (but only 11 months for the last year). Overall, light vehicle sales totaled 15.9 million in 2024, a 2.6% increase over 2023. Total plug-in electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs) reached 1.59 million, which was a 6.5% increase over 2023. By comparison, the increase from 2022 to 2023 was 14.3% and from 2021 to 2022 was 25%, and the increase the year before that was 50%. So, while there was an increase in EV sales last year, the rate of increase has been steadily decreasing, likely for some of the reasons mentioned in the article.

Thanks to Ethan Elkind of the University of California-Berkeley for bringing this to my attention, and to Ed Regan for providing the detailed data.

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Cliff Slater, R.I.P.

I was saddened to learn that transportation history analyst (and my long-time friend) Cliff Slater, of Honolulu, had died on Jan. 20 at age 91.

Cliff was a contemporary model of a Renaissance man. He grew up in London and joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) at age 17½. He served seven and a half years as an RAF navigator based in East Asia. After that, he became a charter boat captain in Europe, and while delivering a yacht to New Zealand, had to divert to Hawaii for repairs. He fell in love with Hawaii and ended up settling there, founding Maui Divers, which he built into an islands-wide chain specializing in high-end coral jewelry. And he met Bobbie, who became his wife for the rest of his life.

In addition to being active in the Honolulu business community, Cliff had a strong interest in transportation, especially transit. Several decades ago, after seeing the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Cliff decided to research the alleged General Motors plot to destroy America’s trolley lines by selling cities buses. His research led to a journal article documenting the dire straits of trolley lines nationwide, and their turning to more-flexible and less-expensive buses in cities where the GM group was active and everywhere else where it was not. (Roger Rabbit is not based on a true story.)

Cliff and I became friends in the 1980s when he became a fan of Reason Foundation, and over quite a few years he arranged speaking engagements for me in Honolulu, mostly about transportation. Thanks to his extensive research on urban transportation, he was an early skeptic of plans for a heavy-rail transit system for Honolulu, which after many years got approved and is still under construction (and way over budget).

Over the past decade, Cliff researched and wrote a detailed history of transit in the United States. Its controversial title is Transit: Its Growth, Decline, and Pending Demise. It’s encyclopedic in scope and well-documented with tables and citations to a great many books and journal articles, many of which I remember from decades ago. I reviewed the book in the Feb. 2024 issue of this newsletter. And I was honored to be listed as one of 14 researchers from whom Cliff had learned things that contributed to the knowledge base that enabled him to write this superb book.

Rest in Peace, my dear friend and colleague.

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News Notes

Highway Trust Fund Deficits in the Spotlight
Jeff Davis of the Eno Center for Transportation keeps reminding Congress that the federal Highway Trust Fund (HTF) is in serious trouble. In October, he cited a Monthly Treasury statement finding that the FY2024 shortfall (the gap between user-tax revenue and highway/transit spending) was $21 billion, up from $11.9 billion the year before. And on Jan. 20, 2025, Davis reported the Congressional Budget Office’s Highway Trust Fund forecast. The bad news is that under current tax rates and spending policies, the HTF would need at least $150 billion from the General Fund over the next five years (meaning borrowed from future taxpayers).

Think Tank Provides Facts About the Panama Canal
In the midst of claims that U.S. shipping is getting a raw deal from the Canal company, and that China somehow controls the Canal, Alvaro Vargas Llosa of the Independent Institute authored a commentary, “Setting the Record Straight about the Panama Canal.” The canal is operated and managed by the Panamanian Canal Authority, a government corporation. The recently completed project to enable much larger ships to traverse it cost $5.25 billion, financed largely by Canal tolls. Canal traffic to and from the United States generated $2.4 billion in tolls in FY2024. U.S. ships (military and civilian) pay the same toll rates as all other Canal users, based on the features of each ship. As for China, two of the six ports serving the Panama Canal are run by CK Hutchison Holdings, a Hong Kong based company with port operations in 27 countries, including our own Port of Long Beach. And the Port of Colon is operated by a Taiwanese company.

Colorado DOT’s WAL-E Wins Award
Last year, Colorado DOT implemented a new toll enforcement system on the I-70 Mountain Express Lane Corridor, after a two-year trial period. It uses a new technology solution from Blissway, called Wireless Autonomous Lane Enforcer (WAL-E). The inexpensive detectors are spaced alongside express toll lanes to identify vehicles without the required transponder that are in the tolled lanes illegally. Weaving in and out of the lanes to avoid toll gantries had become a problem. Identified violators are confirmed by Blissway’s human observers who send the information for enforcement. In the first year of operation, toll violations were reduced by 80%. WAL-E is now being added to all the CDOT’s express toll lane corridors. CDOT’s project was selected as one of five winners of the International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association 2024 Toll Excellence Awards.

Trump Revokes California Waiver on Banning Gas-Powered Cars
The Wall Street Journal reported on Jan. 23 that among several deregulatory executive orders from the Trump White House was one that rescinded the long-standing waiver that allowed California to adopt more stringent vehicle emissions requirements than federal regulations call for. The implications go beyond California since 11 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws piggybacking on the California waiver.

Laredo Considering Express Toll Bridges
Laredo, Texas’s first city council meeting of 2025 included a lengthy discussion of shifting from fixed tolls on the city’s bridges to variable tolls, aiming to improve traffic flow and reduce emissions from idling vehicles waiting to cross the bridges. Both the World Trade Bridge and the Colombia Solidarity Bridge are slated for expansion projects. Councilmembers directed city management to conduct a study of such a tolling change.
  
National VMT Pilot Advisory Board Finally Appointed
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) included creating an advisory board for the long-planned national pilot program for per-mile (Vehicle Miles Travelled) charges. The blue-ribbon advisory board was supposed to be in place by Feb. 2022, but although qualified candidates were selected, the Biden White House took no action in 2023 and only released the names (with no publicity) on Dec. 3, 2024. The IIJA provision intended the pilot program to be designed and ready to implement early enough that lessons learned from it could be included in the 2026 surface transportation reauthorization legislation. That now looks highly unlikely, since the advisory board has not yet had a single meeting to begin designing the long-awaited national pilot test. Fortunately, those appointed appear to be well-qualified.

Electric Truck Mandates Under Fire in States
According to Kerry Jackson of the Pacific Research Institute, support for a mandated transition to electric trucks is in question. California’s plans for truck electrification were adopted by 10 other states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon. Jackson cites concerns being raised in these states, for reasons such as the non-availability of electric snowplows and street sweepers. Separately, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 18) explaining that his state is part of a 24-state lawsuit against the EPA and a 17-state lawsuit against the California climate regulators.

SH 130 Concession Gets New CEO
The 41-mile toll road between Austin and San Antonio has recruited a new CEO, after its current one ended his term and relocated to Australia. Taking the reins is Ananth Prasad, former Secretary of Transportation in Florida and more recently CEO of the Florida Transportation Builders Association. Prasad has over 25 years of transportation experience, with HNTB and Florida DOT.

U.S. Highway Construction Costs Down Slightly in FY2025 Second Quarter
Quarterly increases in transportation construction costs soared at double-digit rates during fiscal years 2021, 2022, and 2023. Since then, quarterly changes have been in the single-digit range, with the April-June quarter actually down by 3.66% The data were released by FHWA on Dec. 26.

European Commission Considers Softening EV Mandate
As part of its new Competitiveness Compass plan, the European Commission is considering introducing some flexibility in its electric vehicle mandates, the Wall Street Journal noted. It suggests that the vehicle energy/emissions targets could be changed to be technology-neutral.
 
Reconsidering Robert Moses
As a transportation geek, I was fascinated by Robert Caro’s lengthy 1974 biography of Robert Moses, the powerful transportation leader who managed major transportation improvements in metro New York City for decades. As portrayed in The Power Broker, Moses bulldozed his way through opponents to impose his vision. But according to “Robert Moses, Reconsidered,” by Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute, many of the projects Moses led and managed were originated and championed by powerful planning groups, such as the authors and promoters of the 1929 Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs. It’s worth another look at Moses, who championed a whole system of parkways that were far “greener” than subsequent expressways.

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Quotable Quotes

“The idea that the last Administration and Congress, much less this one, would do goldilocks [permitting] reform, only fixing problems that environmentalists, clean energy advocates, and the climate movement were concerned about, was always fanciful. Just as a simple matter of politics, reducing the permitting burdens for clean energy was going to require fixing those burdens for everything—not just fossil infrastructure but things like transportation, forest management, and mining. Moreover, the days in which NEPA and other legacy environmental laws were used exclusively by environmentalists to stop things that were bad for the environment are long gone, if they ever existed. Even in that mythical past, those tools were often used to block things like nuclear power plants, rail projects, and housing that were clearly, on balance, good for the environment.”
—Ted Nordhaus and Nikki Chiappa, “Permitting Reform for Me and Not for Thee,” The Breakthrough Journal, Jan. 27, 2025

“[Gov]. Newsom only inspires more cynicism. It’s irrational and irresponsible to dismiss the many accurate critiques from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, an official engineering ‘peer review,’ and journalists who have documented a decade-plus of broken state promises. Examples:

• Voters were told in 2008 the $43 million project would be completed by 2020, But no route is close to done, and the price tag is now at least $135 billion.
• Voters were told in 2008 that private investors would be eager to invest in the project . . . But High Speed Rail Authority analysts warned months before Proposition 1A’s approval that private investors were very unlikely to team with the state because the measure banned public subsidies if the system was losing money. The analysts were exactly right. No credible private partner has ever come forward.
• The only conceivable way a bullet train could get from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours [as promised] is if it can go over 200 mph for much of the way. But it faced extreme obstacles in acquiring land in Silicon Valley and northern Los Angeles suburbs—way back in 2011! Instead, a ‘blended’ system reliant on regular commuter rail for the last 40 miles or more on each end of the trip was pushed through by Gov. Jerry Brown.

“This is only a short list of all that has gone wrong with the project on course to be the biggest public works boondoggle in U.S. history. Newsom should have listened in 2014 when a wonky, well-informed state leader announced he had concluded that the troubled project was no longer a worthwhile use of billions in taxpayer funds in a state with so many other needs. That leader: Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.”
—Editorial Board, “Sticking with Bullet Train Fiasco a Bad Look for Democrats,” San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 10, 2025

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Source: https://reason.org/transportation-news/is-it-time-to-rethink-the-u-s-department-of-transportations-role/