BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: AB 2090
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: fong
VERSION: 6/5/14
Analysis by: Eric Thronson FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 17, 2014
SUBJECT:
High-occupancy toll lanes
DESCRIPTION:
This bill allows local agencies to restrict high-occupancy
vehicle access to its high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes contingent
on the vehicle having an electronic transponder, and replaces
level-of-service (LOS) requirements for those lanes with new
performance measures.
ANALYSIS:
In 1970, the Legislature passed and the governor signed AB 1
(Biddle), Chapter 1295, which, among other things, authorized
the state to construct preferential freeway lanes for
high-occupancy vehicles (HOV lanes). AB 1 specified that it was
the intent of the Legislature to encourage individual citizens
to pool their vehicular resources and thereby lessen emission of
air pollutants.
The theory behind carpool-only lanes is that, in heavily
congested areas, these lanes should be less congested than
all-purpose lanes and therefore faster, inducing people who
might otherwise not carpool to do so in order to avoid the
heaviest congestion. Increasing the number of carpools, in
turn, should reduce the overall number of cars travelling in the
corridor (as drivers leave their cars at home in favor of
sharing a ride with someone). In order to be effective, HOV
lanes must be less congested than other lanes, otherwise the
incentive is lost. Highway lanes with lower congestion
typically are able to accommodate more vehicles and still
maintain their allure. This additional capacity has value.
AB 2032 (Dutra), Chapter 418, Statutes of 2004, authorized the
San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the Sunol Smart
Carpool Lane Joint Powers Authority, the Santa Clara Valley
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Transportation Authority (VTA), and the Alameda County
Congestion Management Agency (now known as the Alameda County
Transportation Commission or ACTC) to construct HOV lanes and
convert them to HOT lanes. HOT lanes are HOV lanes in which the
administering agency sells any extra capacity to toll-paying
single-occupant vehicles. AB 2032 declared the Legislature's
intent that these HOT lanes increase efficiency of the
transportation system by taking advantage of existing capacity
without forfeiting the congestion mitigation and air quality
benefits provided by HOV lanes.
HOT lanes typically employ a pricing method known as value
pricing or congestion pricing. Under this scheme, the amount of
the toll varies in accordance with the level of congestion in
that particular lane, such that as congestion increases, so too
will the toll amount. As the price to use the lane goes up,
fewer people presumably will choose to use it, thereby reducing
demand for the facility and maintaining free-flow travel
conditions. With this mechanism, an agency can attempt to
ensure that operation of the toll facility does not undermine
the intended benefits of promoting carpooling with access to the
faster HOV lane.
Existing law requires that high-occupancy vehicles have
unrestricted access to the HOT lanes authorized by AB 2032 at
all times. Existing law also requires that SANDAG, VTA, and
ACTC operate their HOT lanes such that they maintain a
particular LOS as determined by the California Department of
Transportation (Caltrans).
This bill :
Allows SANDAG and VTA to restrict high-occupancy vehicle
access to its HOT lanes contingent on the vehicle having an
electronic transponder for law enforcement purposes.
Deletes LOS requirements on HOT lanes operated by SANDAG and
VTA and requires these agencies instead to develop appropriate
alternative performance measures with Caltrans' consent.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . According to the author, this bill is important
because it allows SANDAG and VTA to automate enforcement of
toll evaders in their HOT lanes to a much larger degree. This
bill also enables these agencies to take a
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corridor-by-corridor approach in determining appropriate LOS
standards to maximize the effectiveness of their HOT lanes and
better manage traffic flow.
2.What would the carpool restriction mean ? Currently, any
vehicle with two or more occupants can enter into the HOT
lanes operated by SANDAG and VTA without paying a toll. This
bill may result in that no longer being the case, as passage
of the bill would enable SANDAG and VTA to adopt a policy in
which only vehicles with switchable transponders would be able
to access for free their HOT lanes. A switchable transponder
is like a Fastrak device with a switch on it that allows the
driver of the vehicle to signal the number of occupants in the
vehicle. In this way a driver can switch from a toll-paying
single-occupant driver to a non-paying carpooler with a flip
of the switch on his or her transponder.
SANDAG and VTA will not be the first public agencies in
California to restrict carpool access by requiring a
transponder. The express lane on SR 91, operated by Orange
County Transportation Authority, as well as the toll bridges
in the Bay Area require carpoolers to use transponders to take
advantage of the free or reduced fares on their facilities.
The HOT lanes operated by Los Angeles County Metropolitan
Transportation Authority (LACMTA) on Interstates 10 and 110
require switchable transponders for carpools. Existing law
authorizing these entities to operate toll facilities does not
require them to provide carpoolers unrestricted access,
enabling them to require transponders.
According to LACMTA, their market research found that more
than 70 percent of existing carpoolers would continue to
carpool even with a transponder requirement because they like
the idea of reducing the number of cheaters in the lanes.
LACMTA's finding also suggests that nearly 30 percent of
carpoolers responded that they would not continue to carpool
with the transponder requirement. Research related to prior
bills involving the privacy aspects of transponders suggests
that there is a segment of society who prefer not to use
transponders for fear of the government or others tracking
their movement and location. Others are distrustful of or
uncomfortable with technology in general and oppose using
electronic transponders for those reasons. Finally, visitors
from out of town likely do not own transponders and therefore
would be restricted from using the HOT lanes.
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Regardless of the reason, adding this restriction for
carpoolers to accessing the HOT lanes will likely lead to a
reduction in high-occupant vehicles in the lane. The only
carpoolers accessing the lane will be those who are
intentional carpoolers, drivers of vehicles who preemptively
obtained a new switchable transponder for the purpose of
accessing the HOT lane. Incidental carpoolers, drivers who
might not want transponders for some reason, and carpoolers
from out of town will be forced into the general-purpose
lanes.
3.Why switchable transponders ? SANDAG and VTA contend that
switchable transponders are needed for HOT lanes in order to
improve enforcement of non-paying single-occupant vehicles
accessing the lane. LACMTA reports that, by requiring
switchable transponders, their violation rate is 10 to 15
percent lower than what other HOT lanes experience (from 20-25
percent violation rate to 10-15 percent violation rate).
Administering agencies suggest that enforcement is important
because drivers who either pay the toll or appropriately
access the lane by carpooling get very frustrated and upset
when they see "cheaters" who access the lane illegally. It is
hard to understand, however, how one driver may know that
another driver in a single-occupant vehicle did not pay the
toll for accessing the lane and is therefore cheating the
system.
Another potential reason for requiring transponders and
improving enforcement is to reduce the number of vehicles
illegally accessing the lane and therefore creating increased
capacity and improved travel times for those appropriately
using the facility. Reducing the number of violators also
increases the number of toll-paying vehicles that can access
the lane before the lane slows down so much that it no longer
provides an incentive for use. Increasing the number of
toll-payers ultimately increases the amount of revenue the
administering agency can collect. Finally, improved
enforcement can help reduce the amount of leakage in the HOT
lane's revenue stream. Reducing the number of free riders by
10 percent could equate to essentially a 10 percent increase
in revenues.
4.The potential danger of HOT lanes . Many transportation
experts suggest that HOT lanes represent good transportation
finance policy because they can accomplish two aims - namely,
encouraging carpooling and selling access capacity to generate
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much-needed transportation revenue. By accomplishing these
two goals, however, HOT lanes also create a tension between
competing interests. At some point, operators have to choose
between the two objectives, because successfully filling the
lane with carpoolers will adversely affect revenue, and vice
versa. The Legislature has clearly indicated in past
legislation that encouraging carpoolers is its priority.
Administering agencies operate these toll facilities and keep
the revenue for their own use, potentially tempting them to
operate the lanes to maximize revenue instead of the number of
carpoolers. SANDAG, VTA, and others adamantly object to the
idea that they would do so, but the temptation remains.
Local agencies administer these toll facilities based on the
authority the Legislature grants them in enabling statute. At
the time it passed AB 2032, giving SANDAG and VTA the
authority to operate HOT lanes, the Legislature required
unrestricted access for carpoolers to the lanes. This bill
allows these agencies to institute a relatively minor
restriction for carpoolers. While there may be good reasons
to enact this change, it is important that the committee take
note of the change in policy and be aware of the precedent it
sets. Further changes to HOT lane policies have the potential
of eroding the facilities' ability to encourage carpooling for
the sake of increasing HOT lane revenue generation.
5.Changing LOS requirements . As mentioned previously, this bill
also changes the LOS requirements for the HOT lanes operated
by SANDAG and VTA. LOS is a commonly used, nationally
recognized measure of the "density" of vehicles traveling in a
given highway lane. LOS standards incorporate several
measurement components, including maneuverability, driver
comfort, effect of minor incidents, average travel speed, and
spacing between vehicles. Unfortunately, in the case of HOT
lanes, LOS may not be the best method to manage traffic flow.
The complicated LOS standard can lead to unintended
consequences, like closing the lane to toll-payers because of
a minor incident even though traffic in the lane is otherwise
free-flowing.
Further, federal law more efficiently protects the flow of
traffic in HOT lanes by essentially creating a speed floor.
Federal law requires HOT lane operators to constantly monitor
their systems and discontinue toll-paying single-occupant
vehicle access when traffic flow has degraded to an average
operating speed of 45 miles an hour. The federal government
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has determined that this requirement ensures that the HOT
lanes remain free-flowing enough to induce carpooling. With
this in place, and as long as Caltrans is involved in and
agrees to any further LOS requirements, it seems reasonable to
allow local agencies to determine the best way to manage their
HOT lanes, as they ultimately deal with the consequences of
the lanes' performance.
6.MTC supports but seeks amendments . The Metropolitan
Transportation Commission (MTC), the Bay Area regional
transportation planning authority, supports the goal of this
bill to allow VTA to require switchable transponders on its
HOT lane facilities. MTC's letter also recommends that the
committee take a comprehensive approach to HOT lane
legislation so that MTC can fulfill the goal of developing a
regional HOT lane network. MTC suggests that the committee
integrate changes in this bill with changes in AB 1811
(Buchanan), also in this committee, in order to ensure that
HOT lane rules in the Bay Area can be consistent. MTC's
concern is that, if the committee passes this bill and AB 1811
in their present versions, it will be more difficult to
implement MTC's regional HOT lane network because they contain
slightly different language. At this point it is unclear
whether the differences in the bills will cause a serious
impediment for MTC.
RELATED LEGISLATION:
AB 1811 (Buchanan) allows ACTC to similarly restrict carpool
access to their HOT lanes contingent on the vehicle having an
electronic transponder. Also on today's agenda in the Senate
Transportation and Housing Committee.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 71-2
Appr: 17-0
Trans: 14-1
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on
Wednesday, June 11,
2014.)
SUPPORT: Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
(sponsor)
Metropolitan Transportation Commission
San Diego Association of Governments
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San Mateo County Transportation Authority
OPPOSED: None received.