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Blog.Wired.Com -
You're returning to the office for a mid-day doctor's appointment and it's looking like you'll be ten minutes early for your three o'clock meeting when you see more bright red than a presidential electoral map of Oklahoma. After inching along for twenty minutes, you arrive at the head of the traffic jam and find a road crew repainting lane lines. Infuriating, right? Get used to it. As budgets bust across the country, more states are looking to move nighttime work to day in order to save money.
Art Kinsman, Director of Government Affairs for AAA of Southern New England told Wired.com that increased daytime road work is the result of some really tough economic times. "Daytime work causes more congestion, more wasted fuel, more emissions, people not getting from point A to point B on time, and that costs money too," Kinsman said. "That?s a sign of how difficult it is right now in
transportation to make it work. There?s just not enough revenue coming in." In the meantime, drivers stuck in daytime traffic contribute to pollution and idle away gallons of fuel each year.
The alternatives to daytime roadwork aren't that appealing, either. There's very little support for raising taxes, increasing tolls, or letting infrastructure crumble. Plus, daytime roadwork has benefits for workers and motorists beyond saving money on overtime. How would you balance these competing interests? Let us know after the jump.
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Daytime construction has taken a particularly heavy toll (har, har) in cash-strapped Massachusetts. Kinsman, who may have been stuck in some of the same Mass Turnpike traffic jams as this writer, told Wired.com that leaders in Boston would have to "step up and take some hard votes" in order to finance construction without jamming roadways with workers.
"As a motorist advocate, the shifting to the daytime does not make me happy. On a personal level as a motorist, it doesn't make me happy," Kinsman said. "The alternative is we need to do something. Sometime in the next couple of years, motorists are going to have to ante up something -- an increase in the gas tax or other revenue-generating methods that can be employed."
That doesn't sit well with Linh Tanh Ngo, the creator of a Facebook group entitled "What?! Daytime road construction again?! This is just bad politics." Ngo, who has been stuck in traffic while living in both Maryland and Louisiana, believes that higher taxes aren't a solution. "Only when government funding has been depleted should there bean increase to income/tolls/other taxes," Ngo told Wired.com. His solution? "The most favorable choice is to implement daytime construction on small roads only. Doing so should help prevent morning traffic accidents and save time for everyone."
It's also important to remember that motorists and the media are guilty of overestimating the financial incentive of moving nighttime roadwork to the day. There's a reason why nighttime work costs more: it's more dangerous to work at night, and the quality of work suffers. A 2001 metastudy (PDF) from Oregon State University found that in nearly all cases, worker safety is most important among decision-makers who determine what time of day construction will take place. Traffic control and congestion tie for first and second. Coming in dead last are cost, air quality, and fuel consumption.
Pretend you are a governor, making hard choices that affect how much motorists pay for gasoline and road-use, how often they waste time stuck in traffic, and how well motorists and non-motorists breathe. What tradeoffs or policy recommendations would you make? We fully expect to hear from both the "build more roads!" and "high speed rail now!" contingents.
Photo by flickr user teamperks
Daytime Roadwork Saves Money but Aggravates Drivers | Autopia from Wired.com {...} You're returning to the office for a mid-day doctor's appointment and it's looking like you'll be ten minutes early for your three o'clock meeting when you see more bright red {...} Indexed: November 1, 2008, 10:24 am - Page Size: 74KB |