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In recent days, I've been focusing a great deal of attention upon highways and road congestion and perhaps some might find that strange, especially for the director of an organization focused upon wildness. But please consider this. Ten years ago I began speaking of the recreation fee demonstration program as being "the thin edge of the wedge" and today we can see in a growing number of places, the thick end of that same wedge.
Ten years ago I began speaking of a transformation I called "The Corporate Takeover of Nature" and today we are, on a daily basis, being confronted with "The Corporate Takeover of Everything". It just so happens that in that battle, the fight has turned particularly HOT.
I'm drawing your attention to the appended article because it draws attention to the efforts of the "Reason Foundation" to bring their pay-to-play war to this new battle front.
Have a look at what the Reason Foundation's founder Robert W. Poole Jr. is saying below. Then understand that the Reason Foundation's most recent past-President is today the second most powerful person in the Department of interior. Here's how Lynn Scarlett is described on a government website:
The Assistant Secretary - Policy, Management and Budget (PMB) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) discharges the authority of the Secretary for all phases of management, budget and other administrative activities and serves as the principal policy advisor to the Secretary. She co-chairs the Recreation Fee Leadership Council, an interagency group to coordinate recreation fee policy and practices.
Prior to joining the Bush Administration in July 2001, she was President of the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, a nonprofit current affairs research and communications organization.
The point I hope to convey is that the thin edge of the wedge about which I used to talk has now deeply cleaved the fabric of our democratic republic and our nation is now far along the path to becoming a plutocratic ownership society.
If the issue of recreation fees never interested you, then perhaps the issue of road privatization will. And if not that, then perhaps the privatization of Social Security, or Medicare, or the military, or...
If you've already been actively fighting on the right side of this issue,
then please consider sharing these thoughts with those who may not have yet made these connections. Thank you. Scott
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February 26, 2007
Some cool to HOT lanes
Dennis Welch, J. Craig Anderson, Tribune
How much are you willing to pay to escape gridlock during rush hour?
Five dollars? Ten? That’s what motorists in other nearby states are
forking over to drive on toll lanes to avoid the bottlenecks, headaches
and aggravations of bumper-to-bumper traffic.
But the actual costs for drivers in Arizona remain unknown — even as
two major proposals that would convert existing car pool lanes into
toll lanes make their way through the Legislature.
With the state’s population exploding, Arizona drivers are spending
more and more time stuck in slow-moving traffic. And as HOV lanes stack
up, local transportation experts question whether there would be any
benefits to converting them to High Occupancy/ Toll (HOT) lanes for
drivers willing to pay a fee to speed up their trips.
The toll would be charged to drivers alone in their cars who clearly
don’t meet the HOV lane minimum requirement of at least two occupants.
But those in car pools could continue to use the lane for free.
A review of similar programs in nearby states, including California and
Texas, show the costs of these HOT lanes can add up quickly. For
example, it costs commuters in Orange County, Calif., $9 to drive a
10-mile stretch of road during peak rush hours.
“It can get real pricey if you use it all the time,” said Kirk Avila,
general manager for the 91 Express Lanes. Most commuters use the toll
lane once or twice week.
The plan has helped relieve some traffic by getting vehicles out of the
normal lanes, he said, and drivers like to know the option is there in
case they need to get somewhere in a hurry.
The Orange County model is similar to the one put forth by Arizona
Republican senators, including the chairman and the vice chairwoman of
the Senate Transportation Committee: Ron Gould of Lake Havasu and Pam
Gorman of Anthem, respectively.
Buses and those in car pools could still drive free in the HOT lane,
but single drivers would be charged a fee that would vary depending on
traffic volume. The more backed-up traffic becomes, the more costly it
would be to drive the toll lane.
“There’s no way I’d pay nine bucks,” said Gould, referring to the Orange County pricing structure.
While Gould doesn’t know how much drivers would be charged, he believes it wouldn’t be more than $4 to $5 during rush hours.
That’s in line with a 2002 study by the Parsons Transportation Group,
which examined the feasibility of HOT lanes for the Arizona Department
of Transportation and the Maricopa County Association of Governments.
Drivers would pay an average of about $3 to use the toll lanes on most
Valley freeways during peak travel times, the study projected. On the
more congested Valley roads, though, drivers could be charged nearly $5.
There’s money to be made, too. The study estimated some stretches of
toll lanes could bring in as much as $20 million in annual net revenue.
Gould was unsure where that money would go.
However, he said he’d prefer that any private company in charge of the
program be limited to collecting 10 percent of the profit.
But the idea of turning the HOV lanes into toll lanes is receiving a
cool reception from some commuters using car pools from the East Valley
into Phoenix on a regular basis.
Debbie Tooker, 55, described it as a “classist” idea because it benefits the rich.
“Why should they get an easy way out when the rest of us can’t afford
to?” said Tooker, a Gilbert resident who has used car pools for most of
the past four years.
Heather Bake, also a Gilbert resident who commutes to Phoenix, is among
those critical of the proposal. She said the HOV lanes already are
backing up and converting them to HOT lanes won’t help.
Bake also questioned how the state would police the lanes for cheaters
in the HOV lane who don’t have any passengers, despite the lane’s
minimum requirement of two.
“I don’t see how they’re going enforce this. There’s already ... a lot
of drivers using the (HOV) lane when they shouldn’t,” she said.
Local traffic experts agree the HOV lanes are getting full. Eric
Anderson, a spokesman for the Maricopa Association of Governments, said
with that, he’s unsure whether such toll lanes would make a big
difference in relieving traffic.
Supporters of HOT lanes argue they benefit drivers who don’t pay to
drive on them because it takes paying drivers out of the regular lanes
— freeing up traffic.
Robert W. Poole Jr., founder of the libertarian think tank Reason
Foundation, supports building HOT lanes because pricing is a way to
regulate traffic flow.
“The car pool lane itself is not a sustainable longtime policy,” said
Poole, whose nonprofit foundation is based in Los Angeles. “There is no
way to limit the number of vehicles in these lanes.”
Poole said market-driven prices that fluctuate according to the volume
of traffic congestion is a way to limit the number of drivers in the
toll lane and free up traffic.
Poole, a longtime transportation policy analyst, has examined traffic
trends in the Valley and warned it needs to do something soon before it
turns into another Los Angeles.
He estimated Valley drivers spend about 50 hours a year sitting in
traffic. But with the state’s population expected to double during the
next two decades, drivers will find themselves stuck in traffic even
longer. Poole projected that a 30-minute commute today will extend into
50 minutes by 2030.
Keeping pace with the growth requires billions of dollars invested in
road construction, he said, but “it’s unlikely that (ADOT) can afford
to add the number of lanes needed.”
Poole advocates HOT lanes as a possible solution.
But opponents argue there is hidden detriment to creating such lanes: the environment.
Diane Brown is executive director of Arizona Public Interest Research
Group, a public policy organization pushing for tougher
pollution-control measures in HOV lanes to encourage people to use car
pools and drive low-emission vehicles.
“Allowing someone to use an HOV lane just because they have the
financial means — that’s a step in the wrong direction,” she said.
“You’re basically shifting the problem from one lane to another and
taking away an incentive to improve public health.”
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- Privatization 
