Bush Approves Transfer: America Adds $8 Billion in Debt

From the AP (via Forbes):

The bill transfers $8 billion from the Treasury’s general fund to shore up the financially teetering highway trust fund, which supports road and bridge projects around the country. In July, the White House threatened a veto, saying taking money from the general fund was “both a gimmick and a dangerous precedent that shifts costs from users to taxpayers at large.”

Supporters of the transfer argued that the Treasury was merely returning $8 billion it took from the then-prospering trust fund in 1998 for deficit reduction.

So basically, to cover “paying off the deficit” back in the 1990’s, lawmakers took money out of the highway trust fund (the checking account where all the gas tax revenues go). Which is funny because I thought the budget surplus was from income tax revenues, but I guess everything gets included in this. So now that the Schumer hits the fan (I swiped that from www.survivalblog.com, which I think is a great euphemism for the actual phrase, if not accurate), the money gets “loaned” back. Of course, this just means that whatever “debt reduction” is done is actually just been eliminated. Awesome accounting guys.

But this also means that the states get their precious highway money, construction companies’ political contributions and lobbying did not go in vain, and whatever useless highway projects that this money is being spent on can continue. At least until next year.

What I also found interesting is that one proposal floated by the Bush administration was to reduce the MASS TRANSIT portion of the trust fund. Motorists, you’ll be happy to know that your gas taxes are going toward those empty regional transit buses you’re stuck behind on the road. Of course, the Democrats wanted nothing to do with that, being that they love mass transit, even if it is cross-subsidized by motorists.

And the same thing has already happened with Social Security. The government has been using the money in the SS trust fund to pay for the usual stuff. So in about 2020, when the trust fund starts to run out, the government will just “get the money back” from the Treasury, since it was already “loaned out”. So don’t worry, Social Security WILL BE SAVED. You’ll just end up paying 50-80% income taxes to do it.

Government: The largest legal Ponzi scheme ever created.

Columbia’s HOV Future – Part 1 (I-26 Lexington County)

As an update, The State has posted a somewhat more in-depth article on the proposal for HOV lanes in the Central SC area. They didn’t go into any more specifics than what you could get from the wire service article I posted yesterday, except they interviewed one person, someone who works for local governments. Not exactly an expert on transportation issues, but this is a newspaper. Yet, Keven Cohen thinks this is a good article. Not exactly Kevin.

But onto what I want to, which is what The State should be doing, a more in-depth look at what the situation currently is and what can be done.

The first area I want to discuss is the stretch of I-26 in Lexington County. Here’s some stats on the stretch of highway:
Start: Exit 108 (I-126 into downtown Columbia)
End: Exit 116 (I-77, US 21, 321 and 176 exits)
Length: 7.22 miles (per the AP)
Interchanges:

• Exit 108 A – Bush River Road (Part of Malfunction Junction)
• Exit 108 B – I-126 (Part of Malfunction Junction, also a left exit)
• Exit 110 – US 378 (Exit terminates at one of the few SPUI interchanges in South Carolina, leading to some… interesting driving maneuvers.)
• Exit 111 A & B – US 1 (Cloverleaf interchange with VERY short merge lanes)
• Exit 113 – SC 302 (Exit to Columbia Metro Airport, mingles with frontage roads)
• Exit 115 – US 21, 321 and 176
• Exit 116 – I-77 (Another left exit with two lanes)

Lanes:

• 3 in both directions between Exits 110 and 113.
• 4 Lanes westbound (northbound) between Exits 110 and 108.
• 4 Lanes Eastbound (southbound) at mile 114 to Exits 115/116

Notes:

• This stretch of highway never goes into Lexington (as The State article says), it’s stays well to the east of Lexington city, while remaining the whole time in Lexington County, which is a big difference)
• This stretch of highway was widened to three lanes already, very much limiting the ability to expand or even shift the alignment to accommodate any changes.
• Originally, at Exit 108, it was two lanes into Columbia (via I-126) and ONE lane through for I-26. This suggests that the original alignment was to continue closer to Columbia or for I-26 to move straight and I-126 to exit left, but the geography of the area, in particular the Saluda River, prevented that from happening.
• The cheapest gas in Columbia can be found at the Bush River Exit.

Map

View Larger Map

Biggest Problem:
Old Interchanges with Poor Alignment. Most problems on this stretch of highway occur at the exits, in particular, the US 378 exit (traffic will back up on the ramp and to the highway due to poor clearance for right-hand turns onto US 378 ) and the US 1 Exit (sharp turns and a very short merge between the first on-ramp and the second off-ramp for this cloverleaf style interchange).

Malfunction Junction (I-20/26/126/Bush River Rd./St. Andrews Rd.) is a completely different story and requires an entry by itself.

Possible Solutions:
Additional Lanes: Not likely. This is due to the expansion already completed in the area and the quasi-urban surroundings on I-26 especially between US 378 and SC 302. However, this wouldn’t solve the interchange problems without dedicated lanes for each exit. This is possible for US 378, unlikely for US 1 or SC 302. However, past I-77 to the south, an additional lane can and should be added as this becomes a bottleneck for traffic to Charleston and I-95 (Florida and Georgia coast).
Converting Current Lanes to Carpool Lanes: Most Likely, but still difficult. There would need to be some realignment of the road to accommodate separating the carpool lanes from mainline traffic. It helps here that traffic is not too bad that the loss of a lane would seriously tie up traffic. But due to the proximity of the exits, it would be difficult to allow for traffic to get off at multiple exits. There may have to be limits on which exits HOV vehicles would be allowed to enter or exit at.
Converting Current Lanes to HOT Lanes: Unlikely. The proximity of the exits would make putting tolls in a problem, requiring a station every mile or so. Also exacerbates the entrance, exit areas problems with additional merges and lane changes. The other problem with HOV/HOT lanes is that it wouldn’t allow for traffic to stay separated past I-77 (east/southbound) due to the left exit. Traffic would have to blend or merge before that point or result in a much more costly fly-over and touchdown on the other side of the 26/77 interchange.

Most Likely Solution: Convert left lane to Atlanta-style HOV lane.
Best Solution: Realign US 378 and US 1 exits to allow for better flow of traffic. No HOT/HOV lanes.

Outside of the merges with exits, there are not problems with traffic flow itself. It also helps that I-77 takes a good portion of northbound traffic on the other side of the city, allowing for traffic to by-pass the city to the east. While there is some commuting from this area to other parts of the city, most commuting in this area is east-west, while this stretch of I-26 is primarily north-south. This is area of I-26 in the area with the least problems.

South Carolina Considers Carpool Lanes

From The State:

Lanes that will encourage carpooling on Interstate 26, Interstate 126 and Interstate 20 in the Midlands are being studied by the S.C. Department of Transportation as an option to relieve growing road congestion.

Less traveled HOV lanes — or High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes — would be set aside for vehicles traveling with at least one passenger. The quicker access those lanes provide have encouraged carpooling in states that have HOV lanes.

If such lanes are created, SCDOT is also studying whether to give drivers without passengers an option to pay a toll and use the less traveled lanes.

Last month, SCDOT began exploring this idea on a 22-mile stretch between Charleston and Summerville on I-26.

HOV lanes are being considered in the Midlands because of the growing suburban population in Lexington County, Northeast Richand and Irmo.

Sections of I-126 and I-20 cannot be widened. SCDOT says traffic will double by 2030.

SCDOT is studying HOV lanes for these four commutes:

• IRMO to DOWNTOWN. A 9.22 mile section of I-126 between Irmo and the Huger Street exit. This is one of the two most heavily traveled interstate highways in S.C.

• I-126 to I-26. A 7.22 mile section of I-26 starting at the I-126 interchange near Bush River Road and headed east toward Orangeburg

• I-20 to I-126. A 6-mile section of I-20, east of Interstate 77.

• NORTHEAST RICHLAND to LEXINGTON. A 14.45-mile section of I-20, west of the I-77 exchange in northeast Richland and stretching to west to U.S. 378 in Lexington County. SCDOT says this section of highway is heavily graveled and cannot be widened.

Ignoring the poor formatting of the article there are three areas they are studying:

1. I-26 to I-126 into downtown Columbia
2. I-26 from I-126 east toward Charleston
3. I-20 from Spears Creek Rd to US 378 in Lexington, a 20 mile stretch of road.

The next three days I’ll look at these three areas and see what it looks like now and what should be done. Here’s a general guideline:

• Increasing capacity is good
• Decreasing capacity is bad
• Market-based tolls are good
• Revenue-based tolls are bad
• Simplifying traffic patterns is good

We’ll start tomorrow off easy with I-26 Eastbound between I-126 and Gaston. It’ll be easy because it’s really simple to look at and critique.

Congress Considers Punishing Drivers for Politicians Mistakes

Call it the law of unintended consequences. Call it massive ignorance of cause and effect. Call it whatever you want, but Congress is getting ready to not cut the gas tax in the face of rising costs.

They would increase it.

According to multiple sources, Congress has not only rejected the gas tax holiday proposed by Sen. John McCain and others, but is now getting ready to INCREASE the gas tax.

The reason is that Congress’ eyes are starting to get too big for their stomach. Congress and their buddies in the road construction business are beginning to realize that there is actually a limit on how much pork they can hand out for roads. And after doing to budget crunching on the gas tax holiday, the government now realizes that they can’t keep handing out the goodies without something to back it up.

This is somewhat ironic in a government that has lived off of deficit spending for most of the 20th century and continuing into the 21st. By law, Congress is limited in their spending by the amount of money in what is called the Highway Trust Fund (hey, it’s like the Social Security Trust Fund!). Once the US completed the Interstate Highway system in the late 1980s. Money continued to flow from the gas tax as consumption increased, but highway construction came to a standstill. So with all this money to play with, Congress did what Congress does best: spend like it’s their last day on the job.

Of course, at the same time, under the guise of… something, Congress started putting fuel economy standards on cars. So people started to use less gasoline for their cars. For a while, the increase in the amount of drivers offset the decrease in the amount of gasoline purchased, so income grew (Again, like Social Security). But so did spending out of the Trust Fund (I’m seeing a parallel here). Now, revenues are decreasing, but Congress and their pork-addicted campaign contributors in the construction industry still want to spend more money (Somebody stop with the analogy to social security…).

So now they’re at a crossroads: they want to keep spending, but they won’t have the money to do so. Right now, this is where the comparison stops with social security, because SS will still have a surplus for the next 10 years or so. But the Highway Fund is about to run out of money. Congress, since they don’t have to pay for these things out of their own pockets, will do the honorable thing:

Increase taxes.

Instead of cutting the pork, they’ll make prices even more expensive for drivers in the months ahead. Instead of putting the money to good use, they’ll keep funneling other people’s money to their campaign contributors. Instead of weaning themselves off an unsustainable path, Congress will just keep enabling their behavior without consequences. (Ok, that’s more like social security again).

So what can be done about it? Since people don’t like voting out incumbents very much (thank you gerrymandering and campaign finance laws), we’re stuck with the same people. But if you speak up to your representative or senator, there is just maybe a chance that they’ll think they have a shot at losing an election. And that fear will scuttle any type of pork raising on the part of Congress. But they have to fearful of losing their privileged position before anything can be done.

So tell Congress to get their priorities in gear and stop making drivers pay for the politicians shortsighted policies.