Thinking Bigger (and Smarter) in Texas
By Wendell Cox and Alan Pisarski

Through the Texas Metropolitan Mobility Plan (TMMP), Texas has become the first state to adopt traffic congestion reduction objectives for its urban areas. The plan emerged from the Governor’s Business Council and provides a “road map” for improving traffic congestion and for maintaining and even improving the competitiveness of urban areas. The critical steps are as follows:

1. Identify potential urban area mobility goals. The GBC/TMMP process has used a maximum traffic congestion goal for this process.

2. Develop general system improvement requirements for each potential mobility goal. Alternative strategies, such as transit improvements, can be a part of the mix so long as their contribution to traffic reduction is obtained at a cost lower than alternative highway projects.

3. Identify the funding requirements to achieve each potential mobility goal. It is important to not prejudice the planning process by focusing on financing mechanisms before adopting the mobility goal and the outline of strategies required to achieve the goal. Premature attention to funding options can lead to a preference for particular projects that might be better suited to one funding option or another (such as gasoline taxes or tolling). The question of “what it will cost” should not be asked until the determination has been made with respect to “what is needed.” At the same time, it is a mistake to simply presume that a particular mobility goal is too expensive. This is often the response of planners, perhaps due to legitimate doubts that sufficient funding can be obtained, or due to ideological concerns that seeking such goals is inappropriate. In fact, whether a goal is too expensive cannot be known until it has received a cost/benefit assessment. As the GBC-II experience has found, the very exercise of seriously examining aggressive mobility improvement goals can result in much less costly requirements than can be anticipated before such a process has been completed.

4.  Adopt the final urban area mobility goal from the alternatives considered.

Texas's approach does not accept further decline assured by financially constrained plans, and pursues a goal that responds directly to congestion needs, raising the necessary resources through revenue strategies, including conventional finance and tolling (including public-private partnerships). It asks what is necessary, rather than what can be afforded within current funding constraints. The maximum traffic congestion goals will be different among implementing metropolitan areas, based upon the importance that regional leadership places on reducing congestion. The principal advantage of a TMMP-type process is that it is needs-driven and can thus be the mechanism for significant improvements in urban mobility, and in urban economic performance.

The GBC report was unique because of the prevailing view that we “cannot build our way out of congestion.” The basic principle behind the GBC report was to ask the unthinkable: just what would it cost to “build our way out of congestion.” Traditionally, once having examined the cost, it could have been deemed too expensive. The GBC process shows, however, that at least in Texas, it is by no means too expensive, and yields far more substantial benefits than its costs.

Wendell Cox is principal of Wendell Cox Consultancy and a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. Alan Pisarski is a transportation consultant and author of the popular book series, Commuting in America. This piece was excerpted from a forthcoming Reason Foundation study.

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