Route 3 Widening

[BostonUrbEx]

Ex-transportation official pitches plan for private companies to widen Route 3 south, recoup costs with tolls


The former state official who championed the public-private coalition that widened Route 3 north of Boston a decade ago is proposing a new partnership south of the city to widen Route 3 between Braintree and Norwell and pay for it with toll lanes.

The proposal, from a team led by a former Massachusetts deputy transportation secretary, Ned Corcoran, cites as a model the Virginia Department of Transportation’s newly opened high-speed toll lanes on the Capital Beltway.

Buses and carpools can use segregated lanes on Virginia’s Beltway (Interstate 495) for free, while single-occupancy vehicles pay a toll that varies, based on traffic congestion and time of day. The highway remains publicly owned, but private companies shouldered much of the cost for adding lanes and rebuilding bridges and overpasses in exchange for the right to collect the tolls.

“It’s something that I’ve thought for a long time needs to happen here in Massachusetts in order to find ways to expand infrastructure, and Route 3 south is a road that isn’t [otherwise] going to get redone for decades,” Corcoran said.

As a lawyer based in Quincy, Corcoran has worked in recent years on successful smaller-scale partnerships in New England and assisted a team that considered bidding on the billion-dollar Virginia project.

Massachusetts officials say they are not interested in widening Route 3 south of Boston but are intrigued by the possibility of public-private partnerships to help the state address aging infrastructure or accelerate other projects.

“They had a very interesting proposal,” said Frank DePaola, highway administrator for the state Department of Transportation, who met with Corcoran’s team recently. “It’s an intriguing process to do it, to fund public construction using private money, then recover it over a period of time.”

Drivers who traverse the 21 miles of Route 3 between Route 128 and the New Hampshire border know Corcoran’s work, if not his name. As chief counsel for the Massachusetts Highway Department in the 1990s, he encouraged a unique approach to expedite a stalled plan to widen that highway to three lanes from two in each direction, and to complete it in less than five years.

Traditionally, the state asks companies to bid on permitting and design for a project, then takes those permits and plans and asks others to bid on construction. The state pays for those contracts at the time of the work by issuing bonds, repaying debt over decades using federal grants and state taxes.

But a cap on the amount the state can borrow limits the number of transportation projects pursued at one time, meaning some are postponed or broken into bite-size chunks. One example is the widening of Route 128 between Wellesley and Randolph, a project once expected to take five years before being fragmented into six projects, each with separate contracts, over 15 years.

With the widening of what is known as Route 3 north, the state saved time by calling for planning, engineering, and construction companies to partner and bid on the design and construction as one package. They asked the winning team to finance the project itself and get paid back by the state over time, leaving public bonding capacity unaffected — a move that required special legislation.

Pairing design and construction for one streamlined bid has become the model for major projects in Massachusetts, but officials have moved cautiously on expanding private involvement.

The 2009 legislation that merged MassHighway and other agencies into one Department of Transportation established a commission to review future public-private partnerships — not just to pair government with private companies for design, construction, and financing but also for possible long-term operations and maintenance.

But that seven-member commission was never appointed. Department of Transportation spokeswoman Cyndi Roy said that was partly because other work associated with the creation of the department took priority, but also because of the challenge of finding volunteers with expertise who would not want to pursue contracts themselves.

But Corcoran’s proposal has spurred the state, which plans to fill the commission early in the new year, DePaola said.

Though especially interested in Route 3, Corcoran encouraged the state to consider partnerships across the Commonwealth. “It’s the next major wave of innovation,” he said. “There’s tremendous interest in pursuing this” from the private sector.

Eric Bourassa, transportation director for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, said the council generally opposes widening Route 3, which might hasten sprawl at the expense of transit-centered development.

He endorsed private investment to speed projects the state can not immediately afford — if state and regional planners back them — but cautioned against ceding too much control.

“If you can build something and have a private entity be a part of it, especially on a capital project, that’s great,” he said. “If they mean privatization of public assets, I don’t think that’s what we want to do.”

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...ith-tolls/7RE5fEzpbwUoxH6VWsX2vI/story-1.html

 

[Ron Newman]

If you extended the hours when the shoulders are converted to active travel lanes, would that achieve the same goal without spending any money to widen the road?

 

[cden4]

So MassDOT recently announced they want to triple the mode share of walking, bicycling, and transit each. Widening highways would surely not contribute to that goal. How about we actually expand and improve transit? We are already widening Route 128.

 

[datadyne007]

If you extended the hours when the shoulders are converted to active travel lanes, would that achieve the same goal without spending any money to widen the road?

Breakdown lane travel use is dangerous and extremely ill-advised. Rt 3 is one of those sub-standard roadways that needs to be brought up to at least standard.

 

[mass88]

Breakdown lane travel use is dangerous and extremely ill-advised. Rt 3 is one of those sub-standard roadways that needs to be brought up to at least standard.

Agreed. The practice of having people drive in the breakdown lane needs to end. It's dangerous and causes tough situations on on/off ramps.


While I am all in favor of beefing up mass transit in the city of Boston and metro area, the expressways in this area need to be improved and brought up to modern standards first. The 128 widening project is going to go a long way to improving things in the ares. I am not saying we need to be like Houston, or Los Angeles with massive freeways and interchanges, but making what we have more efficient, safer and overall better is important.

 

[Equilibria]

Agreed. The practice of having people drive in the breakdown lane needs to end. It's dangerous and causes tough situations on on/off ramps.


While I am all in favor of beefing up mass transit in the city of Boston and metro area, the expressways in this area need to be improved and brought up to modern standards first. The 128 widening project is going to go a long way to improving things in the ares. I am not saying we need to be like Houston, or Los Angeles with massive freeways and interchanges, but making what we have more efficient, safer and overall better is important.

It doesn't have to happen first, but it does have to happen. Other cities have already demonstrated what happens when we over-invest in transit and let sub-standard roadways fester: highways become dangerous parking lots and the transit produced is less-than-impressive (see: Portland, OR).

 

[Arlington]

So MassDOT recently announced they want to triple the mode share of walking, bicycling, and transit each. Widening highways would surely not contribute to that goal. How about we actually expand and improve transit? We are already widening Route 128.

This can advance that goal.

First, the plan is transit-friendly: Both bus transit and ridesharing can be promoted by this plan for HOV-Toll lanes (or HOT lanes, as Virginia is calling theirs on the Capital Beltway), especially if it can tie all the way north to today's zipper lanes on I-93. In HOT lanes, multi-occupant vehicles use a transponder and go toll-free. Bus can really benefit by being able to be faster than single-occupant vehicles, and you may also see ride-sharing "slug lines" form (http://www.slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp).

Slugs (people picked up at designated points to allow drivers to avoid tolls) generally finish their commute trip on foot (promoting walking!) or by transit (probably rail in downtown). South Station, Aquarium, Chinatown, and Prudential are all natural T-stops for slug lines to arise and facilitate a ready exchange of people between downtown transit and HOV lanes. Slug lines work best with a limited number of endpoints on the trunk (initially anyway) and along a new 3 we'd expect them to arise at "morning coffee" locations close to the HOT entrances all down the line.

And there's no reason why a multi-use path can't be incorporated at the cost of a rounding error if you're comprehensively rebuilding things (as they propose...but path advocates will have to make their voices heard). In Virginia, the bike-related improvements were mostly *across* the beltway on better overpasses (radially from the city...which was a priority... but not along the beltway, which was a missed opportunity).

Route 3, being a radial route, if it includes a bike lane on either side, might work, with, Braintree (or Quincy) being as natural a bikeway terminus as Alewife is for the Minuteman Bikeway.

And finally, it is a toll road of the sort that transit advocates say that cars should be using so that they can pay both for their infrastructure (through tolls) and for their externalities (through the gas tax).

HOT can be a huge, multi-modal mobility win. I look forward to it.

 

[massmotorist]

The problem I find with these lanes is if they're physically separated you need to create separate breakdown lanes for them, which is a much less efficient use of resources than just adding a lane to the existing roadway. You also run into the problem of it actually not being any faster when you get stuck behind the guy who wants to do 55 and can't pass because it's one lane in each direction. To be clear these are solvable problems (the lanes don't necessarily need to be physically separated). There's other things I don't like about this (the tolling aspect) but I won't rehash that.

The bigger issue is that this sort of thing is a really dumb and expensive way to finance public infrastructure that stems from a phobia of government fees/tolls/taxation and results in a higher possibility of corruption, rent-seeking, and inefficiency. This is a hilarious quote:

“They had a very interesting proposal,” said Frank DePaola, highway administrator for the state Department of Transportation, who met with Corcoran’s team recently. “It’s an intriguing process to do it, to fund public construction using private money, then recover it over a period of time.”

Um, we've been doing that for hundreds of years. It's called bonding. State issues bonds, collects money, repays over a period of time. Yes, there's a bond cap, but that's an artificial constraint that can be legislated away far more easily than legislating "public-private partnerships". Massachusetts has an excellent bond rating and can surely get lower rates than a private company. It's much cheaper and simpler for the state to issue bonds, finance construction, and then pay them back (whether using funds from tolls, taxes, or whatever) than the Rube Goldbergesque idea of granting a government monopoly to a private company and having them issue bonds and collect the money. And you don't create a whole other rent-seeking political entity that gets contracts through political connections (like Corcoran).

In the end, the public pays for the infrastructure. Funneling the money through a private organization rather than simply taxing or tolling and paying public employees to do the job is silly and obfuscates accountability.

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

Um, we've been doing that for hundreds of years. It's called bonding. State issues bonds, collects money, repays over a period of time. Yes, there's a bond cap, but that's an artificial constraint that can be legislated away far more easily than legislating "public-private partnerships". Massachusetts has an excellent bond rating and can surely get lower rates than a private company. It's much cheaper and simpler for the state to issue bonds, finance construction, and then pay them back (whether using funds from tolls, taxes, or whatever) than the Rube Goldbergesque idea of granting a government monopoly to a private company and having them issue bonds and collect the money. And you don't create a whole other rent-seeking political entity that gets contracts through political connections (like Corcoran)

EXCELLENT point MassMotorist. And allowing private development and quasi-private ownership of public assets kind of give me the willies. Lack of transparency is always an issue in these cases.

 

[Arlington]

EXCELLENT point MassMotorist. And allowing private development and quasi-private ownership of public assets kind of give me the willies. Lack of transparency is always an issue in these cases.

Not always an issue. Toll roads are better at this, with an established, competitive market for Public-private partnership (PPP) and many good examples across the US and around the world to appeal to. The bad PPP examples tend to be from non-road infrastructure like parking meters, airports, and water works. The more exotic, the more no-bid/sweetheart. But this should be OK.

US 3 between Burlington and New Hampshire is a good example of PPP where the builder provided financing and did design-build and the state paid a priced determined in a competitive process.

And Virginia happens to have good examples, like the Dulles Greenway (toll only) and now the 495 Express Lanes (a mix of toll, HOV and free such as Rt 3 might get)

The southern US3 is a big wide right of way with a narrow, crumbling road.

The problem I find with these lanes is if they're physically separated you need to create separate breakdown lanes for them, which is a much less efficient use of resources than just adding a lane to the existing roadway. You also run into the problem of it actually not being any faster when you get stuck behind the guy who wants to do 55 and can't pass because it's one lane in each direction.

The toll-road builders are smarter than that: In Virginia they have 2 HOT lanes and variable-rate tolling to make sure that the Toll road always looks worth its premium price (tolls in VA range from $0.20 per mile off-peak to $1.25 per mile peak)

I'd be sure that the HOT US3 would get 2 toll lanes+ shoulder and guess that they'd want to do only 2 or 3 (same as now) for the free lanes.

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

Toll roads are better at this, with an established, competitive market for Public-private partnership (PPP) and many good examples across the US and around the world to appeal to.

Agreed that toll roads are better and this and corruption can be prevented through regulation. Trouble is that doesn't always happen. On any kind of beauty contest (even simple design-builds) it's not always clear which consortium gets chosen or why. Is it more important that the road gets built cheaply (low tolls) or with a longer lifespan (and higher tolls)? There are nuanced issues like this that can be used to push the contract towards a friend.

US 3 between Burlington and New Hampshire is a good example of PPP where the builder provided financing and did design-build and the state paid a priced determined in a competitive process.

The lead builder went out of business shortly after completing this project. Rt 3 wasn't the sole reason for that, but the contractor lost massive amounts of money on the project, so I'm sure it was a contributing factor.

 

[Arlington]

The lead builder went out of business shortly after completing this project. Rt 3 wasn't the sole reason for that, but the contractor lost massive amounts of money on the project, so I'm sure it was a contributing factor.

And the Dulles Tollway went bankrupt, like the Chunnel and most US railroads--but along with US3 (North) are mostly a "wins" for the economy and the traveling public. We're happy to have these things that wiped-out shareholders and pinched bondholders paid for

But the risks of going over budget are (1) why perhaps the State doesn't want that risk either and (2) why the private partners demand a higher return when things go well. Private partners also seem better at not letting $2b estimates turn into $14b traps (see also Big Dig).

 

[Matthew]

I-93 south of Boston is considered to be overly congested. And they want to add more cars to that by expanding Route 3? Why?

Is there some consideration about how this fits into the overall picture? Or are they just trying to shove more traffic at I-93 without any care? Widening for the sake of lucrative contracts, likely.

 

[Ron Newman]

highways become dangerous parking lots and the transit produced is less-than-impressive (see: Portland, OR).

I'm all for anything that moves us more towards the success story that is Portland, OR.

The only investments we should make in highway infrastructure are to keep what we have from physically falling apart. And sometimes not even that -- best to simply allow Bowker Overpass and McGrath Highway to further decay and then demolish them once they fail inspection.

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

I-93 south of Boston is considered to be overly congested. And they want to add more cars to that by expanding Route 3? Why?

Is there some consideration about how this fits into the overall picture? Or are they just trying to shove more traffic at I-93 without any care? Widening for the sake of lucrative contracts, likely.

This is a great point. Yes there are bottlenecks on Rt 3 at the Braintree split and where it drops a lane at Exit 15. But there are also bottlenecks on I-93 at South Bay, Neponset and the Braintree split. Increasing the volume of Rt 3 might reduce (at least temporarily) the impact of the Rt 3 bottlnecks, but it will only exacerbate the I-93 bottlenecks.

 

[omaja]

I'm all for anything that moves us more towards the success story that is Portland, OR.

What would we have to aspire to? We already have core that is 3x denser and more developed with a significantly better transit system that has ridership light years ahead Portland. All of that is without significantly more freeway lane miles per capita.

 

[Ron Newman]

It's supposed to be the most awesome city in the US for bicycling, and pretty damn good for pedestrians too. They were a national leader in removing an ugly riverfront freeway and turning it into a park (now named after the Republican governor who made it happen).

 

[Arlington]

This is a great point. Yes there are bottlenecks on Rt 3 at the Braintree split and where it drops a lane at Exit 15. But there are also bottlenecks on I-93 at South Bay, Neponset and the Braintree split. Increasing the volume of Rt 3 might reduce (at least temporarily) the impact of the Rt 3 bottlnecks, but it will only exacerbate the I-93 bottlenecks.

I'd speculate that I-93 is already so bad that it can't get worse, but that HOV & Bus use on I-93 would go up as shared-ride trips could "beat the traffic" for a long way.

The toll-paying users use the new 3 to access the widened 128 to go around (or to "cut in line" in front of their free-road neighbors from the South Shore). And you could bike to the Braintree T.

 

[choo]

there is always an awkward backup where it goes from 2 to 3 lanes going northbound in weymouth. I have never been able to figure it out, but it happens.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I-93 south of Boston is considered to be overly congested. And they want to add more cars to that by expanding Route 3? Why?

Is there some consideration about how this fits into the overall picture? Or are they just trying to shove more traffic at I-93 without any care? Widening for the sake of lucrative contracts, likely.

3 itself is no picnic. The lane-drop at 18 in Weymouth fucks up the flow end-to-end on the highway...downwind to Duxbury on the 4-lane + breakdown travel portion and upstream to Braintree with all the weaving at the lane drops. And the breakdown travel, while being a stupid idea to begin with, actually makes things worse when something...uh...breaks down by leaving a lower-capacity choke than if you weren't using the shoulder at all.

There is an induced demand risk as with any add-a-lane project, but Braintree is still going to be the 'governing' traffic valve so it's not like add-a-lane to 3A in Duxbury or 44 in Plymouth opens the road up to too many more people. But it makes a huge effing difference if the driver who gets on at 3A or 44 can stay in the same lane all the way to Braintree. Because it's the weaving that kills the flow with everyone having to juggle left/right/left/right/shoulder/right, etc. on the 4-lane portion and then the Weymouth lane drop/add scramble causing flow ripples up to Braintree. A little consistency and a lot less lane-swapping makes that an infinitely better trip. Plus the Braintree Split upgrade proposals themselves space out the ramp/weaving ugliness between Burgin and Furnace Brook Parkways, Burgin/37, and Furnace Brook/37. The Split's always going to be a constrained interchange, but by spacing out the exits on all 3 prongs of the interchange and all the weaving required to to those exits it does greatly reduce the lane-switching and improve the flow.

The big idea here is "pick a lane and drive in it" for the whole trip to/from the South Shore and the Expressway, where before that option was never available. It eliminates dozens of decisions the typical 3 driver today has to make on any one trip about switching lanes to jockey for position or get around slow or likewise lane-switching vehicles. Eliminate those decisions, and it flows a shitload better with minimum of kinks. Nothing short of giving 93 full breakdown lanes through town is actually going to increase total capacity, on any of the roads feeding into it, but much like all the 128 work eliminating weaving and restoring regular shoulders works wonders for flow and absorbing disruptions.