In 1989, then-Gov. Jim Martin and the North Carolina legislature fashioned an ambitious and expensive package of highway improvements. A key element of the resulting Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) was the construction of beltlines or outer beltlines around Charlotte, Raleigh, and other major cities.
Since then, a lot of water has flowed under the proverbial (crumbling) bridge. Cost projections for the highway projects turned out to be low. Revenue projections from higher motor-fuels taxes turned out to be a bit high, primarily due to increasing fuel economy — drivers are getting more miles to the gallon, so they are paying less of a “user fee” per mile traversed than they used to.
Another factor is that the political forces who detest urban freedom (what some call “sprawl”) and advocate Dumb Growth policies have targeted beltlines for particular opprobrium. Supposedly, these kinds of highways gobble open space, increase rather than decrease traffic congestion, and fuel low-density development patterns.
We’ve published or publicized a lot of work debunking Dumb Growth mythology, including the attack on highway construction. But today I would call your attention to a paper by Dr. David Hartgen, a professor at UNC-Charlotte and an adjunct policy analyst with the Locke Foundation. He looked at the impact of belt construction in Ohio during the 1990s, and came up with some interesting conclusions.
One of Hartgen’s conclusions, based on the available data, was that the construction of beltlines did not increase overall traffic congestion. Indeed, he pointed out that traffic congestion is largely a consequence of employment growth, so if it’s really so horrible a local recession is precisely the right solution. He also noted that “traffic congestion will increase unless roads are widened.” You might think this an obvious point, but there is actually a cottage industry of spurious research and people peddling it to the effect that building highways worsens traffic.
On belts, Hartgen found that low-density development is not a consequence of beltway construction. If a city has a belt, the location of that development might be affected, but without a belt it just goes elsewhere in the region. Overall, he found, the construction of beltlines probably has a modest positive impact on congestion for arterial highways and for the system as a whole. On the other hand, freeways, including the belt itself, do fill up with traffic.
If a road was well planned and located, people should find it preferable to their previous routes of travel. As I’ve written before, the time to fire your politicians is when they build a highway and it doesn’t fill up with traffic.
We shouldn’t let our local Beltway Bandits hijack our highway system..
Hood ([email protected]) is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.