On July 11, 2018, our Washington DC NBC4 station aired an unconscionable and sensationalistic two-minute "news" story titled "
Lawmakers Consider Adding More I-66 Tolls", with the prominent tag line "
Costly Commute" : [
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Lawmakers-Consider-Adding-More-I-66-Tolls-487932251.html ].
The story begins with a video clip of slow-moving, congested I-66 traffic (eastbound in the late afternoon just east of N Sycamore St), which of course is not how I-66 operates when tolling is in effect. Introducing the story, news anchor Wendy Rieger says, amidst muffled laughter, "and now there is talk about putting even more tolls on one of our most notorious roads, the beloved I-66".
Local
transportation reporter Adam Tuss then graphically reminds viewers of
the notorious "sky-high" "near $50" I-66 tolls before asserting: "but now, now there's chatter about putting tolls on both inbound and outbound sections of the road during both rush hours". The text version of the story states "...and now lawmakers are discussing adding more tolls on Interstate 66" in the "reverse-commute" direction.
Oddly,
this story fails to identify even one "lawmaker". In fact, the only
public official mentioned at all is Virginia Transportation Secretary
Shannon Valentine, who is currently not a "lawmaker".
More critically, this story never bothers to say why I-66 is now tolled, much less explain that the congestion-priced tolling has created a virtuous cycle that 1) ensures fast and reliable trips for I-66 express bus passengers, carpoolers, and toll payers; 2) invests much of the new toll revenue in expanded multimodal travel options in the corridor that benefit the toll payers, and 3) is now moving many more people on our regional urban core's finite highway capacity--without diverting scarce transportation funds from other projects--and with no overall worsening of traffic congestion on nearby parallel roads.
Instead, the story primarily features "man on the street" reactions to more "sky-high" tolls from two
motorists buying gasoline at the Exxon station at Lee Hwy and Washington
Blvd in East Falls Church, in an attempt to illustrate strong public opposition to
the "ripoff" tolls. In doing so, this story merely perpetuates the public's ignorance of the many and substantial benefits of VDOT's Transform 66 initiative and exploits populist opposition to paying tolls.
Meanwhile, Tuss ignores the real-time I-66 tolling signs in the
background which display westbound toll prices of only $1.50 to travel the two tolled
I-66 segments from East Falls Church to I-495 South.
Although
one of the interviewed motorists is a professional chauffeur who, of
course, would pay no toll at all for a congestion-free trip whenever chauffeuring even one passenger, that fact isn't mentioned either. His false remark that "only the rich can afford to drive, to be on the 66" is left unchallenged. Surely, this chauffeur's passengers would prefer to avoid I-66 congestion during their trips and would not want their pickup times delayed by I-66 congestion either.
Critically, this sensationalistic story mentions none of these project benefits documented in
VDOT's Transform66: Inside the Beltway Six-Month Performance Report (individual slides from this presentation are referenced below}:
2) The tolling regime is now moving
thousands more people/day on I-66 during the tolling hours (
more than 5,100 additional vehicles
in May 2018 vs January 2018, nearly half of which are HOV2+; Slide 30) and with
no overall degradation (actually, a modest overall improvement) in the
traffic congestion on nearby parallel arterial roads (Slides 9-12, 19-22).
3) The notorious, "sky-high" AM tolls are charged only during the peak of
the former HOV2+ hours (i.e., 7:30-9:00 AM), when the proportion of carpools is highest and most solo motorists could not lawfully use
I-66 at all before the tolling was implemented. From 5:30-6:30 AM, the average eastbound toll has been less than $2.64 (Slide 25).
4)
Only 0.28% of all I-66 toll payers paid more than $40 for a one-way trip during the first six months of tolling (Slide 24).
5) Since tolling began, crashes along I-66 have decreased 12.% eastbound and 15.0% westbound, saving lives, time, and money (Slide 34).
In addition, as the travel modeling in
VDOT's 2015 Transform66 Tolling Study predicted, due to far less travel demand and HOV (toll-free) travel in the reverse-commute direction,
reverse-commute tolls, if ever implemented,
would have far lower average prices (e.g., 1/5th or less) than the current average toll prices in the peak direction only (see Slide 19 in that presentation). Furthermore, even if many reverse commuters diverted from I-66 onto alternative routes, the excess reverse-commute capacity of those alternative routes would keep them from becoming severely congested.
Moreover, most solo motorists could readily use I-66 for free during tolling hours,
simply by traveling with a prescreened passenger matched by a
professional ridesharing service or a "slug" passenger waiting at a growing
number of
slugline locations. In addition, ample nearby toll-free
parallel expressways and arterial highways exist, and the time needed to
drive those alternative routes is generally not substantially longer
than using the congested I-66 prior to the tolling (
e.g., 3.2 minutes longer to TR Bridge from EB I-66 @ I-495 via I-495 and Rte 50 at 6:00 AM [Slide 32], 1.9 minutes *shorter* to TR Bridge from EB VA-267 @ I-495 via I-495 and GWMP to TR Bridge [Slide 33]) .
In other words, nobody is forced to pay the I-66 tolls, and hardly anyone is unduly penalized by avoiding the tolls. Paying the I-66 tolls is entirely a choice, and thousands of additional motorists have begun voluntarily paying those tolls in recent months in exchange for a faster and more reliable trip.
NBC4's website touts "Adam Tuss and the News4 team" as "covering everything that slows you down on roads and transit", but this "news team" failed miserably at explaining the many virtues of VDOT's Transform I-66 congestion-pricing program; namely, that it has vastly improved both motorist and express bus speeds and already moves many more people along the corridor, with no diversion of scarce federal or state transportation funds from other projects or programs or any other public expenditures.
In
short, this despicable "news" story was produced solely to generate
controversy, not to enlighten the public or better people's lives. We must tell NBC4 management that such "yellow journalism"
is clearly unacceptable and demand that NBC4 air a full and fair rebuttal to this unbalanced I-66 tolling story.
