Government Policies Forcing Americans to Move to Cities

Obama’s Plans for the Suburbs: And How to Stop Them

March 18, 2013

National Review - Last Friday’s headlines focused on President Obama’s address at Argonne National Laboratory, where he proposed to spend $2 billion on an energy-security trust fund for renewable fuel research. Obama boldly pledged “to shift our cars entirely . . . off oil.”

How exactly is he planning to do that? Research will have an effect over time, but “entirely off oil” is either a greatly exaggerated or a very incomplete account of the administration’s energy plans. The New York Times story on Obama’s speech dryly notes that although the president “has vowed to make addressing climate change a priority in his second term . . . he has provided only scant details on how he intends to act.”

Look closely, however, and it’s possible to spot some troubling plans. The Times, and just about every other major news outlet, neglected to note that on the day of Obama’s Argonne speech, the Department of Energy released a series of coordinated reports called “Transportation Energy Futures” (developed in cooperation with Argonne). This DOE project explores a variety of strategies designed to curb America’s greenhouse gas emissions up to 80 percent by about 2050.

Arguably the most controversial of those reports covers the “effects of the built environment on transportation.” To put it plainly, the “built environment” report lays out strategies the federal government can use to force development away from suburbs and into cities, supposedly for the sake of reducing carbon dioxide emissions given off by all those suburban commuters. The Obama administration wants to force so-called smart growth policies on the country: get out of your car, stay out of the suburbs, move into small, tightly-packed urban apartment complexes, and walk or take public transportation instead of driving.

The Department of Energy’s built environment report lays out a scenario much like the one I described in Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities. The report highlights two policy options most likely to increase dense, Manhattan-style urban development, without exceeding the traditional limits of federal authority. Those options are eliminating the home-mortgage interest deduction and conditioning future federal aid of all kinds on local adherence to “smart growth” principles. Of these, I think the second is the most likely to be implemented. The built environment report also says that the most convenient bureaucratic channel through which to manage such federal pressure is the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

The built environment report acknowledges that conditioning federal aid on population density would be political dynamite. And this, of course, is why Obama loudly touted his plans for an energy security trust fund, while downplaying the DOE’s report release. Essentially, the built environment report suggests that federal funding on new schools or roads might be held to population density criteria that would starve projects in suburbs in favor of those in cities. I’ve argued elsewhere that these so-called smart growth policies are about a lot more than greenhouse gases. The global warming issue serves here as a justification for wealth redistribution on a grand scale.

The other major, yet still largely unnoticed, energy story from last Friday was the Bloomberg report on the Obama administration’s plans to order all federal agencies to consider global warming (i.e. carbon dioxide emissions) before approving large projects. I’ve already discussed the potential of this new administrative order to block construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Yet the impact of these new Obama administration guidelines will likely be far wider.

The Bloomberg report notes that once carbon dioxide emissions can be invoked in court, not just oil pipelines but even highway construction can be delayed or blocked (all those suburban commuter fumes). So Obama’s new regulatory guidelines may shortly give environmental groups the power to call a halt to a whole series of suburban development projects.

How can these changes be fought? Publicity helps. Controversial policies like “smart growth” often operate under the public’s radar. Obama wants the energy debate to focus on benign-sounding research plans, while his administration’s interest in placing the massive power of federal funding behind urban densification strategies goes unnoticed.

The other way to block Obama’s plans is to have Congress cut funding for the Sustainable Communities Initiative. In particular, future funding for the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program ought to be eliminated. Although the cost of these planning grants is small, their potential impact is large, especially if the administration follows through with the built environment report’s option of conditioning a wide range of federal aid on local adherence to so-called smart-growth planning. (I described these troubling “sustainability” grants in “Obama’s Plan for Ohio.”)

Budget-cutting House Republicans were able to halt funding of Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants in fiscal year 2012. Blocking that funding again with a targeted public campaign wouldn’t entirely end the program. There are still plenty of fully-funded planning grants out there. Even so, a successful public battle over future funding for these “Sustainable Communities” planning grants might discourage the administration from carrying through on the sort of anti-suburban proposals contained in the built environment report.

It may already be too late to prevent the administration’s new directive on carbon-dioxide pollution standards from sparking a series of court challenges to suburban highway construction, and perhaps other forms of suburban development as well. But it’s not too late to prevent the most powerful blow of all — the aggressive use of conditional federal funding to Manhattanize America.

Tea Party take note. You might want to encourage your representatives in Congress to block future funding for Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants. A public battle on that issue just might discourage the administration from pulling the trigger on its most draconian anti-suburban plans.

Related:

Social Engineering is Forcing People into Cities Because It is Easier to Track and Control an Urban Population

White House OKs Mandate for Vehicle ‘Black Boxes’

NHTSA gets White House OK to mandate vehicle 'black boxes'

December 6, 2012

Detroit News - The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to finalize a long-awaited proposal to make event data recorders standard on all new vehicles.

In a notice posted Thursday, the White House Office of Management Budget said it has completed a review of the proposal to make so-called vehicle "black boxes" mandatory in all cars and trucks, clearing the way for NHTSA to publish its final regulation.

Nearly all vehicles currently have the devices.

NHTSA's proposed rule, which would raise the percentage of vehicles required to have an EDR from 91.6 percent today to 100 percent of light-duty autos, would have an incremental cost of nearly $24.4 million, assuming the sale of 15.5 million light vehicles per year.

In 2010, Congress considered requiring EDRs in all vehicles by legislation.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers — the trade group representing Detroit's Big Three automakers, Toyota Motor Corp, and Volkswagen AG — said the government needs to take into account driver privacy.

"Event data recorders help our engineers understand how cars perform in the real world but looking forward, we need to make sure we preserve privacy. Automakers do not access EDR data without consumer permission, and any government requirements to install EDRs on all vehicles must include steps to protect consumer privacy," said spokeswoman Gloria Bergquist.

In February 2011, NHTSA said in a White House report that it would make a proposal by the end of 2011 making EDRs mandatory.

That proposal was delayed at the White House Office of Management Budget for more than a year without comment.

NHTSA said in August the agency was still working on making EDRs mandatory.

"The agency has made it a priority to work toward a proposed standard that would mandate these devices on all passenger vehicles on the nation's roadways," spokeswoman Lynda Tran said.

"NHTSA remains committed to proposing a standard in the coming months that will help save lives by ensuring both automakers and the agency have the necessary data to make continued improvements in vehicle safety." NHTSA says the "rulemaking to mandate EDRs across the entire light-vehicle fleet could contribute to advancements in vehicle designs, and advanced restraint and other safety countermeasures."

Many automakers already include them in all vehicles, including General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Toyota and Mazda Motor Co.

Different automakers collect different data. In 2009, not all Toyota EDRs recorded both pre- and post-crash data. By the end of last year, all Toyota and Lexus vehicles included EDRs that can record both.

In May 2010, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers endorsed making EDRs mandatory in all vehicles, but expressed concerns that some in Congress wanted more elaborate and expensive ones than are available.

The devices have been in use for about 20 years.

GM began widely installing the predecessor version of today's event data recorders in vehicles in the 1990 model year, and they became standard equipment in light-duty vehicles in the 1995 model year.

NHTSA previously issued a new regulation standardizing data collection for event data recorders.

The rule, issued in August 2006, took effect for the 2013 model year that started Sept. 1, standardizes the information EDRs collect and makes retrieving the data easier. Devices must record 15 data elements, including vehicle deceleration, in specific formats.

The recorders collect data for the seconds of a crash, including whether the driver is wearing a seatbelt, speed and whether the brakes were applied.

Drivers Accept Monitoring Devices to Earn Discounts on Auto Insurance

Drivers Accept Monitoring Devices to Earn Discounts on Auto Insurance

September 30, 2012

Forbes - More and more drivers are inviting their insurance companies to ride along and monitor their driving.

The idea behind so-called “pay as you drive” or “usage-based” insurance is simple enough. As State Farm puts it: “Safer drivers should pay less for auto insurance.”

Nobody can argue with that in theory.

But privacy advocates worry that the new forms of insurance discounts – especially policies that employ GPS data — create the potential for corporations to monitor a lot more than just how many miles we drive, and how fast we do it, especially location.

For their part, the insurance companies promise not to misuse the data. Progressive Insurance, which has been advertising its “Snapshot” device for more than a year now, says its monitoring device doesn’t even use GPS technology and can’t capture location data.

Progressive says its device measures how often you brake hard, how many miles you drive each day and how often you drive between midnight and 4 a.m. It does not track whether you’re speeding or your location, the company said.

However, many competing programs using GPS data potentially could, even if the insurance companies promise not to use it.

“The best way to protect a consumer’s locational privacy is to not collect the data in the first place,” according to a statement from two California-based groups, PrivacyActivism and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

Those groups point out that one of the biggest aims of pay-as-you-drive programs is simply to capture actual miles driven. Cars already have a device that does that, called an odometer, they said. In other words, insurance companies could find some other, less-invasive way to capture mileage, they said.

Therefore, the groups argue, it’s unfair to make drivers choose either to accept a monitoring device and get a discount, or refuse the device to protect their privacy, and miss out on the discount.

Lawmakers Consider Vehicle Mileage Tax

Big Brother Considers Tracking Drivers’ Every Move

October 26, 2011

Personal Liberty Digest - As lawmakers face the facts of soaring deficits and a mountain of Federal debt, they may opt to rethink the way that Americans pay for the roads and highways they use every day.

According to POLITICO, the Highway Trust Fund, money set aside for resurfacing and highway infrastructure, will be nearly $100 billion in the red by 2021, and the mass transit account will be about $30 billion short. The article says that because gas and diesel taxes have not been increased in two decades, the fund has lost about one-third of its purchasing power since 1992.

Reportedly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Trucking Association and AAA have all lobbied lawmakers for an increase in fuel taxes to re-energize revenues, but Congress stands nearly unanimously against the measure. Most lawmakers say that raising fuel taxes in today’s economic climate would greatly harm businesses that rely on ground shipping services to transport goods throughout the country.

Instead of raising the price of fuel, many lawmakers support what some Americans may consider an egregious invasion of privacy to raise funding for roadway repairs. The measure would require American drivers to equip their vehicles with a GPS tracking device to measure vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The device would not only measure the number of miles traveled but also where a driver went during each trip, which route he took and the hours during which he was driving.

Some proponents of the measure say the generation raised on Facebook and Twitter — proudly posting their every move for an Internet audience — probably will not mind being tracked in their vehicles by the government.

Private Operators Are Taking Over Roads and Increasing Tolls, Which Are No Different Than Tax Increases on the People

Ohio Turnpike Lease Plans Bring Toll Hike Fears

July 3, 2011

AP - Leasing Ohio's busy toll road that links the East Coast with the Midwest has the potential to bring billions of dollars to the cash-strapped state. It also could bring higher tolls and drive more traffic onto routes that meander through small towns, opponents say.

The governor wants to lease the Ohio Turnpike to a private operator, following the lead of a handful of states and cities that have pocketed cash for their toll roads in recent years.

Governments strapped by the Great Recession also are turning to selling off and leasing office towers, warehouses and prisons.

"We can get a big chunk of money that can be used to improve our infrastructure in the state," Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Friday during a news conference. "Indiana did it. Indiana made a lot of progress."

Neighboring Indiana last week marked the five-year anniversary of its $3.8 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road to foreign investors. The state has spent much of the money on highway projects and put $500 million into an investment fund for future road construction.

Chicago leased an 8-mile highway for nearly $2 billion five years ago, and an Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Pocahontas Parkway in Virginia. But a plan to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike fell through in recent years, in part because of fierce opposition from state and federal lawmakers.

Ohio's new budget allows the state to lease nearly all of Interstate 80, which carries about 50 million vehicles each year across northern Ohio from Pennsylvania to Indiana. It also gives the state's legislature some control over any potential deals after concerns were raised about whether a new owner would take care of the highway.

Much of the resistance is being led by officials from Ohio counties along the 241-mile turnpike, which is funded through tolls and the sale of gas and food at rest stops.

"It's a terribly unfair deal for northern Ohioans who have largely paid for the turnpike over the years," said Tim Brown, a commissioner in Wood County, just south of Toledo. "It's no different than a tax increase for us."

Among the main concerns is that tolls are almost certain to go up if a private operator takes over.

Tolls have nearly doubled since investors took over the Indiana Toll Road. A 10 percent increase took effect on Friday, bringing the price to cross the northern half of the state to $9 for most cars.

County officials in Ohio want to make sure there would be limits on future toll increases if the state's toll road is leased. It's now $15 for cars making a full trip. The turnpike collected a record $236 million from motorists last year. By comparison, Pennsylvania charges $32 to travel all 357 miles on its turnpike.

Kasich, a Republican, views the Ohio Turnpike as an asset that has potential to bring more revenue at a time when the state just completed a series of spending cuts to fill an estimated $6 billion budget hole.

He thinks the state could get at least $2.5 billion in leasing it and has said the money would pay for work on roads, bridges and harbors without raising taxes.

No deals are in the works yet. Kasich officials have said they envision a 30-year lease with an initial payment and a piece of annual toll revenues.

Still, there are many more details to work out.

A five-county planning body in northeast Ohio wants most of the money to go toward projects in northern Ohio, where the turnpike money is generated. It also wants to make sure there are guarantees that a private operator will keep up with highway maintenance.

The concern is that if the road becomes too costly or goes downhill, businesses that rely on the route might relocate or it will be tougher to attract new companies.

"There's a cost to the communities that are along the turnpike," said Stephen Hambley, a Medina County commissioner who heads the planning body in northeast Ohio. "We've been paying for it since the '50s. We feel we're a majority stockholder."

That's why state Sen. Mark Wagner, a Republican from Toledo, inserted a provision to Ohio's state budget giving lawmakers oversight of any lease deals.

"We owe it to northern Ohio to do it in a responsible way," he said.

Another worry is that truck traffic will move to secondary roads and clog up the small towns along the way. That's what happened when an 82 percent rate increase took full effect in 1999. The state responded by lowering tolls and increasing speeds for truckers.

More toll hikes if the turnpike is leased will likely push a lot more tractor-trailers onto other roads, said Joe Jones, a long-haul truck driver from Charlotte, N.C. He went out of his way to avoid the turnpike's toll booths while hauling machinery from upstate New York to Chicago on Friday.

"It puts another 60 miles on the trip, but I hate paying tolls," he said while refueling at a truck stop just outside Toledo.

Toll Road RFID Tags: A Threat to Privacy, Anonymity and Individual Liberty

RFID1984.com - Many people consider RFID technology to be a substantial threat to privacy and liberty, especially if it appears that remotely-readable RF tags will be incorporated into a National ID Card, passport or some other form of mandatory identification — an ID card that you will be required to present when opening a bank account, entering a federal building, or buying an airplane ticket.

I'm a little surprised that the people who are so vocal about domestic surveillance haven't said much about this issue.

There are thousands of Texas motorists who have already unwittingly opened the door to government surveillance by participating in TollTag, TxTag, or EZ Pass, programs that allow the use of toll roads and airport parking garages without having to stop and deposit coins at a toll booth. Each participating motorist attaches an RFID tag to his or her car's windshield, and a device at the toll booth detects the card as the motorist zooms unimpeded through the toll plaza.

In other areas of the country, similar programs have names like SunPass, Cruise Card, EXpressToll, Fast Lane, Fastrak, K-Tag, MnPass, PalmettoPass, Pikepass, Smart Tag, I-Pass — and the best name for such a device — eGo.

A serious problem, from the standpoint of privacy protection, is that not all of the RFID tag readers are on toll roads. In Dallas, TollTags can be used to pay for parking at Dallas Love Field and DFW International Airport.* In Houston, plans are under development to allow the use of EZ TAGs at both Hobby and Bush Intercontinental airports.*

The Dallas North Tollway was the first toll road in the world to use electronic toll collection when the technology became available in 1989.* A newer variation called TxTag allows access to toll roads throughout Texas.*

So the major airports have RFID tag readers, along with the tollways, as a matter of convenience. But there is no reason that TollTag readers could not be placed at other points all over the state. This would make it easier to locate a stolen car, for example, if it had an RFID tag.

More recently, a more mysterious development has taken shape: these square white modules have appeared on TXDOT poles along the freeways in the Dallas area. They are usually mounted on the same poles as the traffic surveillance cameras, but in some locations they stand alone.

This mysterious roadside antenna is on Spur 408 in southwest Dallas. The writer knows an antenna when he sees one, and the peculiar thing about this one is that it is tilted downward, about 20°, toward the traffic.

This specimen is located at 32°41'52.0" N., 96°56'10.1" W. An inquiry to the Texas Department of Transportation produced this reply:

The units are Smart Sensors manufactured by Wavetronix. The Smart Sensor is a digital wave radar used for vehicle detection. The Smart Sensor measures vehicle volume, occupancy, speed and classification. The information gathered is NOT used for law enforcement purposes. We use the information to generate the speed map shown on our web site and to generate the travel times displayed on the dynamic message signs on the freeways.

That's interesting. The system is sensitive enough to measure occupancy of each passing vehicle? Even more interesting is the claim that the information is not used for law enforcement purposes. Why not? If their system shows a steady stream of people driving at 90 mph on the freeway, or driving on the shoulders at 60 mph, isn't TXDOT obligated to notify the police?

Updated 9/13/2008:
Today I got an informative email from a reader who clarified the use of the word "occupancy" in TXDOT's explanation above. The term refers to the percentage of time that each of the lanes on the highway is occupied -- the traffic density, in other words, not the number of people in each passing car. Obviously I had overestimated the power of this system.

SmartSensor is a 10.525 GHz Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar.* Information about vehicle movements is collected and stored. To some extent, it is necessary to retain this information in the event of a billing dispute. But there's no way to know whether the data is retained, archived, or sold to the highest bidder, or whether the information is shared with other government agencies in real time.

If the SmartSensor devices are accompanied by TollTag readers, and (someday soon) they could easily be, the technology is in place to track the movements (and speed) of people all over town, not just on the toll roads. This could be a good thing — for example, if the police are looking for a stolen car — or it could be very bad, depending on Big Brother's use of the information.

Yes, but what if you don't have a TollTag on your car? Can you travel anonymously and blend in with the crowd, without being electronically followed? No, because the state is using license plate readers as well.

Highway 121's new lanes to open in July, sans toll collection. Once collections begin, [Texas State Highway] 121 will be the first toll road in the nation without tollbooths. Motorists will be able to use their North Texas Tollway Authority TollTag in addition to the transportation agency's TxTag stickers and the Harris County Toll Road Authority's EZ TAG. People who don't have toll tags, though, won't have to stop at a booth. Instead, video cameras will capture their license plate number and send them a bill, though that will cost about 33 percent more than toll tag users will have to pay.

The Editor says...
I went up the Dallas North Tollway several months ago and never saw a toll booth, so I didn't pay the toll. Nor did I ever get a bill in the mail. I hope there's not a warrant out for my arrest!

Texas Considers Putting RFID Tags in All Cars. New inspection stickers will "contain a tamper-resistant transponder, and at a minimum, be capable of storing: (1) the transponder's unique identification number; and (2) the make, model, and vehicle identification number of the vehicle to which the certificate is affixed."

The Editor states the obvious:
This would render Toll Tags obsolete. It would also make it fairly simple to locate a stolen car, and might be an easy way to enforce the speed limits on the open highway. For example, if your car is detected in Dallas at noon and in Houston at 2:30 p.m., you were obviously speeding on I-45.

Electronic Vehicle Registration Picks Up Speed. In South Africa, at least 500,000 RFID tags are now being affixed to metal license plates to automatically identify vehicles and verify they are properly registered. Within the next two years, 10 million cars in that country are expected to sport electronic license plates. In Bermuda, meanwhile, more than half of the island nation's cars and trucks currently have RFID-enabled registration stickers attached to their windshields, and all of its trucks and cars — nearly 25,000 — are expected to have them by June of this year. Other countries — including Brazil, China, Dubai, India and Mexico — have either already begun implementing or are currently eyeing RFID-enabled vehicle identification and registration systems.

Georgia 400 To Upgrade Cruise Card eGo Tags. Georgia's State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA), which operates the GA 400 toll road in Atlanta, will be the first toll facility within the continental United States to upgrade their radio frequency identification (RFID) toll collection technology to TransCore's paper-thin eGo® tags, a lower-cost, battery-less windshield sticker tag. Almost a million eGo tags are already deployed in transportation applications, including toll roads in Puerto Rico and Brazil.

TxDOT selects TransCore RFID for tracking and tolling throughout Texas. The Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) selects TransCore's eGo® Plus radio frequency identification technology for use in the area's Central Texas Turnpike Program, a $2 billion transportation initiative. The multimillion-dollar contract allows for the initial release of 500,000 eGo Plus tags, branded locally as TxTag, with a total of 2 million tags over two years. The Central Texas Turnpike Program was designed to increase mobility by adding capacity and reducing congestion in the region.

Trusted traveler toll road system means the government will decide if and where you travel.

NAFTA Superhighway RFID Card For US Citizens. US citizens will be forced to adopt a de facto national identification card and have their freedom of mobility defined by the government under proposals set to derive from NAFTA superhighway toll road systems and the implementation of the American Union. Existing toll road systems operational at US borders such as SENTRI/NEXUS and the FAST program mandate that passing vehicles are enrolled in RFID passive tracking and identification programs linked to central databases.

Did someone mention the NAFTA Superhighway?

Pike needs to play fare: Tolls for all or no one. So now the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is thinking about setting up something called "open-road tolling," which means that instead of robbing you at tollbooths, they would record every driver's license-plate number and then rob them with monthly bills. This raises a couple of interesting questions.

Highway Tolls Key to New Jersey Debt, Spending Reform Plan. In his January State of the State address, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) unveiled a long-awaited plan to capture the value of the state's toll roads. The state would receive approximately $38 billion in cash financed by the sale of bonds backed by toll increases. According to the plan, the cash would be used to significantly pay down New Jersey's $32 billion bonded indebtedness and finance transportation projects.

RFID: A Brief Technology Analysis. Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems have been deployed in limited numbers for years. Two of the most predominant have been in the form of toll road collection transponders and security badges. Toll road authorities around the country have equipped drivers with a transponder that is connected to their credit card. This allows them to pay their tolls at 40 miles-per-hour rather than stopping to throw quarters into a basket and slow the flow of traffic.

Skymeter: Skymeter's satellite data aggregation and price matching takes all of the pain out of getting a GPS billing feed [which] can be used for Road Use Charging, Pay as you go Insurance, Parking, and any application requiring payment for vehicle use.

National RFid Center General Newsletter 09/02/2006: The roadway, known as the "Golden Corridor" is the first in the country to install all-video toll collection. Using license plate information photographed by cameras, money will be deducted from customer accounts. Those without toll accounts will have bills sent to their address, based on information from their license plates.

Video eye to scan for Newton parking lapses. Automatic license plate recognition — a kind of RoboCop of the parking world that uses a panoramic video camera, laptop computer, and sophisticated software — detects cars that have been parked too long and sounds an alert to write a ticket. The city bought three systems for $50,000 and plans to install them in parking enforcement vehicles this month.

Police partner with license plate readers. A growing number of police departments are turning to mobile camera systems to fight motor vehicle theft and identify unregistered cars. The cameras read license plates of parked and moving cars — hundreds per minute — and check them against vehicle databases, said Lance Clem, a spokesman for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which purchased several systems for its police vehicles last fall.

This license plate-scanning technology has been around for a few years already, and is in use on side streets as well as freeways. The following commentary was written in 2004:

License Plate "Guns" and Privacy: New Haven police have a new law enforcement tool: a license-plate scanner. Similar to a radar gun, it reads the license plates of moving or parked cars and links with remote police databases, immediately providing information about the car and owner. Right now the police check if there are any taxes owed on the car, if the car or license plate is stolen, and if the car is unregistered or uninsured. A car that comes up positive is towed.

Even the most gung-ho devotee of big government would have to be a little concerned about the potential for totalitarianism at this point, even if privacy is not guaranteed. Wholesale monitoring of motorists on the streets and freeways is legal. The U.S. Supreme Court has said in two cases, U.S. v. Knotts and U.S. v. Karo, that Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy when they're driving on a public street.*

"Our commuting to and from where we live and work is not done clandestinely". [Webb v. City of Shreveport, 371 So. 2d 316, 319 (La. Ct. App. 1979).]*

It is interesting that, at least for now, TollTag users can (and do) drive at speeds considerably in excess of the posted speed limit, and even though the TollTag system recognizes those drivers as they enter and exit the highway (and many points along the way), the system is not used to generate speeding tickets. This, I suspect, is to avoid making the TollTag into an unpopular snitch, and to avoid revealing that capability before some appointed hour yet to come -- perhaps after TollTags are mandatory.

Information about vehicle movements is collected and stored, at least for billing purposes. It is necessary to retain this information for some number of months, to resolve potential billing disputes. But there's no way to know whether the data is retained, archived, or sold to the highest bidder, or whether the information is shared with other government agencies in real time.

Incidentally, TollTags are vehicle-specific -- they can't be shared, even between two cars owned by the same person.* There are now over 1,000,000 of these electronic transponders in operation in the North Texas area.*

The use of the TollTag may seem to be sheer luxury, but there are places around Dallas where a vehicle without such a tag must stop and pay a toll two or three times. This results in a little more risk, more gas consumption, and more wear and tear on the brakes at every stop. TollTag users are rewarded with a discounted toll rate as well. If I needed to travel on the North Dallas Tollway every day, I would probably get a TollTag for my car. But I think I would find a way to wrap the TollTag in aluminum foil when I wasn't on the tollway. That might not keep Big Brother from following me around, but there's no reason to make that kind of surveillance any easier.

GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount; Pay by the Mile for Your Insurance

GMAC - Pay for what you use and nothing more.

Would you buy a whole pizza if you only wanted a slice?

Common sense says to only use what you need -- and only pay for what you use. That's the thinking behind the GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount, where those who drive less, save more on their auto insurance. Whatever the reason for hitting the road less often, GMAC Insurance can reward you for something you're already doing.

The less you drive, the more you save -- up to 54%* a year on your auto insurance premiums.

Feds Are Deciding This Year Whether All Cars Must Have Event Data Recorders (EDR) Installed

Is There a ‘Spying Device’ in Your Car?

June 14, 2011

The Blaze - The Chinese government is famously good at internal security, and this may be one reason why: spying devices are allegedly hidden in thousands of vehicles.

The devices, about the size of a PDA and apparently equipped to record conversations, were first installed as “inspection and quarantine cards” in July 2007 without charge by the Shenzhen Inspection and Quarantine Bureau. They seem to have been placed specifically on dual-plate Chinese-Hong Kong vehicles.

Smugglers were among the first to catch on. One of them told the Apple Daily Newspaper (as translated by the Epoch Times):

“For every ten cars we ran we only had [smuggled goods] in three or four to reduce the risk, but the border agents caught all of them. The accuracy was unreal!”

Before shrugging this off as just another police state intrusion in a far away land, you may want to take a look around your own car for a different kind of surveillance device called the EDR, or Event Data Recorder.

In general, the EDRs you will find on American cars do not have the remote, bluetooth collection capabilities alleged of the Chinese device above, and the data is considered property of the owner. But the trend in this country is moving towards more data collection from your vehicle, and more access to it for the authorities. Some would consider this cause for concern.

For years, the EDR has been the deciding factor in a number of criminal accident investigations. And the National Highway Transportation Safety Association is deciding this year whether all cars must have EDRs.

If that happens, your days of going 80 mph with the top-down on the open road are numbered. And who knows, in the future it might be best to keep your voice down when you complain about it.

Read more here and here.

Feds to Mandate Black Boxes on All New Cars

Feds to Require Black Box Event Recorders in All New Cars

May 24, 2011

DVICE - The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is expected to issue new regulations next month that will require a black box style data recorder be fitted in all new cars.

Similar in concept to the familiar black boxes used in commercial aircraft for decades, the boxes are expected to record information about speed, seat belt use and brake application in the final seconds leading up to an accident. The data can be retrieved for later analysis.

Before you start screaming about government overreach, you should know that almost every new car already has a device like this fitted at the factory. For example, GM has fitted one to almost every new car they've built since the early 1990s.

The new rules are aimed at evening out a patchwork of state laws about who can access to the data, while standardizing the devices themselves so that the data is easier to recover. Currently, the devices are used mostly be car manufacturers to cover their own butts by helping to determine whether an accident was caused by driver error, or some problem with the vehicle.

This sounds like a sensible idea, as long as strict limits are places on what data is recorded and who has access to it. The potential for abuse is huge, such as cops using it to issue speeding tickets, or GPS data being used in a divorce case to show who you were visiting. Still, the upside could be pretty significant too; for example, proving that you weren't speeding when you had an accident.

Personally, I think I'll stick with my very analog 1985 Diesel Mercedes. The most sophisticated electronic device in that car is the AM/FM radio.

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Big Brother Tracking Our Every Move By Vehicle and Public Transit

Road taxes can be easily collected by mandating the use of "OnStar GPS Technology" (a General Motors Technology). It probably also can include electronically-collecting tolls for bridges and roads. OnStar tracks where a car is at any given moment and records that info on its servers. This can be rolled out all across the country to provide complete access and eliminate paying any gas tax while traveling by using OnStar-produced monthly statements of daily mileage driven and other information. State governments have to band together with Onstar to make this happen. The billing and data collection is already in place. - Bruce Barnes, Mileage tax won't catch all road users, April 3, 2010

Get OnStar in Any Car With Retail Rearview Mirror

January 5, 2011

Switched - After almost 15 years of keeping OnStar exclusive to its own vehicles, GM is finally making the service available as an after-market add-on for other cars. The OnStar mirror should be compatible with most cars on the market when it comes out this spring for $299. On top of the retail price, you'll also have to cough up for an OnStar subscription ($18.95 per month or $199 for the year), and pay for installation (which will likely be performed by Best Buy, which just has a stellar track record).

While you'll be able to call OnStar operators for help or to track a stolen vehicle, you'll be missing out on some of the more advanced features, like remote door unlocking (in case you leave your keys in the car). The OnStar mirror does have Bluetooth, though, and can act as a hands-free speakerphone.

With more people toting smartphones packed with GPS receivers, it's harder and harder to make the case for OnStar. The biggest selling point of the original service has been the tight integration with GM vehicles, which allows for remote door opening and car diagnostics, but the retail version of the product won't be able to offer such features. If you happen to be a fan of OnStar service -- but not GM cars -- this might appeal to you, but we doubt it will suddenly double OnStar's subscriber base.

OnStar Expands Beyond GM to Any Car for $299

January 4, 2011

Jalopnik - Starting this spring, OnStar will begin selling — for $299 — "Anywhere," a standalone rearview mirror compatible with most top-selling vehicles that allows access to much of OnStar's services. Yup, it's OnStar-to-go. This may be the coolest safety-and-security gadget ever.

Basically, OnStar Anywhere is a rearview mirror — approximately the same size as your current one — that will replace your manufacturer-provided mirror. It will be available in the U.S. in spring 2011 for $299. Although that'll be closer to $400 once you factor in the cost of installation expected to run somewhere between $75 and $100 from Best Buy and other selected consumer electronics retailers.

Like OnStar now, there's a range of service plans available starting at $18.95 a month or $199 a year.

Also, like OnStar, the services that this new mirror will provide include:

Automatic Crash Response: There's an accelerometer built into the mirror that detects the sudden shock of an impact from the front, side or rear of the vehicle — and automatically calls an OnStar advisor.

Emergency Services: Pressing OnStar's red emergency button links customers to a specially trained emergency advisor for assistance in situations occurring inside or outside of their vehicle.

Stolen Vehicle Location Assistance: OnStar will tell law enforcement where it is if you report it as being stolen.

Turn-by-Turn Navigation: Downloadable spoken turn-by-turn directions for reaching customers destinations.

Roadside Assistance: In non-emergency situations, drivers can push the blue button to help with problems like a flat tire or running out of gas.

Hands-Free Calling: Hands-free, voice-activated calls through a Bluetooth connection to the driver's mobile phone or through prepaid packages of minutes purchased through OnStar.

Basically, it'll do all of the things I want my mom's car to do, except now she doesn't need a GM vehicle to do it!*

This isn't the first foray for OnStar into the world of non-GM vehicles. For a short time, OnStar service was available on vehicles produced by Acura, Audi, Isuzu, Subaru and Volkswagen through a licensing agreement. But this goes beyond that — and takes OnStar somewhere its never been — a consumer electronic device.

Yup, GM's now using OnStar to make devices and providing services that could potentially compete with Microsoft, Apple and the rest — and it's leveraging OnStar's unparalleled brand equity in the world of safety and security to do it.

As of now, the OnStar mirror is certified to work on 99% of the 20 best-selling non-GM vehicles over the last ten years. That's approximately 55 million cars and light trucks.

OnStar expects to certify additional models in the months ahead.

Drive Less, Save More with the GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount for OnStar Customers

The GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount is a groundbreaking Pay-As-You-Go insurance program offered to OnStar subscribers in 35 states. In fact, GMAC Insurance and Onstar are the first to institute a telematics technology-driven Pay-As-You-Go insurance discount program in the U.S.

If you're an active OnStar subscriber with OnStar Vehicle Diagnostics and you drive less than 15,000 miles a year, you may qualify for the GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount. Eligible participants simply opt-in to receive an insurance discount using tiers corresponding to the number of miles driven.

How it Works

The best part is, we'll do all the work for you. Simply opt in to the program, and start saving.

We'll confirm your mileage based on your OnStar Vehicle Diagnostics reports - no additional data is gathered or used for any purpose. Based on those readings, we apply your insurance discount using the Low-Mileage Discount tiers corresponding to miles driven, and you start saving. There's no penalty for driving more than 15,000 miles - in fact, you still get a discount simply for having an active OnStar subscription.

Start Saving Now

More than 30,000 customers are saving more with the GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount. Are you one of them? Start saving now. Get a quote online or call 1-888-346-1071 for a quote.

Interested in learning more about Pay-As-You-Go Insurance? Find out more at www.lowmileagediscount.com.

Big Brother Tracking Our Every Move By Vehicle and Public Transit

Obama Administration Floats Draft Plan to Tax Cars by the Mile

May 5, 2011

The Hill - The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive.

The plan is a part of the administration's Transportation Opportunities Act, an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly.

The White House, however, said the bill is only an early draft that was not formally circulated within the administration.

“This is not an administration proposal," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said. "This is not a bill supported by the administration. This was an early working draft proposal that was never formally circulated within the administration, does not taken into account the advice of the president’s senior advisers, economic team or Cabinet officials, and does not represent the views of the president.”

News of the draft follows a March Congressional Budget Office report that supported the idea of taxing drivers based on miles driven.

Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.

The CBO report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who has proposed taxing cars by the mile as a way to increase federal highway revenues.

Obama's proposal seems to follow up on that idea in section 2218 of the draft bill. That section would create, within the Federal Highway Administration, a Surface Transportation Revenue Alternatives Office.

It would be tasked with creating a "study framework that defines the functionality of a mileage-based user fee system and other systems."

The administration seems to be aware of the need to prepare the public for what would likely be a controversial change to the way highway funds are collected. For example, the office is called on to serve a public-relations function, as the draft says it should "increase public awareness regarding the need for an alternative funding source for surface transportation programs and provide information on possible approaches."

The draft bill says the "study framework" for the project and a public awareness communications plan should be established within two years of creating the office, and that field tests should begin within four years.

The office would be required to consider four factors in field trials: the capability of states to enforce payment, the reliability of technology, administrative costs and "user acceptance." The draft does not specify where field trials should begin.

The new office would be funded a total of $200 million through fiscal 2017 for the project.

World’s Top Auto Makers to Work on Putting NFC in Cars

March 18, 2011

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - Mobile phone firm Nokia has announced the launch of a new partnership with major car and phone manufacturers to develop common standards for connectivity between handsets and vehicles.

Daimler, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Toyota and Volkswagen have joined Nokia, Samsung and others as founder members of the Car Connectivity Consortium with the aim of developing common standards for connectivity between handsets and vehicles.

The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) will work towards integrating mobile technology with in-car entertainment, near field communications (NFC) and wireless charging, using the Terminal Mode standard.

Founding members include vehicle manufacturers Daimler, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai Motor Company, Toyota, and Volkswagen; system suppliers Alpine and Panasonic; and consumer electronics makers LG Electronics, Nokia and Samsung. New players are expected to join in the near future.

"Nokia understands that people want to use their smartphones everywhere including in their cars," says Floris van de Klashorst, director and head of Nokia Automotive.

"The Car Connectivity Consortium now has the power to turn Terminal Mode into the global standard for the integration of smartphones into vehicles, bringing together the exciting and innovating worlds of mobile ecosystems and applications and with the automotive industry. The industry support we received through the members has been excellent and makes Terminal Mode a truly global effort."

With the Terminal Mode standard, smartphones can be connected with in-car systems such as digital displays, steering wheel buttons, rotary knobs and car audio systems.

The CCC will focus on further developing the Terminal Mode standard, address certification and branding, and start looking at ways to introduce NFC and wireless charging.

"Due to the wide consumer acceptance of smartphone and apps, Samsung expects that the smartphone will be the dominant hub for in-vehicle infotainment and connectivity," says Dokyun Kim, director of the product strategy team at Samsung Mobile Division.

"We believe that the smartphone, when connected with an in-car device, will play an important role in providing users with multimedia experience in the vehicle, and that Terminal Mode will be one of the key enabling technologies."

The news comes after German car manufacturer BMW released a report in January outlining its vision of the NFC-enabled "car key of the future".

An NFC key would allow "personal access to a new mobility experience" and offer a significantly wider range of features, the car maker explained.

Meanwhile, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month, NXP showcased a concept car developed by Continental which had NFC features built in, days after Morpho and Simlink unveiled an NFC car key fob that connects to any WiFi-enabled phone to enable consumers to pay for items at the point of sale with their existing mobile device.

• Agenda 21: Social Engineering for a New World Order
• Transportation System of the New World Order Excludes Private Auto Mobility
• Agenda 21: 'Walkable Urbanism' Rather Than 'Drivable Suburbanism'
• Social Engineering is Forcing People into Cities Because It is Easier to Track and Control an Urban Population
• Vehicle Disabling Systems
• Intelligent Transportation Systems: Big Brother Tracking Our Every Move By Vehicle and Public Transit
• The Feds Have an Official Plan for Rounding Up Americans During a 'National Emergency'
• Regimented and Dense Urban Communities — That's What Life Will Be Like in the New World Order
• Herding Americans into 'Human Settlements'
• Our 'New Way of Life' Will Depend a Whole Lot Less on Home and Automobile Ownership as People Move from Suburbs to Denser Urban Communities
• Obama's High Speed Rail System Will Be a Burden on Taxpayers

Intelligent Transportation System Includes Public-Private Partnerships, Vehicle Mileage Tax, and More Toll Roads

Would More Highway Tolls Cause Commuters to Change Their Ways?

August 30, 2010

Transportation Nation - Mary Peters and Ray LaHood, oddly enough, were both born in places called Peoria. (Peters’s birthplace, a suburb of Phoenix, was named for Lahood’s hometown in Illinois.) Until recently, it might have seemed that this was all that the Secretary of Transportation and his predecessor had in common. LaHood, a Republican Congressman, was appointed with little experience in transportation policy, but has been given billions to spend. Peters had worked for twenty years at the Arizona DOT and was the head of the Federal Highway Administration before Bush nominated her to replace Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation in 2006.

Many of the hard issues now facing the Obama Administration—such as crumbling infrastructure, declining gas tax revenues, and disparate opinions on spending priorities—were first recognized during Peters’s tenure. The solutions put forth by the Bush Administration were bold and controversial, and Peters took the lead in encouraging highway privatization and more permissive tolling policies. She stood firm with President Bush (and against many influential Congressional Democrats) in refusing to advocate a gas tax increase.

The Obama Administration’s focus on “livability” and high-speed rail have been in contrast with the past, and yet lately LaHood has been sounding more like Peters, speaking kindly of tolling and private investment. [Editor's Note: Whenever you read that private equity firms or private investors are involved, know that these are the same financial giants who seized trillions of taxpayer dollars through bailouts, corporate takeovers and public-private partnerships since the financial crisis began in 2008.]

Transportation Nation’s Matt Dellinger interviewed Peters last week. She talked about the persistent problems with our transportation policy, her reaction to the Obama Administration’s first steps, and what her own future holds after January, when federal law will allow her to lobby the White House and Congress.

DELLINGER: When you were with the Bush Administration, you told me that you felt like the canary in the coal mine as far as the gap in federal transportation funding, the weaknesses of the gas tax, and the need for innovative thinking. What were the first signals that we were headed for trouble? And have things gotten any better or worse since you left?

MARY PETERS: I would say in terms of the status of the federal Highway Trust Fund, from the perspective of the revenue that it’s collecting, versus what was expected to be collected, it has gotten worse—due to the recession in part, but also due to the fact that we have more fuel efficient cars and we have more alternative and renewable fuels. And then of course Americans are driving less, especially during the recession and, in the summer of ‘08, the very high fuel prices. American driving is picking up a little bit, especially through the summer months this year, but by-and-large we’re not gaining vehicle miles traveled at the rate that we had in the past and I believe won’t in the future. So if anything, yes, it has gotten worse.

Now, the reason that I caveat that a little bit is because Congress has elected to put some fairly significant amounts of money into the Highway Trust Fund. Between the summer of ‘08 and February of this year they’ve put $34.5 billion dollars of General Fund monies into the Highway Trust Fund to maintain its solvency. Absent that, we would be in real, real trouble.

DELLINGER: Generally speaking, President Bush was against using general funds to boost the Highway Trust Fund.

MARY PETERS: He really was. Of course, he did sign off in the fall of ‘08 on the first infusion of money that had to go from the general fund into the Highway Trust Fund, but generally speaking, he felt that the trust fund ought to do what trust funds do: collect revenues from defined resources and operate within the constraints of those revenues. But again, because this came on very suddenly through the summer of 2008 and because the trust fund appeared that it would not remain solvent through September of ‘08, we went to Congress—in fact, just the week before Lehman Brothers failed—and got the first infusion of cash.

DELLINGER: Because of this funding problem that you saw coming, you and the Bush Administration took a position that was pro-toll and pro-public-private-partnership. The Democrats in Congress at the time gave you a lot of pushback. Perhaps they saw this policy as being one that was just ideologically opposed to the gas tax and thought you were doing gymnastics to avoid raising taxes. But now Secretary Ray LaHood and the Obama Administration are saying some very nice things about tolling and public-private partnerships. Do you feel at all surprised by that? Or relieved? Or vindicated?

MARY PETERS: I do feel that they are recognizing the futility of continuing to just use gas taxes or fuel taxes to support the system and recognizing that we have to do something else. They also have been very emphatic, both President Obama as well as Secretary LaHood, about the administration not being willing to support a fuel tax increase. They do caveat that a little bit—“in this economy” or “at this time” is what they’re saying—but I think even leaders such as Dick Gephardt, a very senior former democratic official in congress, have said that there’s just no opportunity to increase fuel taxes today. So that reality, I think, is what has made people more receptive to attracting and using private investment to help supplement our public fund for transportation.

DELLINGER: So it didn’t surprise you that the Democratic administration would embrace these? As you see them, are these bipartisan policies?

MARY PETERS: Generally speaking yes, they are. We in the Bush Administration really liked more of a market based approach to transportation, and charging for transportation, and welcoming private investment. Early on, that just fell a little bit on deaf ears, especially after the Democrats took the majority in Congress in ’06. I think it’s a philosophical difference. I’m not saying, “they’re wrong and I’m right” or anything like this, but I’m saying early on I think that Chairman Oberstar and people like him really believed that it was an inherently governmental responsibility to raise taxes or do what was necessary to provide sufficient funding for surface transportation.

I think they have evolved since that time to the reality that there just is not an appetite to increase fuel taxes in the country, certainly not right now, nor is it a sustainable approach, and that we really have to look at other ways to bring revenue in to support our infrastructure needs in the United States. I think it’s an evolution of their thinking that has happened over time, and I think a welcome evolution.

DELLINGER: If you could go back to 1956 and try to talk to Congress back then when they were devising a way to pay for the Interstate Highway System, do you think you would have advocated for tolls, or privatization?

MARY PETERS: It’s very interesting — early on there were proposals. The Clay Commission, which made recommendations for the Interstate Highway System legislation, and President Eisenhower himself initially both wanted a toll system as opposed to a tax system, but the technology at the time— Even if I were there at the time, I might have gotten in to see President Eisenhower and some members of the Clay Commission and said “You know, we really need to use tolling and free market principals to do this,” but with the technology where it was then, it would have just been pretty limiting in terms of what we could have done. All the toll booths and toll collection facilities that would have had to have been built, as well as manual toll collections. That’s a distinct difference between 1956 and today when technology enables open-road tolling and no one even has to stop in order to be charged for using a road.

DELLINGER: You’re working in the intelligent transportation system sector now. Does any of that technology have anything to do with toll collection, or is it all enforcement?

MARY PETERS: It certainly can be used for enforcement. And it can be used for active traffic management, real time traffic management*. But the technology absolutely enables us to use open-road tolling today and it is part of the overall intelligent transportation system that is going to give us safer systems.

Where we have vehicle-to-vehicle communication, it will help us prevent collisions. If someone is about to run a red light, you can get a warning in your car so you don’t drive into that intersection. All of these things intelligent transportation systems are enabling, and one of those that I think will be extremely helpful is the ability to eventually move to a vehicle miles traveled type of taxing system or payment system as opposed to fuel taxes.

*Peters told us that she currently serves on the board of directors for Aldis, a company working this technology, based in Tennessee.

DELLINGER: The vehicle miles traveled tax could of course be a public mechanism, as the gas tax is. But does your vision for it leave room for public-private partnerships?

MARY PETERS: Most definitely. Very definitely.

DELLINGER: How would those two things work together?

MARY PETERS: It’s very similar to what we’re seeing today in some cases where roads are being built with public-private partnerships. In some cases they’re using static tolling, a standard per mile fee that you would pay for using that facility, but more and more we’re seeing, especially on what we call managed lane projects, where those lanes are private-public partnerships. They’re built by the private sector and operated in most cases by the private sector and those who use the roadway are charged different fees based on how much traffic demand there is at any given time.

Probably the oldest example of that is State Route 91 roughly going from Riverside into Orange County, California. That road, they changed the fee every 8 minutes based on what traffic has been. It’s a little bit of a lagging system because they based it on what traffic had been days before as opposed to real-time, but in Texas, The Katy Freeway and others are operating on real-time traffic information, so if too much traffic is using the facility, the price goes up and more vehicles choose not to go on the facility because of the higher price. That keeps the freeway free-flowing and allows it to move. In the case of State Route 91, they can move almost 50% more vehicles in the same lane configuration per hour that the adjoining so-called “free” or general purpose lanes can move because they keep the traffic moving. So very definitely an opportunity for the private sector to be involved in building and operating these roadway systems, even with the VMT type of tax.

DELLINGER: And, in theory, if the information was feeding back more immediately to the driver, in advance, you wouldn’t have to actually drive to the entrance of that lane to figure out what it would cost?

MARY PETERS: Exactly. You get that information right in your car with the systems that we have in the vehicles today. The Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration, or VII as it’s called in the intelligent transportation system world, creates the ability for the roadway to communicate with the driver, and the vehicle to give them information so that they can know approaching—or maybe even before they leave their home, right as they’re backing out of their driveway—what’s the fee for using the managed lanes today and is it worth it to me to use those lanes. If so, I’ll go on them, if not, I’m going to go on the general purpose lanes.

That motorist will also be able to get information about how congested the general purpose lanes are, they’ll know if there are accidents or something else that has happened out there that is going to impinge their ability to drive on that facility. All of that information will become more readily available in the vehicle and in vehicle communication systems as well as at home by just logging onto a site before you even leave.

And then I mentioned these collision avoidance systems that I think just holds such tremendous promise for helping us further make improvements on the number of people who lose their lives in highway crashes every year. I’ll very specifically call them “crashes,” not “accidents,” because in most every case they are preventable. Again, if the driver had the right information or if we knew for example that ice was forming — black ice was forming — because of temperature sensors in the pavement, we could keep people driving into situations that cause crashes today.

DELLINGER: How many years are we from a system that looks like this and what do we do in the meantime? We have a transportation bill that’s overdue and underfunded, and obviously it’s a little early for a lot of these ideas to really make a difference.

MARY PETERS: Some people think it’s as long as 20 years away from a viable VMT tax system. I’m more inclined to think we’re within a decade of fully implementing these systems. This recent issue that we’ve had with the Highway Trust Fund solvency and declining purchasing power of fuel tax is because, of course, fuel taxes are not based on the cost of gasoline but a static fee per mile and they haven’t been increased since 1993 on the federal level. So you’re losing purchasing power, people are driving less, vehicles are more fuel efficient, they’re going to be more fuel efficient in the future.

All those factors I think are going to cause this transition to occur sooner rather than later, and again, I would put it about a decade out and the way we transition into that is actually what we’re seeing happen today. We’re seeing these managed lanes get put in place and operating with great success in many, many areas around the country and I think we’re going to see more of that, more of those types of lanes, especially in heavily congested areas.

I believe we’re going to see public-private partnerships fund bridges that there just simply isn’t enough money to fund today, but bridges that need to be built and need to be replaced or need to be improved upon like the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Boston area. So I think we’ll see more and more of those types of projects come online.

Eventually, we’ll go to a fuel vehicle miles traveled system but that probably is at the end of that decade but the technology, interestingly, the technology exists today to enable that but what we don’t have answered is how do you employ it on a very broad basis.

What happens to state and local governments and how is revenue sharing occurring and what’s the backroom operations look like because we don’t want to have a bunch of different providers doing that with systems that don’t talk to each other so all of those things I think are going to have to be answered and the real big issues frankly is privacy. With GPS locaters telling us where a vehicle is at any given time so that we can charge the appropriate rate for using that facility at that time, that means there is information that tells you very specifically where that person’s vehicle was and there are folks who are concerned about that, and I think that we can answer those privacy questions and we can answer them very easily by determining how that data can be used but those are things that we have to get through in the ensuing years if we’re going to fully implement a VMT system.

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Would $5 Gallon Gasoline Cause Commuters to Change Their Ways?

September 8, 2009

The Infrastructurist - We’ve frequently bounced around the question of what level of gas prices would start to meaningfully change Americans’ driving behavior. It seemed like we started to get an answer last summer, when pump prices were topping $4.

The financial calculus of commuting from the far suburbs for a middle class salary seemed to be unraveling, but the spike was so abrupt and short-lived, and there was so much other craziness going on with the world of high finance in flames and the real estate market imploding and the stormclouds of an epic recession looming, it was hard to tell exactly what was driving the action.

A new survey from IBM called “The Commuter’s Challenge” confirms that the $4 - $5 range for gas really is the breaking point for a large number of Americans. Asked at what gas price they would seriously consider other options for commuting (besides motoring solo) a stunning 70 percent of people pegged their magic number at $5 or less. If it were a Family Feud question, $5 itself would be “number one answer,” in fact, representing 21 percent of respondents.

With our political system rather mired at the moment and incapable of proactive (or even appropriately reactive) policy-making, it seems more and more likely that meaningful progress toward a more efficient and sensible transportation system will come about only if/when petroleum prices head back into three-digit land. If oil bounces back to $150 or above, we’ll start getting smart as a matter of practical necessity and all this ideological tussling over cars and freedom and rail and socialism will fall to the wayside.

Somewhat related: An interesting notion that’s been gaining some currency lately is the four-day work week, as road-tested by the state of Utah. While it would require some fiddling with the way we do things, a “staggered” four-day week would be a cure to urban congestion in many cities and would instantly cut commuting costs by 20 percent. It would also give Americans a lot more free time.

The IBM study doesn’t mention 4-day weeks per se, but it does pose the question of what people would do if they spent less time driving to the office:

How would people spend their extra time if their commutes could be reduced?
• 52% would spend it with family/friends (+9% points from 2008)
• 37% would partake in recreation (+3% points from 2008)
• 37% would exercise (+6% points from 2008)
• 33% would sleep more (+2% points from 2008)
• 11% would work more (+2% points from 2008)

Sounds wonderfully healthy. Almost European, even (except for the exercising part). In reality, maybe that time would be spent playing first-person shooter games and eating Funyons instead of going on bike rides and having family dinners–but we can always hope.

Congress Passes Telework Enhancement Act for Federal Employees

November 18, 2010

Federal Computer Week - The House passed legislation today that would require the Office of Personnel Management to draw up formal policies and standards related to telework at federal agencies.

The House agreed to the Senate’s changes to the original bill by a vote of 254-152. The Senate passed its version of the measure in September. The bill now goes to President Barack Obama.

Under the House bill (H.R. 1722), OPM would have to help agencies set policies to let employees work from home or at other locations outside their offices. Agencies would need OPM’s guidance regarding pay, leave and performance management. OPM would work with agencies on establishing goals and other ways to measure the policy’s usefulness.

Agencies would also be required to consult with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on continuity-of-operations plans for situations such as the record snowfall last winter in the Washington, D.C., area that shut down the government for several days.

The bill also includes punishments for poor conduct. Federal employees could be prohibited from teleworking if they have been officially disciplined for bad behavior, such as downloading pornography or missing work without permission for more than five days in a year.

Furthermore, Office of Management and Budget, homeland security and technology officials would have to draft policies on information security safeguards for government systems that teleworkers would use. OMB would also have to issue guidance on buying appropriate computers for employees who telework.

Currently, 102,900 of the 1.9 million federal employees regularly work remotely. Of the total workforce, 62 percent are eligible to telework. To encourage the practice, the Obama administration has set a goal of having 150,000 government employees teleworking on a regular basis by 2011.

In debate today, Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) said telework saves money and gives the government the flexibility to continue working under all sorts of circumstances.

“It creates a nimbleness for the federal government,” he said.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who has advocated for telework for 18 years, said the legislation would make the government operate more like the private sector. To the lawmakers who disagreed with the bill, he pointed out their work habits.

“Everyone in this institution teleworks,” Wolf said.

However, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said the bill does little to boost the use of telework, which is already in place. She said it would not facilitate telework but add more bureaucracy to it.

GSA to Stop Funding D.C.-area Private Telework Centers for Federal Employees

March 2, 2011

NextGov.com - The General Services Administration will discontinue funding for 13 private telework centers in the Washington area at the end of March. About 300 federal employees work at the facilities.

Contracts for the telework centers expired Sept. 30, 2010, and GSA had been working with the center's owners to determine if they would close, or continue to operate under a private sector model. A final decision on the centers' future was due Feb. 28.

According to GSA spokeswoman MaryAnne Beatty, the number of employees working at the centers represented less than 1 percent of the Washington-area federal workforce. The government spent about $3 million annually to operate the centers -- about $10,000 a year per user. Affected employees were notified in December of potential closures.

GSA said in an e-mailed statement that telework is less about where work gets done and more about how it gets done.

"Advancements in technology, connectivity and culture have expanded the choices for telework beyond that of home, telework center, or office to include virtually any place at any time," the statement said.

In October 2010, Administrator Martha Johnson announced that GSA was building virtual meeting centers across the country, including five in the Washington area.

The high-tech centers, which are expected to be operational in mid-2011, were intended to have people "move off airplanes and on to tele presence," she said at the time.

The telework centers that will close March 31 include Bowie, Laurel Lake and Prince Frederick in Maryland; Fredericksburg and Winchester in Virginia; and Kearneysville in West Virginia.

The centers that will remain open but without GSA funding include Manassas, Fairfax, Stafford and Woodbridge in Virginia; and Hagerstown, Frederick and Waldorf in Maryland.

The College of Southern Maryland operates three of the centers that will close.

"The college is extremely disappointed as we have had a longtime association, since 1993, of partnering with GSA to provide this valuable service and convenience to our residents and telecommuting members of our community," CSM President Bradley Gottfried said in a prepared statement.

George Mason University, despite the end of federal funding, will keep its telecommuting facilities open and actually expand the program to operate nine centers across Northern Virginia. The university believes there is a demand for flexible locations among employees for whom working from home is not a great fit, said Keith Segerson, managing director of the Mason Enterprise Center, which runs the facilities. For example, one federal worker told Segerson his wife runs a day care from home, so he cannot work there. Also, the facilities can more easily accommodate work teams than most home offices, he said.

The university will add new features, such as workstations and private offices, Segerson said.

Because the university is a state agency, the space is leased out at a price for the university to break even, not make a profit. Beginning April 1, the daily rate for a federal flex office center client is $59 per day, with lower prices for extended group usage, according to a memo provided to Nextgov.