Ben Ross of the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition writes:
You may be interested in the attached letter I sent to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation yesterday, presenting evidence that suggests scientific fraud in the traffic model being used by the Maryland Dept. of Transportation to justify a major highway project in Maryland. We request that USDOT make an independent examination of the model and that it release the input and output data files to expert outside reviewers. (A request for the data files was already made, and the requesters were told that the was being handled under the state’s FOIA-equivalent law and no response could be expected until after the project gets its approval.)
Ross also points to this news article by Bruce DePuyt that gives some background on the story. It seems that the state wants to add some lanes to the Beltway.
I’ve not read the documents in any sort of detail so I won’t comment on the claim of fraud except to make a meta-point. Without making any comment whatsoever about this particular report but just speaking in general, I think that projections, cost-benefit analyses, etc. are often beyond truth or fraud, in that an organization will want to make a decision and then they’ll come up with an analysis to support that goal, kind of in the same way that a turn-the-crank style scientist will say, “We did a study to prove . . .” So, sure, the analysis might be completely bogus with made-up numbers, but it won’t feel like “fraud” to the people who wrote the report, because the numbers aren’t derived from anything beyond the goal of producing the desired result. Just like all those projects that end up costing 5x what was stated in the original budget plan: those budgets were never serious, they were just lowball estimates created with the goal of getting the project moving.
In any case, it seems good that people such as Ross are looking at these reports and pointing out potential problems, and these can be assessed by third parties. After all, you don’t want to waste another year.
In my experience, and I have some, at the absolute extremes of cost, a cost-benefit analysis can get a proposal killed, especially if the costs hit the wrong groups disproportionately (either EJ communities of concern or small businesses, for example). If it’s remotely ambiguous though, you are largely correct, they are “beyond truth and fraud” and will magically come out in favor of what the agency wanted to do anyway, almost every time. I used to work on these as a contractor for clients at one of the more controversial federal regulatory agencies in a previous life, and it made me incredibly cynical about cost-benefit analysis.
A well-known early discussion of the problems involved in these large cost–benefit exercises is John Adams’ “Westminster: the fourth London airport” (Area, 1970). Adams considered the report of the Roskill Commission on the Third London Airport, and argued that there was so much flexibility in choosing which costs and benefits to model that the outcome was arbitrary. He demonstrated (satirically) that, according to the Commission’s own choices of costs and benefits, Westminster in central London was a better location for the airport than the recommendation (Cublington).
As I live in the affected area, I don’t believe either side. I had a work colleague a number of years ago who was very active in local politics over in Greenbelt MD. He would go on and on about the then planned Purple Line light rail system saying it was nothing but a boondoggle and would not do anything for moving people around the DC Beltway. He was also convinced that the planned price tag would end up way beyond what was estimated. Alas, he was right on target. The pandemic has changed the nature of office work, making a cross county transit system less desirable (one only need look at bus & Metro ridership) and the costs have ballooned so much that the project will never break even.
Ross is no dispassionate observed based on his past stances on transit in our area.
I once attended a conference in Finland on multiobjective decisions and one presenter described how the Finnish government went about deciding how much logging to permit in a given region. Many affected parties, of course. The nice thing was that they had a lot of community involvement and discussions and were very open about the assumptions and methods that they were using. Such an approach is rare even in small organizations–very impressive to see it at a government ministry level.
Can’t speak for Maryland but out here toll lanes have far exceeded expectations. As of this 2019 report,
1 – I-405 now carries up to 23 percent more vehicles each weekday during the peak periods when compared to before tolling began.
2 – average speeds in the express toll lanes have increased by as much as 17 mph and up to 3mph in regular lanes
3 – Transit ridership has increased 10% in the toll lanes over their previous use as carpool lanes
4 – the system has generated $68M over expenses that by now has been partly used for several improvements on the corridor, including opening a shoulder lane during peak times to reduce traffic.
Even social justice is being served [p viii]:
“Per trip, however, lower-income drivers benefit more than higher-income drivers.”
The revenue exceeding operational costs are used to fund improvements in the corridor – so the public gets an immediate benefit from paying to use the lanes and also gets a long-term benefit for corridor improvements.
In 2021 decline dramatically (p12) as WFH dramatically reduced traffic volumes. Total collection was just $1.5M more than cost of operation. Not spectacular. But find me any public transportation system – bus, train, plane, escalator or anything else – in which the revenues come it a 16% above operating costs. Not gonna happen.
Full disclosure, I work with Ben Ross and, in my role at Sierra Club, and working to stop the proposed highway.
That said, I do not think this is a simple case of “people see the numbers differently”. The assertion here is that long-term traffic projections actually changed drastically between two reports issued less than 2 years apart, without any explanation for why. The most generous critique would be that the agency utterly failed to meet basic expectations for transparency and public comment by not explaining this change. And that is generous.