Toll lanes are the future, like cell phones were in the 1990s.

Peak hour pricing is the most intelligent way to control traffic because it takes into consideration economics, that is, supply and demand, with fluctuating prices, that vary per time of day.

So keep the VIP lanes at two on I-405. We’ve first class in airplanes, why not cars? In Sao Paulo, Brazil, the wealthy avoid traffic by helicoptering around; they literally rise above it. Let the market decide.

Fluctuating prices are the key for roads. Price communication tells society how much a road is valued. Without pricing, that is without tolls-that-vary-with-traffic-like-hotels-do-with-holidays, society’s roads are deaf. Utilities and hotels charge more during peak hours, and roads should too.

Let’s do tolls today, then privatization tomorrow. Private businesses’ selling via fluctuating prices is how every other industry operates.  Roads should be no different.

Basing road financing on localized tolls with fluctuating prices is a more fine-tuned user fee than the crude gas tax. The gas tax charges drivers the same whether they’re driving in eastern Washington at midnight or on 520 at 5 p.m.

And let a private consortium redo the Alaskan Way Viaduct and maybe build a third bridge or tunnel across Lake Washington.

We can’t build our way out of traffic, but we can buy our way out. Tolls and transponders are better than taxes and traffic. Let the state run key roads as public utilities with peak hour tolls. Then let private groups build and run new roads, tunnels and bridges.

Jeff Jared,
Kirkland