The Sightline Institute issued a report yesterday about rising fuel consumption in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia. While the headlines make this out to be an ominous sign, the overall picture is equivocal and quite mixed. After a decade of per-capita declines, 2009 saw a tiny uptick of 3 gal/year for the average Cascadian, a 0.7% increase. Overall consumption rose 2%, while diesel consumption (a key indicator of freight traffic) fell by 10%. While Washington and Oregon saw per-capita increases of <1%, Idaho and British Columbia drivers consumed 4% and 10% more, respectively.
There are interesting trends in this report, even if it strikes an unnecessarily sensationalist tone. Read it for yourselves, it is short, well-written, and very accessible. I would only make a couple of observations:
More after the jump.
(1. Sightline reported that British Columbia’s 10% increase represented a “binge” on gasoline in 2009. Given the preparation for the Olympics this is quite understandable, a point that Sightline stresses. But let’s remember that even with the 10% increase, British Columbians still consumed 25% less fuel per-capita than the average Washingtonian.
(2. The slight uptick in the midst of a downturn shows us that fuel consumption rates are extremely price-sensitive, and that this price sensitivity is not necessarily well-correlated with economic trends. In other words, even in a poor economy personal gas use can rise if the price falls sufficiently.
(3. The last two decades have shown those of us in the transit community just how steep our challenge is. We have enjoyed these per-capita declines while overall consumption has remained flat. Thus those of us pushing for transit in the midst of high population growth have to continually win major battles just to keep up. Whether this emboldens or depresses you is a matter of personal preference.
Sightline has done a good job aggregating these statistics, and the report will be a valuable reference for our daily discussions. But in an environment in which both per-capita and total consumption are relatively flat, we shouldn’t take a small rise as a huge call for alarm. It is just a further reminder that gas prices really matter. Gas taxes dramatically decrease consumption (again, look at B.C.). They are a user-fee – the type of tax most acceptable to traditional conservatives and libertarians – and thus they represent a policy with bipartisan possibilities going forward. As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said, “At $4, everybody gets rational.”
Holy horizontal scaling, Batman!
Really. All the drama of both graphs is meaningless. Someone is cooking the books!
American Conservative magazine has some articles arguing the conservative case for transit ( including rail/streetcars) and walkable downtowns.
Behind a paywall here :
http://www.amconmag.com/issue/2010/aug/01/
but you can probably find the articles elsewhere by googling the authors…
I’m pleased that our northern neighbours, even with their long distances in the BC interior, still use about 25% less petrol per capita than do we south of the border. Ought to be a wake-up call that we CAN live a delightful “middle-class” mobile existence without having to drive two blocks to the pizza place, and then 2 more to the mini-mart and then 4 blocks back home.
Lloyd, it is most likely because of Vancouver’s transit mode share. Most people in downtown do not own a car and a good chunk use transit for trips to and from work, cutting down quite a bit on car usage. However, except that petrol usage to increase in 2012 when South Fraser Perimteter Road and the new Port Mann Bridge open up.
I think it most likely has to do with gas prices in Vancouver averaging US$4.14/gal right now when we’re just below the $3 mark. As we saw back in 2008, nothing drives people away from the pump like high gas prices. It’s also way more expensive to buy a new car in Canada than it is here.
As long as the spending of WA state’s Gas Tax is governed by the 18th amendment or more specifically WA State Constitution Article II Section 40, raising the gas tax in this state is a bad idea. Since any money in excess of general maintenance will go straight into building new highways or expanding existing ones, transit and other modes won’t be able to compete. The new highway infrastructure influences the amount of driving that people can do and any capacity expansion will just enable increased driving and thus (for the foreseeable future) increased gas consumption.
I say lower the gas tax and put highways on equal ground with other modes in terms of how desperately they need to fight for capacity expansion funding.
Does the gas tax revenue as it is now currently pay for all necessary road maintenance? I’ve always been under the impression that there was a lot of maintenance that state governments have been putting off for years due to lack of funds. Regardless, increased funding that is earmarked for road construction could benefit transit as well (such as paying for bus lanes on city streets, et cetera).
Could not agree with you more. Change the state constitution or sharply reduce/eliminate the gas tax in WA. I’m not an “either/or” person usually, but this would “level the playing field” simmediately! Imagine Paula’s Pals having to go the the Legislature or voters for each new paving project!
The gas tax is only increased by the legislature (2005 TPA) or a vote of the people (2003 “Nickel” Funding Package). “Funded” projects have no guaranty; witness the cross base highway getting axed.
So, by “level the playing field” do you want transit funding to come from user fees or highways to be able to compete for sales tax revenue? And since the legislature can pull the plug on highway projects I guess you’d be OK with them being able to do the same for projects like East Link.
It doesn’t seem wrong at all to allow either of the options of highways competing for sales tax revenue or legislators axing projects like East Link (or at least the gas tax funded portion of it if that is what they controlled). However, the point you make about either our elected officials or ourselves voting for increased gas tax is bringing me to a sobering state of mind. It makes me realize that the “road user” is essentially everyone since they were the ones to vote in elected officials that raised the gas tax or voted for increases themselves.
The place I’m coming from is that building highways is often in large part a “road user”-funded giveaway to developers. If it weren’t for building the interstate highways to begin with and then the continual construction of new highways, real estate developers would have had a much harder time attracting tenants to the present day locations all connected by the highways since they would’ve had to foot at least part of that bill for the transportation infrastructure.
And it still applies today, most notably with the cross-base highway example. Let the developers pay for it since they are the ones who are the only present-day parties dependent on it and also the present-day parties that would benefit the most from it. As for me, my quality of life will deteriorate with its construction as that region is excellent rural bicycling country that will be the next Lakewood in a decade or so.
That’s the whole cycle as I see it presently. Future infrastructure building is co-dependent on residential/commercial construction and transportation construction. There is plenty more funding available for road infrastructure capacity expansion projects as funded by “road users” than there is for transit by transit users. And on top of that, transit capital investment has historically been funded by developers which by now have all but abandoned that approach in favor of receiving free transportation infrastructure (aka building next to a highway or rail station for that matter). If money is taken out of the highways pot, then development might start to look more attractive where transportation infrastructure is already available.
South Sounder does the same thing for the Auburn/Sumner/Black Diamond area and WSF can be held responsible for Silverdale being the new Lynnwood. I have mixed feelings about the cross base highway. It replaces (albeit with much greater capacity) the route through Woodbrook to Spannaway that was cut off by the Military following 9/11. The development is already there. Spannaway and Parkland weren’t much different than Lakewood back in the 70’s. Since then the area has been built out all the way to the Roy Y. For the most part the road projects to access this area have been funded by local property taxes which see a huge increase from development.
Except that areas of higher density are already so congested that it’s hard to support higher density without added investment in roads. Look at all the big buck projects on the books; HOV lanes through Tacoma, 520 corridor, the viaduct. All are designed around the greater Seattle metro area. Down south you’ve got the I-5 connections between Vancouver and Portland. I-90 Snoqualmie Pass costs a lot but it’s more to facilitate interstate trucking than real estate development in Cle Elum. Improved highways often improve transit. Gas tax money goes toward things like direct HOV access, P&R lots and the ferry system. I don’t think this money is always wisely spent but transit will feel the pinch too if you simple stop funding roads.
I don’t agree with a few points you make. You are right about real estate funding PC roads, but those aren’t highways. If it weren’t for SR 512 primarily but also SR 7 and SR 161 to some extent, then that area of Pierce County would probably be a lot less developed.
SR 167 is the culprit for Auburn/Sumner, SR 169 for Black Diamond and SR 3 for Silverdale. Sounder hasn’t even been around that long and WSF only gets as far as Bainbridge or Bremerton.
I really don’t think additional roads are necessary for any level density of development already connected to the street grid unless freight already makes up the majority of traffic on a road. If freight can no longer move about it’s almost always more a matter of too many people driving personal vehicles instead of walking/biking/taking transit. In the case of those highway megaprojects, a comparable investment in transit can reap more benefits in dense areas than highways can.
Sure that’s what it’s goal is, but you can bet that the Suncadia resort developers are going to benefit a lot from it being easier for Seattleites to make it over to Cle Elum easier, not to mention all other kinds of tourism related business. Yet for the WSDOT’s project it’s solely the gas tax (off-shoot: didn’t that project get some stimulus too tho?).
Building a new highway has the net result of greatly increasing the convenience of primarily auto travel. HOV access ramps, P&R lots are nice and all, but it’s such a small fraction of highway funding to make a difference against the primary purpose of accommodating personal vehicle travel and resulting convenience of that mode.
Sure if those roads had never been built (and they were all built a long time ago) there would be less development out in the boonies but it’s more likely the Seattle metro area would just be a fraction the current population rather than the urban areas holding all 4 million people we have today. The biggest change I’ve seen to our urban highways over the last 30 years has been in adding HOV lanes. The only additional lanes on the new 520 bridge are to complete the HOV corridor (I think the first HOV lanes in WA may have been the re-striped shoulder on 520). A major component of rebuilding the floating section on I-90 was the reversible lanes. 405 has gone from a 4 lane highway to a 6 lane highway with HOV lanes that directly serve the Totem Lake and Bellevue transit centers (and yes I know it’s wider than that most places from 167 to 522 where we have higher density).
“HOV lanes move about 35 percent of the people who use this area’s freeways in only 19 percent of the vehicles.” [WSDOT]
No need to raise the gas tax, at first. Simply eliminate the sales tax exemption for gasoline!
I think there is a lot of merit to that idea as long as the adjustment is made gradually. Start by charging State sales tax and reducing the gas tax by 6.5 cents a gallon (I think that’s the State cut) and put the money into the highway fund. Over time phase in local sales taxes. This can be offset I’m guessing by lowering the per gallon State tax as a sales tax will index up with inflation.
Gas Taxes are not a good revenue source going into the future. Vehicles are getting more efficient and I’d much rather grab a share of arterial toll revenue (it’s in PSRC 2040) or get some sort of congestion-based fee for transit than fight over the shrinking gas tax pie.
Yeah, it will shrink as vehicles become more efficient, but that’s not happening so quickly to prevent a robust gas tax from providing boatloads of short-term revenue. A 10¢ tax wouldn’t do much perhaps, but $1.00? And gas taxes are not just about raising the price of fuel per se, but also about preventing the sort of price DROPS that contribute to increased usage beyond what ordinary demand would warrant. Putting a permanent floor in the fuel price through taxation would tell consumers and manufacturers alike that $2 gas is a thing of the past.
How about making the gas tax available to transit through constitutional amendment, or apply the sales tax to gas (big oil has successfully exempted petroleum from sales taxes in our state) and using that for transit.
Transit is actually in a much better position long term than things that rely on the gas tax because of sales taxes. Despite the current economic dive, which has been devastating for sales tax dependent transit agencies, the long term growth of sales taxes is virtually assured. Unlike the gas tax, which is flat, and unless raised by the the legislature (very difficult) declines in purchasing power over time.
It would be good to add another leg to the transit tax stool to keep things more stable.
But if you want to do that in our state, your going to need to throw something to other interests in order to get the votes. Transit alone doesn’t have 50 in the House or 25 in the Senate, and won’t anytime soon. That’s why “packages” get passed – Sound Transit was created in a “package” that included a gas tax increase. The last gas tax in 95 was part of a “package” that included weight fees that can be spent on other things. Post 695 (car tab repeal), transits won access to more sales tax in a sort of “package” in which the legislature enacted 695 even after the courts threw it out.
It is useful to remember that buses need roads. On city streets, they really do damage. So there’s a relationship between them that’s real.
BTW, there is mostly one reason for the difference in petroleum consumption in BC and places south: the price. Sightline seems to recognize this. Ot’s worth remembering because the only thing that is going to make a meaningful difference on climate is by pricing carbon. That’s the only thing that will really make a meaningful difference. That’s why federal legislation pending is so important.
At $3/gal the current tax on gas is 18.6% (18.4 feds + 37.5 State) and it’s not deductible.
I am surprised that Canada per-capita consumption is so much lower
Is it all a function of their higher gas taxes? Are there also other higher auto ownership costs?
Outside of older downtown cores, a lot of development in BC and Alberta and even Ontario is very sprawl-intensive, and seems as much designed around the car as does ours, with strip malls and free parking, and cul-de-sacs, and multi-lane aterials that are unpleasant to walk along or cross. The land use outside older downtown cores does not seem any more transit-friendly than in the USA.
They do have far less freeways, and provide far more transit service, so the transit is there. But is transit forced on them by high gas taxes and other auto ownership costs? What is there to learn?
Per Capita Personal Income in Washington in 2008 $42,356. Per Capita Personal Income in BC CAN$36,156 (US$33,986.64). Take $8k per head from your household income, add a buck to the price of gas and see if you drive less. Plus cars cost more, food costs more, pretty much everything cost more (except health care).
That’s the problem; transit hasn’t kept up. Cars are continuing to get more efficient. In the ’70’s the average American car was lucky to pull down mileage in the low to mid teens. Today 20-30 mpg is common. A new V8 Mustang gets better mileage on the freeway than a ’68 VW Beetle. New cars today routinely last well past the 200,000 mile mark as oppose to old cars being considered “high mileage” at 100,000. Mean while, until the recent switch to hybrid technology fuel efficiency for buses has fallen and costs for O&M have gone through the roof. Federal CAFE standards are going to continue to push mileage up and car companies are on notice that in a global economy they must increase quality while decreasing costs just to survive. Transit on the other hand always seems to paint this as a “revenue problem”.
Thanks for sharing your perspective on this.
We certainly didn’t intend to be overly sensationalist with our portrayal of the trend. (And in our defense, we also included a long term analysis similar to yours, as well as an appendix with the raw data.) That said, we will take a hard look at our data presentation in future publications.
Thanks too for sharing the lesson of the report: we think it’s a story about fuel prices. Even in the worst economy in ages, lower gas prices meant an uptick in consumption.
Eric de Place
Sightline Institute
Sure, instead of paying a premium at the corner store you add a weekly shopping run to Costco. Instead of buying a big screen TV locally you spend $60 in gas to drive to Portland and save $150 in sales tax.
Oops, cut and paste error. The quoted block was supposed to read “Even in the worst economy in ages, lower gas prices meant an uptick in consumption.”
I agree with Eric. It is mostly all about price. If we price petroleum and other carbon fat pollution appropriately, we can meet the climate goals most scientists advocate. Just don’t expect it to be proportional in the transportation sector. There will be an impact, but gains in coal and other sectors are likely to have the most impact.
Its time for the economists to start weighing in on this in our state.
Move along now, nothing to see. Usage is merely returning to pre-crash (Sept 2008) level. Although that would take a decade in WA/OR, and three years in car-loving ID. BC’s figure is essentially useless if it was “economic activities preceding the Winter Olympics”. So in short, there’s no evidence to believe the long-term downward trend has stopped. It has just been obscured by short-term events. There’s an upper limit to how much driving people are willing to do, as people get tired of long commutes and congestion, twentysomethings are less enthused about driving than their parents were, and aging boomers relinquish their licenses.
In any case, three gallons a year is one trip to Wal-Mart in an SUV or to the Skagit tulip festival in a fuel-efficient car. If a transit commuter switches to driving, that’s 6000 gallons. (Assuming transit use is 0 gallons. This makes sense for one person because the bus/train would have run anyway. If ten or fifty people simultaneously decide to stop taking a certain bus, it could be eliminated, but that is highly unlikely.)
I think you’ve got an extra 0 on there; unless you’re commuting from Idaho ;-)
Er, that’s for a 1 mile/gallon vehicle. :) I assumed 10 miles each way for 300 days/year, but forgot about mpg.