This is essentially a debate over stated preferenece versus revealed preference. You have done some analyis of the revealed prefernce but you don’t really have the stated preference. You have analysis of an assumed preference on behalf of the planners. Additionally, the perception of the driver could provide inroads into other confounding factors:
– Do the drivers have an estimation of how much time the HOT lane would save them?
– Do they have an estimation of how much time they would have to stay in their lane if they did not avail themselves of the HOT?
– What are their thoughts on the economy?

I think the last one is another issues you may want to explore in future analyses. You said it yourself – drove less when the country went into recession. Isn’t it possible that right now, as people hear more stories about slow and steady recovery that their preference may change? I think the idea that the use of HOT is a function of the perception of the driver overall versus a function of the driver’s perception of traffic has larger implications to future policy development.

All in all though, a well-done analysis.

This does not include any residual value my car has, were I to try to sell it, but at this point that can’t be much more than $5000 or so.

The only time to consider it is when buying a new vehicle, but external factors (person/cargo capacity, offroad capability, sportiness, towing limit) usually trump gas-mileage and other per-trip costs.

Now that I’m biking/busing (with free employer-provided pass) more, when I do drive, I am rather conscious of the trip-cost… 30 miles to the arena tonight for my men’s-league hockey playoff = ~ 2.25 gallons of gas @ $4/gal for the good stuff = $10. The league fee (for ice time, referees, admin, trophies, etc.) works out to about $20/game, but I bet if I asked my teammates why hockey was expensive, not 1 would bring up that 30% of the cost is getting there.

However, while driving is perceived as free, however, tolls, including HOT lane-fees, are not perceived as free; each one is a buying decision. This leads to the same sort of penny-wise-pound-foolish sort of thinking that has a company buy the cheapest printer paper that causes paper-jams, which results in a $60/hr employee spending their time un-jamming the printer (instead of advancing the interests of the company: double whammy).

Our present transportation system is perpetuated by this incongruity and the irrational economic decisions. It is a bit amusing to me that highway construction proponents have put so much stock in tolling for financing these projects. It’s my view along with numerous others (some who have commented above) that if they actually increase the rationality of drivers decisions, highway proponents will actually drive reductions in driving.

Another take on this: people have grown accustomed to being comfortable in their cars. Despite the fact that many people hate congestion, they’ve also adapted to it. They talk on the phone, listen to the radio, and enjoy the refuge or solitude. Complaining about the traffic however may be more on the order of the weather — a conversation starter in which people talk about things beyond their control. Paying several bucks to speed up a portion of one’s drive along 167 isn’t going to change the fact that one still has to wait at all the intersections and bottlenecks at the other points on the route.

Nice work Sightline!

FYI highway widenings are primarily justified based on ability to accomodate projected vehicle capacity needs (after other practical modal choices are exhausted) that derive from serving desired regional and subregional land use plans, not from willingness to pay a toll assumption. Avoidance of future facility peak period breakdown is the primary objective. There are conversions of total person hours of delay to dollars and then cost benefit ratio comparisons between alternatives but these are more in the window dressing department.

There is an amazing paralell between VMT (vehicle miles of travel) and GDP and most business owners and even some economists get this — no one wants his customers or his employees (or his downtown) to be accessibilty disadvantaged. Unfortunately, the state’s elected and many of our regional policy makers do not get this and prefer to seriously constrain future VMT growth, in areas slated for major growth, through legislation currently on the books — the VMT Reduction Act. This in turn translates to “system management” with the principal weapon being HOT lanes — an incredibly blunt weapon that is also highly elitist. That is why the current I-405 HOT lanes plan will likely be a disaster for the corridor communities and the traveling public.

Toll projects such as SR 520 corridor widening are of course based on assumptions about willingness to pay and are appropriate ways to pay for very expensive projects. Fuel taxes and the former Motor Vehicle Excise tax have been excellent low collection cost methods of paying for road improvements, and the public has demonstrated support for hikes in the fuel tax a number of times. However, the full I-405 master plan will likely require additional assistance through tolling and that would be least onerous and most effective as a general low cost toll of say $1.

This is a little more than I wanted to say but the economic theorists in this chain touched a sore point.

A car traveling at 60 mph getting 30 mpg is spending $7.60 an hour on gas, if gas is priced at $3.80 a gallon. So saving 9 minutes of commute time equals saving $1.14 on gas. And that’s assuming 30 mpg fuel efficiency, which in traffic decreases significantly.

Paying the $1.75 thus might actually save people money.

This finding is consistent with my study, “Changing Vehicle Travel Price Sensitivities: The Rebounding Rebound Effect (http://www.vtpi.org/VMT_Elasticities.pdf ), forthcoming in the journal Transport Policy, which indicates that automobile travel is much more price sensitive than most transport models assume.