How Much is Your Travel Time Worth?

John Whitehead linked to this great online tool for quickie calculations of value of time used to justify transport projects. From the Political Calculations site:

Suppose, for a moment, that the people who run your local government really cared enough about you and your fellow citizens to do something that might actually benefit you, by funding a fancy transportation project that could shave 13 minutes off your time while commuting once it's done.

Is it worth it? 

The answer, at this point, is "it depends". And honestly, what it depends upon is what your and your fellow commuters' time is really worth.

 And here is the explanation of their default model, based on an actual project:

All the default numbers in the tool above are taken from a federally-funded transportation project in North Carolina, which promised to spend $461 million to reduce the travel time of some 100,000 train commuters between Charlotte and Raleigh by 13 minutes a trip, which would bring their one-way transit time down to just under three hours. We then adapted the math developed by John Whitehead for determining the benefit-cost ratio for the project to estimate what value per hour saved per individual that the state's politicians were assigning to the primary declared benefit of the project.

In case your value of time is sufficiently high that you won't check the model yourself, the value of time that justifies this particular project is $638 per hour.  Yikes.

Matt Kahn on Project Evaluation

In the above video Matt Kahn explains why many projects that do not pass muster in a benefit cost test still move forward. This NY Times article provides somereal world examples of the politics of rail investment in Los Angeles, especially how rail investment is not equitably spread around. From the Times story, Mayor Villaraigosa explains his support for a new rail line that doesn't stop in an African-American neighborhood:

But Mr. Villaraigosa also emphasized the benefits that the rail network — including a recently constructed light-rail line that carries passengers through the northern parts of South Los Angeles — would offer the area even if a Leimert Park stop was not built. He also noted his efforts to expand the Crenshaw line, which was originally designed as a bus line with a fraction of the money it now has.

“All of that happened because I drove it,” he said. “This was a busway before I made it into a light rail.”

The story does not make clear what the benefits of the rail line are expected to be, but I'm pretty sure that Leimert Park is better off with a busway that stops in the neighborhood than with a light rail line that does not. USC's Lisa Schweitzer explains why the residents of Leimert Park are upset:

“It comes out of this history in which the answer is always no,” she said. “When it comes to requests from South L.A., the answer is always no, we can’t afford it. And, conversely, when it comes to the West Side, the answer is always yes, because they’re so politically empowered and so wealthy.”

Too many transit projects are failures on economic and equity bases. For those of us who support transit, we need to be much more reflective about the investment choices we have made.