FAST Miles: Benefits and Financial Feasibility of Multimodal Investment and Pricing Strategy

In America’s large and severely congested metropolitan areas, carpools and express bus service could attract many more riders if buses and carpools could operate between residential areas and job centers on free-flowing highways that provided premium service opportunities. FAST Miles attempts to eliminate recurring congestion on limited-access highway systems by using a possibly more publicly acceptable form of road pricing, along with an integrated multimodal strategy to encourage shifts of solo-driving commuters to alternative modes. Every motorist would get a share of free peak period use of FAST highway facilities, “already paid for” through his or her taxes, through a limited number of FAST Miles credits. FAST Miles could be self-financing and generate a surplus that could be used for expansion of transportation capacity. It could also introduce new possibilities for public–private partnerships for the efficient and effective provision of metropolitan transportation services, including expansion of transportation infrastructure and operation of the priced highway system, the express bus system, and passenger access and distribution services at transit transfer stations. This paper provides estimates of the benefits and financial feasibility of a FAST Miles strategy