We’re in the midst of some family drama at the moment, so forgive the sparse posting this week.

Loren sent me a fascinating article this summer by Benjamin Ross in Dissent about ideology and traffic. Who knew that there was a politics of traffic? Really fun piece and worth checking out in full, but today I’m just pulling out one concept in the article, one that generated some debate around here:

This is especially true of the latest fad among the free marketeers, what are known as express toll lanes. These are pay lanes added to existing highways that currently don’t charge tolls. Toll rates vary from hour to hour, increased at times of heavy traffic in such a way that the toll lanes never back up. The main advantage of this procedure is that the driver who pays the toll is guaranteed a fast trip; on the busy suburban highways where these lanes are under consideration, there is so much traffic that simply widening the road would not get rid of congestion. Proponents argue that express toll lanes give the consumer more choice than building additional free lanes — when you need to get somewhere in a hurry, you pay the toll; when your time is less valuable, you don’t.

Express toll lanes were quickly dubbed “Lexus lanes.” Their promoters indignantly reject this appellation, claiming that the lanes benefit all income groups. But a 1999 survey of drivers on the first such project in the United States, SR 91 between Riverside and Orange counties in southern California, showed that drivers with incomes above $100,000 were about four times as likely than those who earn less than $40,000 to have used the toll lanes on their last trip on the highway….

These survey results suggest that the “Lexus lanes” moniker is well deserved. Who uses pay lanes is mostly determined by income. For most of the people in the free lanes, consumer sovereignty is a fiction. They haven’t made a voluntary decision that their time isn’t worth the price of a quicker commute. They are sitting in traffic jams because the toll exceeds what they can afford to pay.

OK, who likes Lexus lanes?