The Carmageddon Story You're Not Hearing
Much has already been said by the Ricochet brain trust about Carmageddon -- the much-hyped closing of a vital artery in the Southern California freeway system last weekend -- including Rob's beautifuly-written piece in the Los Angeles Times and my griping on the "Young Guns" podcast.
While I stand by my podcast claim that it was an inconvenience, it certainly wasn't a disaster. And in fact, as I point out over at City Journal California, it turned out to be a triumph for market principles. Follow the link for the whole thing, but here's a taste:
While most media coverage focused on the absence of the predicted traffic jams, another fact went underreported. The demolition—scheduled to last through Monday morning—actually wrapped up by noon the day before, 17 hours ahead of schedule. Financial incentives for a timely completion made the project’s engineers an extra $300,000, while taxpayers saved an estimated $400,000.
This wasn’t the first time that this sort of win-win performance contracting has worked in the Golden State. In the aftermath of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, which destroyed a substantial chunk of the heavily trafficked Interstate 10, Governor Pete Wilson employed contracting incentives that delivered a $200,000-per-day bonus for early completion of the rebuilding project and a $200,000-per-day penalty for late completion. The result? A project originally estimated to take 26 months was completed in 66 days.
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Feb '11
Re: The Carmageddon Story You're Not Hearing
Good for Caltrans for crafting incentives that effectively motivated the highway contractors to find innovative ways to complete the work faster, and for relentlessly communicating with its customers on the road through message signs and media. Another lesson: drivers, as a group, are not completely stupid. If you give them enough advance warning and clear information, they will be able to make other plans and use other routes. The Carmaggedon narrative assumes drivers are lemmings.
Feb '11
Re: The Carmageddon Story You're Not Hearing
[repeat post deleted]
Edited on Jul 21, 2011 at 3:50pm