Congestion Pricing

Calling congestion "self-correcting" is a convenient way to steer the subject away from congestion pricing. The argument is that drivers can bail when congestion "gets bad enough." Problem solved -- without collective (governmental) action requiring political leadership. Let's unpack that.

In light of a new legal analysis that concluded NYC can toll its own streets without waiting for Albany, the Move New York campaign has proposed a "home rule" version of its road pricing plan that would charge $2.75 to drive across the four East River bridges and a 60th Street cordon and tax for-hire vehicle and taxi trips in the densest parts of Manhattan. But despite a supportive City Council, the de Blasio administration isn't adding road pricing to its agenda.

According to 2015 U.S. Census data, most households citywide don't own a car, car-owning households tend to be more affluent than car-free ones, and the vast majority of New Yorkers don't drive to work.

Responding to a frustrated Staten Island motorist on WNYC, Mayor de Blasio announced that the city will release a "bigger plan to address congestion" in the "coming weeks."

Evidence keeps mounting that congestion pricing can catalyze major reductions in traffic crashes. A year ago I reported on research that vehicle crashes in central London fell as much as 40 percent since the 2003 startup of London’s congestion charge. The same researchers are now expressing the safety dividend in terms of falling per-mile crash rates, and the figures are even more impressive.

Would a new surcharge on taxi and for-hire vehicle trips in Manhattan below 59th Street thin out traffic on congested streets? Not much it won't, according to transportation economist Charles Komanoff, whose traffic analysis has helped shape the Move NY toll reform campaign.

Since the de Blasio administration attempted to cap for-hire cars this summer, the debate over Manhattan traffic has gotten louder, but not more productive. Uber claimed it definitely wasn't the problem. Some council members wondered if bike lanes were slowing down cars. Amid all the noise, something important got lost.

For a moment yesterday, it seemed like the big clash between the taxi medallion industry and app-based car services, framed in terms of Uber's effect on snarled Manhattan traffic, might veer into unexpectedly brilliant territory. There was Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris in the Daily News, telling the MTA that City Hall would consider the Move NY traffic reduction plan to fund transit investment. Finally, a sign that some of the big players are getting serious about a comprehensive fix for the city's congestion problem.

Add street safety to the list of benefits from congestion pricing. That’s the takeaway from a new “working paper” analyzing traffic crash rates in and around the London congestion charging zone by three economists associated with the Management School at Lancaster University.