Congestion Pricing

If congestion pricing is going to resurface as a viable option to relieve traffic, help plug the enormous gap in the MTA capital program, and keep transit fares from ballooning in the years ahead, it won't come from the Bloomberg administration.

The New York Times called Ted Kheel, who died Friday at the age of 96, New York City’s pre-eminent labor peacemaker from the 1950s through the 1980s. And he was. Ted was also a steadfast advocate for civil rights, a fierce champion of mass transit, a stalwart defender of labor, an urbanist, a philanthropist, and a visionary. And, for the better part of a century, a vital element of progressive struggle in New York and beyond.

As Andrew Cuomo transitions into the governorship, David Paterson just handed him a parting gift: a comprehensive blueprint for how the state can tackle its greenhouse gas emissions. The plan, which has been in development since a Paterson executive order in August 2009, goes into spectacular detail about how the state might reach the ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels over the next forty years.

Later today, Governor Chris Christie is expected to announce that he's shutting down construction of the ARC tunnel for good, closing off the potential for transit-based growth in northern New Jersey for the foreseeable future. In a dark day for smart planning and development, the project to double NJ Transit's capacity to Manhattan has become a casualty of cheap-gas-at-all-costs populism.

The federal appeals court verdict this week barring New York City from mandating that new taxicabs be fuel-efficient hybrids has left the mayor fuming and other New Yorkers scratching their heads. Why should Washington pre-empt the city from tripling the fuel-efficiency of our nearly 13,000 yellow cabs, a step that would materially reduce petroleum use, given that three to four percent of all vehicle-miles traveled in the five boroughs are by medallion taxis?

With Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith hinting cryptically at future plans for congestion pricing in New York, and with public discussion of congestion pricing percolating in San Francisco, it may be timely to check back in with London's congestion pricing system.

The results are in from the City Council Progressive Caucus budget survey, and when it comes to road pricing, they're telling, if unscientific. Road pricing remains unpopular across a broad swath of New York City, though among proponents, support is intense.

Road pricing isn't going to happen unless drivers want it to, writes Bruce Schaller, one of the architects of New York's congestion pricing push. That's the central conclusion of a new paper Schaller penned for the journal Transport Policy [PDF]. 

Even when there's no breaking news at the RPA's regional assembly, the annual get-together at the Waldorf Astoria is a good time to gauge the collective mood of the people who run the region's transportation systems and think about planning for New York City's future. How often do you get the heads of the MTA, NYCDOT, and the Port Authority all in the same room?