Congestion Fee

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

New York City is considering a “congestion fee” for vehicles that enter Manhattan. In the interest of reducing traffic, (and the concomitant health and environmental problems that come with it), the proposal would charge cars $8 and trucks $21 to go south of 86th street.

Congestion fees are under consideration in many other communities as well, including the Bay Area. Nationally, the Department of Transportation has set aside $1 billion to fund a congestion-pricing program. The San Francisco Transportation Authority received $1 million from the feds to conduct a fee-sibility study for congestion pricing, due out next year. One proposal for San Francisco would impose a $5 fee each way for residents of Treasure Island.

Restricting access to public streets (especially for just one neighborhood) based on one’s ability to pay strikes a sour note: taxpayers paid for these roads already, and if someone uses only cash and doesn’t have $5 (or $8) left at the end of the night, does this mean they wouldn’t be allowed to return home? 

Still, the traffic status quo is an unattractive option, and motorists often are not paying the full cost of the roads they drive on, especially once you factor in issues of health, environmental cleanup, and quality of life.

The model for congestion fees is the city of London. Proponents of congestion fees claim that the London example has reduced traffic congestion by 30% and raised $180 million a year, partly to fund mass transit options.

Others have criticized the fee as an insidious tax that hurts business and the poor. Incidentally, the American Ambassador to Britain, Robert Holmes Tuttle, the former Co-Managing Partner of the Tuttle-Click Automotive Group (one of the largest auto dealerships in the United States), has refused to pay over $250,000 in congestion fees the American Embassy has racked up in London. Last year, this prompted London’s mayor to call Ambassador Tuttle “a chiseling little crook.”

Since politicians know they are likely to be punished by voters should they talk straight about taxes, user fees are becoming increasingly popular for funding transportation projects that offer an alternative to our default model.

One other fee-based solution proposed has been “express toll lanes,” which would charge drivers fees based on when they use special toll lanes and how far they drive. Express toll lanes were soon dubbed “Lexus lanes,” and for good reason: they serve as time-savers for affluent drivers, while offering no advantage (or even increasing travel time) for drivers of modest means stuck in the free lanes. The first of these experiments, on SR 91 between Riverside and Orange county, CA, led to drivers who made over $100,000 per year using the toll lanes 4 times as often as those who made under $40,000. Should only the rich be on time, and everyone else be late?

It will be a challenge to provide incentives that can get drivers out of their cars without acting as regressive taxes or fees that further burden the working and middle class. But, ultimately, communities need to grapple earnestly with how to reduce car dependency. Environmental issues aside, excess traffic already has robbed city travelers of the car’s greatest advantage—speed—and reduced many to moving about as fast as a man pushing himself down the street on a skateboard. Regardless of the fate of NY’s congestion fee, the congestion fee may be coming soon to a street near you.

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