Latest Plan for Corzine to Consider: Private Lanes on the Turnpike

By NATE SCHWEBER
Published: July 9, 2008

First, Gov. Jon S. Corzine all but offered to lease the New Jersey Turnpike to the highest bidder. Then he floated the bizarre bureaucratic notion of creating a public benefit corporation so the taxpaying public could, essentially, become a private entity and operate the turnpike and other highways (which are now run by a different quasi-public agency).

He proposed an 800 percent toll increase to pay for the state's aging roads and draw down half of its more than $30 billion in debt.

Now, after all those ideas have been shot down, Mr. Corzine is considering a new prospect for financing critical infrastructure and reducing congestion on the road: Privatize individual lanes.

"It does make you wonder what's next," said Jon Shure, president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonprofit research organization.

On Monday, the State Senate president, Richard J. Codey, a Democrat of Essex County, unveiled his proposal for a private company to build an extension on the turnpike from Exit 8A to Exit 6 and on the Garden State Parkway from Exit 82 down to an exit in the 30s for drivers willing to pay extra to avoid traffic.

At the same time, State Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, a Democrat from Union County who is chairman of the Economic Growth Committee, offered his own twist, suggesting that the new lanes be reserved for buses and trucks.

 

 

 NYC Car Commuters Are Wealthier and Cops All Drive to Work

Motorists are "twice as likely as other congestion zone commuters to hold government jobs" -- 19.5 percent versus 10.3 percent. About a quarter of these government motor vehicle users work in the police or fire departments. "Indeed, very few congestion zone commuters in these occupations took other forms of transportation," according to IBO. Educators represented another one-fourth of government employee car commuters, "although many other educators used alternative transportation."

Title:

Is Los Angeles-style sprawl desirable? By: Ewing, Reid, Journal of the American Planning Association, 01944363, Winter97, Vol. 63, Issue 1

Database:

Academic Search Premier

Abstract:

Focuses on the characteristics, causes and costs of compact development. Distinction from high density or monocentric development; Indications of poor accessibility and lack of functional open space; Market-related causes; Result of market failure; Consumer preference on compact centers; Energy consumption and air pollution; Infrastructure and public service costs; Impact on cities and downtowns.

....
Cures

The only policy intervention endorsed by G & R is the imposition of congestion charges and emissions fees as shadow prices for external costs of auto use, specifically for delay and air pollution imposed on others. This is a safe endorsement for sprawl lovers. While congestion pricing and emissions fees have been touted by economists for decades, those in political power have not exactly rushed to meter their constituents' travel (Orski 1992; Arrillaga 1993).

The first federal demonstration program on congestion pricing, 1973-1978, produced no demonstrations. The current Congestion Pricing Pilot Program, started five years ago, has produced one limited pilot project (and many planning studies) (FHA 1996). Millions of dollars of spending authority were recently rescinded. Most candidates for future congestion pricing are individual bridges or expressways that already charge tolls, but would charge a premium at peak hours. Areawide congestion pricing is a good idea whose time has apparently not come.

November 15, 2007
Cars out as London mayor clears way for Paris-style plage and cycle boulevards
Visitors to London may not find the streets paved with gold but they could certainly find that a lot more streets have been paved, under proposals for the tourist heart of the capital.
Cars will be banned from some of London's busiest streets as part of a bold plan to create continental-style boulevards devoted to pedestrians and cyclists.
Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, plans to replicate Paris Plage, the beach created on a highway alongside the Seine each August, on the four-lane Victoria Embankment beside the Thames.
He is also considering a ban on through traffic on a series of roads connecting London's parks and main shopping areas, including Portland Place, which runs between Regent's Park and Oxford Street.
Speaking at Mayor's Question Time at the London Assembly yesterday, Mr Livingstone said that he wanted to create attractive, tree-lined walkways in the style of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Traffic would be diverted on to alternative routes, but shops and restaurants would still be able to receive deliveries outside peak hours.
The first scheme will be the £18 million part-pedestrianisation of Parliament Square, which will involve removing traffic from the south side closest to Westminster Abbey from 2009. Mr Livingstone believes that the success of the Trafalgar Square scheme, where the road beside the National Gallery has been pedestrianised, will help to overcome objections by motoring groups and retailers.
The RAC Foundation said that Mr Livingstone's plan would force traffic on to less suitable routes and add to congestion, which is already almost back to the level before congestion charging began in 2003.

I-80 toll plans moving forward

By Paul Nussbaum

Inquirer Staff Writer

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will take over operation of I-80 and turn the freeway into a toll road under terms of a 50-year lease signed late Monday.

The lease with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was signed just before a midnight deadline set by the legislature. Tolls could be in place by 2010 if permission is obtained from the Federal Highway Administration.

The state's two highway agencies made formal application for that approval on Saturday. In the application, the turnpike agency said it planned to double the money available for I-80 repairs and upgrades over the next decade to $2 billion.

The state's plan envisions as many as 10 toll booths between New Jersey and Ohio, with an initial cost of about $25 for motorists to drive the entire 311-mile highway.

The I-80 tolls would be set at the turnpike's rate, which is anticipated to be about 8 cents per mile in three years, for cars. That would represent a 33 percent increase from the current turnpike toll rate, which now averages about 6 cents per mile. (Tolls would be 23 cents per mile for trucks weighing 30,001 to 45,000 pounds.)

Tolls on I-80 are part of a plan created last July by the legislature to raise about $965 million more per year over the next 10 years for highways, bridges and mass transit. The new law, Act 44, has been under fire from northern Pennsylvanians along the I-80 corridor who fear it will hurt the economy of the region.

The Boston Globe
Tolling the open road
Massachusetts considers charging by the mile for highway drivers
By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff | October 7, 2007

The monthly invoice could look something like an electricity bill or a cellphone statement. But instead of kilowatt hours or roaming minutes, it would itemize how many miles you drive - with surcharges for traveling during peak hours, premiums for using so-called Lexus lanes that bypass rush-hour snarls, and discounts for sitting through traffic jams.
The free and open road, regarded by many Americans as a birthright, could become a relic under a plan being discussed in Massachusetts and in several other states, transforming highway use from a service available to all into a utility paid for on a per-mile basis.
This philosophical shift is the cornerstone of a landmark report, released last month by the Commonwealth's Transportation Finance Commission, which was tasked with finding the estimated $15 billion to $19 billion needed to fix the state's crumbling roads and bridges over the next two decades.
Under the commission's plan, a 5-cents-per-mile fee on major roads would replace, or minimize, gas taxes and fundamentally change a central aspect of everyday life.

October 8, 2007
M.T.A. Says Mayor's Plan to Ease Traffic Will Cost $767 Million to Accomplish
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to ease traffic congestion by charging motorists who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan would cost hundreds of millions of dollars for new bus and subway services and mass transit improvements to accommodate tens of thousands of new riders, transportation officials say.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in a report to a commission created to evaluate the mayor's plan, estimated that expanded transit service and capital improvements for city and suburban riders who would give up their cars to get into Manhattan over the next five years would cost $767 million.

The total, the authority said, comprised $284 million in 2008 and 2009 for 367 new city and suburban buses, 46 new subway cars and many station renovations and service enhancements; $163 million for other subway and bus improvements from 2010 to 2012, and $320 million for two new bus terminals in Queens and Staten Island.

October 7, 2007
Dispatches
Tollbooths and Traffic: The Talk of 86th Street
By JAKE MOONEY

ANYONE who spends much time in the vicinity of East 86th Street, on the Upper East Side, is well acquainted with congestion. The street is one of the main two-way routes between the East River and Central Park, and on any given day it is home to a glut of vendors' tables and vans, to city buses, to delivery trucks, to commuters rushing to and from the subway past gaudy store displays - and to residents.

For all these people, it might seem that a sweeping plan to tame the traffic, like the mayor's congestion pricing plan currently being discussed by the state's New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, would be a hit. But on this particular street, the plan has been a tough sell. The street represents the northern boundary of the zone that drivers would have to pay to enter during business hours on weekdays, and some people in the area fear that the fees will make life in the border zone even more chaotic.

Elaine Walsh, president of the East 86th Street Merchants and Residents Association, has a list of questions: Will residents who park in the area and drive to work outside the zone have to pay to leave? What about people who pass in and out of the zone while looking for parking spots? Will businesses just inside the line suffer?

Sullivan, Edward
State Route 91 Value-Priced Express Lanes: Updated Observations
Transportation Research Record
Issue Volume 1812 / 2002
DOI 10.3141/1812-05
Pages 37-42
Abstract: Recently over 5 years of field observations were concluded of the value-priced express lanes that opened December 27, 1995, in the median of State Route 91, in Orange County, California. Data collection, covering about a year and a half of observations to establish baseline conditions before opening day, included traffic measurements, vehicle occupancy counts, transit ridership, and comprehensive travel surveys of current and former commuters. The corresponding data analysis included the calibration of choice models of route, occupancy, transponder acquisition, and time-of-day behavior of commuters and the estimation of air pollution emissions. Findings are presented on traffic trends, toll lane use, travelers' responses to changing congestion and tolls, shifts in ridesharing and transit use, shifts in trip purpose, differences associated with income and other demographics, public opinion, collision experience, and the results of choice and emissions modeling. As the first practical application of value pricing in the United States, the State Route 91 express lanes provide many important insights, both technical and institutional, some of which are relevant to the implementation of value-pricing projects in other locations.

The Distributional Effects of Congestion Taxes
Richard Layard
Economica, New Series, Vol. 44, No. 175. (Aug., 1977), pp. 297-304.

Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-0427%28197708%292%3A44%3A175%3C297%3ATDEOCT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T

 

Journal Title - Networks and Spatial Economics
Article Title - Congestion Pricing with Heterogeneous Travelers: A General-Equilibrium Welfare Analysis
Volume - Volume 4
Issue - 2
First Page - 135
Last Page - 160
Issue Cover Date - 2004-06-01
Author - André de Palma
Author - Robin LindseyDOI - 10.1023/B:NETS.0000027770.27906.82

Link - http://www.springerlink.com/content/t317779845j42x04

Abstract  
Traffic congestion pricing is studied using a general-equilibrium framework that incorporates public goods expenditures, an income tax, a government budget constraint, and preferences for equity. Individuals differ with respect to wages, values of travel time, and the congestion characteristics of their vehicles. Formulae for optimal tolls are derived and decomposed to reveal the separate influences of individual and vehicle heterogeneity, road network effects, fiscal effects and equity concerns. Using an example various tolling regimes are considered, defined by how much of the network is tolled, by whether and how tolls are differentiated by route, and by vehicle and individual characteristics.

September 26, 2007
Panel Starts Debate on Congestion Pricing
By COLIN MOYNIHAN

The commission created to come up with a plan to ease traffic in New York City met for the first time yesterday and began its debate on whether Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to charge motorists who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan is the best way to proceed.

The 17 members of the group, which met at Baruch College in Lower Manhattan, include transportation officials, politicians and civic leaders. Most of them are thought to be in favor of the mayor's idea, but whatever plan they agree upon must be approved by the State Legislature and the City Council.

IBM explanation of how congestion pricing tolls are monitored

August 22, 2007
Members Named for Panel Studying Traffic-Cutting Plan
By WILLIAM NEUMAN

A commission heavy with advocates of congestion pricing was named yesterday to study Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's contentious traffic-cutting proposal and present a recommendation to state and city lawmakers.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer nominated Marc V. Shaw, a former deputy mayor under Mr. Bloomberg, as head of the 17-member commission, which must make its recommendation by Jan. 31 on whether to impose an $8 daily charge on drivers entering Manhattan below 86th Street. The charge for trucks would be $21.
The commission includes two other members appointed by the governor, who has endorsed the mayor's proposal, three members appointed by Mayor Bloomberg and three appointed by City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, who has also supported the plan.
It would appear from those appointments that the mayor can count on a majority of commission members to back his plan. The commission was created by a law passed during a special legislative session in July as a compromise between supporters and opponents of the congestion pricing plan.
The federal Transportation Department said last week that it would give New York $354 million if it went ahead with the mayor's congestion plan. The money would go mostly to improve bus service for drivers who switch to mass transit.

New York to Get U.S. Traffic Aid, but With Catch

The federal government said on Tuesday that it would provide $354 million for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s broad plan to reduce traffic, but left it to the city to come up with more than $200 million needed for the most controversial part of the plan: a system to charge people who drive into Manhattan.

In addition, under the agreement outlined by the United States secretary of transportation, Mary E. Peters, the release of the funds is contingent upon the City Council’s and the State Legislature’s approving the plan, including the new fee on drivers, by next March.

The announcement was mixed news for Mr. Bloomberg, who is trying to establish the first broad-based congestion pricing program in the country, and to raise his national profile on environmental issues. While the federal support helps to advance his initiative, it is now up to the mayor to find the money — through borrowing, appropriation, or perhaps from a private corporation — for what has been seen as the centerpiece of the plan, the new charge on drivers.

In its federal application, the city estimated that it would cost $223 million to install a computerized system to monitor traffic and impose the fee on cars entering the busiest parts of Manhattan, and asked the United States to cover $179 million of that. But the Department of Transportation said it would contribute only $10 million to that initiative. Most of what the department agreed to provide on Tuesday is designated for the construction of bus depots and other mass transit improvements.

By CYNTHIA CROSSEN

When Parallel Parking
Was New and Meters
Seemed Un-American
July 30, 2007; Page B1

Parking on city streets today is a cinch compared with the 1930s, when free, unlimited parking was considered every American's constitutional right.

Just as their grandparents had tied their horses to the general store's rail, American drivers expected handy curb space for their cars when they went to town. By the 1930s, however, there were too many cars and too few curbs.

The result was chaos. Employees of downtown businesses hogged spaces for whole days; some merchants deliberately parked their cars in front of competitors' stores. Other drivers circled the narrow streets waiting for a rare free space. Trucks loading or unloading double-parked. In most cities, there were no marks on curbs to delineate spaces. In the few timed spaces, enforcement by chalking the tires was easy to beat. And the art of parallel parking was in its infancy.

"None of our cities were designed for motor traffic, and only in the West were they young enough when the automobile arrived en masse to adapt themselves to the new traffic medium," wrote Arthur Pound in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1938.

For drivers, downtown bottlenecks were maddening, but for retail businesses that depended on customer turnover, they were ruinous. Some large cities tried banning all parking on a few major thoroughfares, but many shoppers wouldn't walk even a few blocks from their car to a store. They took their business to the periphery of the city.

In 1932, the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce decided it had to do something about the city's downtown parking problem. A local newspaper editor, Carl Magee, was charged with finding a solution. Mr. Magee invented the park-o-meter.

July 2, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Clear Up the Congestion-Pricing Gridlock
By KEN LIVINGSTONE

London

THE New York State Assembly ended its session on June 22 without reaching a consensus on Manhattan's congestion pricing proposal - a delay that may cost New York City some $500 million in federal transportation money. Assembly members have voiced concerns about the economic impact of the program, the effect on traffic outside Manhattan and even the effectiveness of the idea itself.

Four years ago, London was engaged in a very similar debate. We now have the luxury of hindsight. While the two cities' situations are not identical, they certainly have analogies and therefore, perhaps, the success of London's program can shed light on the current debate in New York.

At that time, London's business district was undergoing rapid growth, but it was at capacity in terms of traffic. Efforts to channel more cars into the city center simply led to ever lower traffic speeds, which in turn led to business losses and a decrease in quality of life. Simultaneously, carbon emissions were mounting because of the inefficiency of engine use.

In 2003, London put in place a £5 (about $9) a day congestion charge for all cars that entered the center city (the charge is now £8). This led to an immediate drop of 70,000 cars a day in the affected zone. Traffic congestion fell by almost 20 percent. Emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide were cut by more than 15 percent.

THE STATE
Will gridlocked L.A. heed this toll call?
While Orange County officials have built a network of toll roads to address growing traffic, L.A. officials have invested much more heavily in rail and bus service.
By Rong-Gong Lin II and Steve Hymon, Times Staff Writers
June 29, 2007

The land of the freeway is poised to become a little less free.

Los Angeles County transit leaders on Thursday agreed to develop plans for toll roads within the next three years, after decades of opposition to the concept of motorists paying tolls to use the roads.

The decision by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board comes amid criticism that Los Angeles has not joined other metropolitan areas around the nation in experimenting with "congestion pricing," in which motorists pay to use less crowded lanes.

Last month, L.A. County lost out on a major federal grant because it did not have any congestion pricing in the works.

June 30, 2007
Manhattanites Face Driving Fee on the Way Out
By WILLIAM NEUMAN

In promoting his sweeping traffic reduction plan, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his aides have stressed one provision: drivers who enter Manhattan below 86th Street would be charged an $8 fee.

But what has not been widely mentioned is a measure that could startle some Manhattanites: those who live within the zone would have to pay $8 to drive out.

The congestion pricing program was devised to cut traffic, chiefly by persuading people from the other boroughs and beyond to leave their cars behind and take public transit into Manhattan. But planners say that those who live inside the congestion pricing zone also contribute to traffic when they drive out, and should pay their share, too.

That means a man from Greenwich Village who drives to visit his grandmother in Queens would pay the fee. So would a C.E.O. who has a reverse commute, driving from the East Side to Stamford, Conn., each morning, and an Upper Eastsider who likes to drive to the Fairway supermarket in Harlem.

It might seem that anyone taking a car out of the congestion zone ought to be rewarded instead of penalized, but officials disagreed.

"We're not trying to get people to leave the zone in their cars," said Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, who played a leading role in fashioning the plan. "Overall what we're trying to do is get people to use their cars less."

June 17, 2007, 7:16 pm
Are You Ready to Pay to Park on Your Street?

By Danny Hakim

New York City could start charging residents to park in their own neighborhoods under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. The mayor's proposal, which was introduced in the State Senate this month, would charge most drivers $8 to enter Manhattan below 86th Street on weekdays. To mollify people just outside the zone who feared their streets would turn into parking lots, the Senate bill would allow the city to issue permits so that most parking spots would be restricted to neighborhood residents.

But the bill says there would be unspecified fees that residents would have to pay to get those permits. The money would go to the city's general fund.

John Gallagher, a spokesman for the mayor, said "discussion of a fee structure for residential permit parking is very premature." Among other details of the plan, visitors coming into the city could deduct the cost of bridge and tunnel tolls from an $8 fee to enter Manhattan, but only if they use E-ZPass. And the state's environmental review process would be waived to speed up the plan.

We took a dive into the fine print of the mayor's proposal. As one might expect with such a voluminous piece of legislation, a number of notable items emerge from the fine print.

It's not spelled out how visitors driving into New York City would be made aware that they had to pay $8 within 48 hours or face a $115 fine. The mayor and his administration have said most people would likely have heard about the congestion fee, though some lawmakers say many might not. The mayor's staff says there would also be adequate signage. Lawmakers have wondered how this would actually work: The signs, presumably, would have to explain how and where to pay, requiring a lot more words than "toll ahead."

June 8, 2007
City Traffic Pricing Wins U.S. and Spitzer's Favor
By DANNY HAKIM and RAY RIVERA

ALBANY, June 7 - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to reduce traffic by charging people who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan received significant support on Thursday as Gov. Eliot Spitzer endorsed the idea and the Bush administration indicated that New York stood to gain hundreds of millions of dollars if the plan were enacted.

If the measure is approved by the Legislature, New York will become the first city in the United States to impose a broad system of congestion pricing, which was introduced in London in 2003 and has been credited with reducing traffic there.

Governor Spitzer said he would work to ensure passage of the plan, which is a major part of the mayor's blueprint for improving air quality and traffic flow for the next several decades. The Bloomberg administration has estimated that it could put the program into effect within 18 months of legislative approval.

"This is a necessary investment for the future of New York City, which is to a great extent the economic engine of New York State," the governor said. "And so this is not really a question of whether, it's a question of how, it's a question of making sure that we do it properly."

Mr. Spitzer appeared alongside the United States transportation secretary, Mary E. Peters, who announced that New York City was one of nine finalists for a share of $1.1 billion in federal aid to fight urban traffic. Ms. Peters warned, however, that the city's potential share could be endangered if the mayor's plan did not have state approval by August.

Heavy New York Traffic Puts Health at Risk
Mayor's groundbreaking plan to make New York the world's cleanest, healthiest city is welcome

Posted on: 04/19/2007

Hi-res jpg image of ad
Mayor's Sustainabilty Plan

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg wants the city to have "the cleanest air of any big city in America" by 2030.

Just after Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his bold "greenprint" for New York City, Environmental Defense called for people to share stories about traffic. Arturo, a resident of Long Island City, Queens, New York, responded. He describes the perils of living on a busy high-speed thoroughfare:

"Trucks, buses, cars whiz by at high speeds. The green [light for drivers] is at least 90 seconds, perhaps longer, so vehicles are inclined to drive very fast. .... I play a game of chicken every time I cross. And during rush hours, other pedestrians like me are forced to jaywalk," he writes. (Share your story, too. How does traffic affect you? Does your child go to school or play near a busy road?)

congestion pricing technology corperation

April 29, 2007
The City
Unlocking Gridlock

Washington is poised to offer a helping hand, as well as significant money, to assist Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his efforts to solve New York's traffic gridlock. But there is one bump in the road - Albany, which must approve the city's proposed remedy before any money can begin to flow. And some legislators are balking.

The federal Department of Transportation plans to make available $1.2 billion in grants, loans and other financing to metropolitan areas across the country to help them test strategies to relieve traffic congestion.

Editorial
The Mayor's Ode to Earth Day
Published: April 23, 2007

Mayor Michael Bloomberg likes to talk about the big picture, even if it might not be pretty. Yesterday, he warned New Yorkers how their city could suffer by 2030 without his plans for the future. With a million new people coming into town, housing needs would soar. The sky could be as gray and toxic as London in the '50s. Every road into Manhattan would be above capacity - a gridlock nightmare that would make today's traffic jams look tame.

April 22, 2007
Mayor Proposes a Fee for Driving Into Manhattan
By MARIA NEWMAN

Saying that he would not spend his final term in office "pretending that all is fine," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made a series of Earth Day proposals this afternoon to improve the environment of New York City, including charging a new congestion fee to drivers who come into parts of Manhattan during peak hours during weekdays.

The $8 congestion fee was one of 127 initiatives included in a sweeping plan by the mayor to help the city of currently 8.2 million people cope with an expected surge in population that he said is sure to put a strain on its transportation, housing and energy systems.

"Let's face up to the fact that our population growth is putting our city on a collision course with the environment, which itself is growing more unstable and uncertain," the mayor said.

A key objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030, by which time the population is projected to grow by at least a million people, he said.

The proposal that is sure to attract the most attention, and possibly objections, is one to impose the $8 fee on car drivers, and $21 for truck operators, to drive in Manhattan south of 86th Street.

April 20, 2007, 12:05 pm
Bloomberg: ‘It's Called Capitalism'

By Ray Rivera
On his weekly radio appearance on WABC this morning [listen], Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spoke hypothetically about the congestion pricing proposal he is all but assured to announce on Sunday. One plan under consideration would charge drivers $8 to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan during the workweek as a way to reduce traffic and air pollution.

Mr. Bloomberg said he expected a fight in Albany to impose the plan. "I've always thought, it's a difficult political lift," he said, "but it's getting to the point of, what do you want? You can't have it both ways."

The mayor also said the charge would not be onerous, considering the costly price of parking in Manhattan, and that most, though not all, people who commute by car tend to be "people who can afford it." Asked if it was a new tax, he described it as a reasonable cost for a service the city provides. He compared the cost to the $12 people pay to attend a movie. Of course, few go to the movies daily.

April 20, 2007
Bloomberg to Unveil Long-Term Vision for City
By DIANE CARDWELL and CHARLES V. BAGLI

With New York's population expected to grow by one million in two decades, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will call on Sunday for a raft of ambitious and sometimes contentious proposals that are intended to ease traffic congestion, reduce air pollution, build housing, improve mass transit and develop abandoned industrial land.

The speech, which mayoral aides have described as the centerpiece of his final 32 months in office, will outline his vision for the city over the next quarter century, setting priorities for refurbishing the city's aging bridges, water mains, transit system, power plants and building codes. And in the talk on Sunday - Earth Day - the mayor will propose doing so in a way that reduces the strain on natural resources like water, clean air and land.

Toward that end, Mr. Bloomberg is expected to advocate more than 100 proposals, including charging drivers to enter the busiest sections of Manhattan, and using zoning and tax incentives to encourage the construction of 250,000 homes.

April 19, 2007
Congestion Pricing Could Be Used To Help Sustain City
BY ANNIE KARNI
Mayor Bloomberg this Sunday will unveil a wide-ranging plan intended to make the city healthier and cleaner as it prepares for an expected influx of 1 million new residents by 2030.
The sustainability plan, 18 months in the making, is likely to include more than 100 specific initiatives addressing the city's energy and infrastructure goals, including: creating incentives for green development, implementing caps on building emissions, and charging drivers a fee to use the city's most congested streets, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the initiative.
The mayor's Earth Day announcement is expected to include some form of congestion pricing, charging drivers a fee for using the city's most crowded roads during peak hours. If approved, the fees could bring in up to $500 million annually to fund mass transit infrastructure expansion and improvements, according to multiple sources. They said the road-pricing initiative that is likely to be implemented would be similar but "more moderate" than London's model of congestion pricing, instituted in 2003.
One possibility being tossed around is that drivers entering Manhattan's central business district below 86th Street would pay $8 during peak hours, which would be offset by any tolls paid to enter.

Feds endorse highway toll system
By Mark Ginocchio
Staff Writer
Published March 21 2007

WESTPORT - Federal Highway Administration officials yesterday urged state lawmakers to install highway tolls that charge motorists different rates based on peak and off-peak hours.

The tolling method, called congestion or value pricing, helps reduce traffic during rush hour while providing the state with cash for transportation improvements, said Patrick DeCorla-Souza, program manager for the administration's congestion pricing initiative.

Other cities worldwide use the method successfully, and other transportation systems, such as airlines and railroads, already charge varying rates based on peak hours, DeCorla-Souza said at a meeting at Westport Police Department headquarters organized by the South Western Regional Planning Agency.

"People understand that at certain times during the year, certain goods and services are more valuable," DeCorla-Souza said at the event, attended by about 30 municipal leaders and legislators from Fairfield County. "The idea now is to help them understand it in the transportation arena."

Thursday, March 01, 2007
Manville, on Why We Don't Use Congestion Pricing

Guest post by Michael Manville, UCLA.

Along with David King and Donald Shoup, I recently completed an article on the politics of congestion pricing, and Dave, Don and I are beginning another project on the same topic. Congestion pricing is getting a lot of press of late, and moving closer to reality, but politically it still has a long way to go. Rather than rehash our article here, I'll discuss some of the broader issues about pricing's political viability that I've been thinking about, some of which made it into our paper and some of which did not. I make no claims to completeness and only minor claims to originality. I also don't want to implicate my coauthors in any of this, as they may disagree with some of it (although most of the good points are probably theirs). As a means of organizing the discussion, I'll pose the simple planning research question that I think dominates this topic: if congestion pricing is so great, why don't we do more of it?

I'll put forward four possible explanations, none mutually exclusive but each with different research implications, and then end with a more general research question about the effect pricing's political costs might have on the larger urban transportation system.

The Eddington Transport Study

Sir Rod Eddington was jointly commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Transport to examine the long-term links between transport and the UK's economic productivity, growth and stability, within the context of the Government's broader commitment to sustainable development. The Study was announced in Budget 2005 and reported on 1 December 2006 to accompany the 2006 Pre-Budget Report.

Thank you for taking the time to register your views about road pricing on the Downing Street website. This petition was posted shortly before we published the Eddington Study, an independent review of Britain's transport network. This study set out long-term challenges and options for our transport network.

...

One thing I suspect we can all agree is that congestion is bad.  It's bad for business because it disrupts the delivery of goods and services. It affects people's quality of life. And it is bad for the environment. That is why tackling congestion is a key priority for any Government.

Congestion is predicted to increase by 25% by 2015.  This is being driven by economic prosperity. There are 6 million more vehicles on the road now than in 1997, and predictions are that this trend will continue. Part of the solution is to improve public transport, and to make the most of the existing road network. We have more than doubled investment since 1997, spending £2.5 billion this year on buses and over £4 billion on trains- helping to explain why more people are using them than for decades. And we're committed to sustaining this investment, with over £140 billion of investment planned between now and 2015. We're also putting a great deal of effort into improving traffic flows - for example, over 1000 Highways Agency Traffic Officers now help to keep motorway traffic moving.

But all the evidence shows that improving public transport and tackling traffic bottlenecks will not by themselves prevent congestion getting worse.  So we have a difficult choice to make about how we tackle the expected increase in congestion. This is a challenge that all political leaders have to face up to, and not just in the UK. For example, road pricing schemes are already in operation in Italy, Norway and in Singapore, and others, such as the Netherlands, are developing schemes. Towns and cities across the world are looking at road pricing as a means of addressing congestion.

One option would be to allow congestion to grow unchecked. Given the forecast growth in traffic, doing nothing would mean that journeys within and between cities would take longer, and be less reliable. I think that would be bad for businesses , individuals and the environment. And the costs on us all will be real - congestion could cost an extra £22 billion in wasted time in England by 2025, of which £10-12 billion would be the direct cost on businesses.

A second option would be to try to build our way out of congestion. We could, of course, add new lanes to our motorways, widen roads in our congested city centres, and build new routes across the countryside. Certainly in some places new capacity will be part of the story. That is why we are widening the M25, M1 and M62. But I think people agree that we cannot simply build more and more roads, particularly when the evidence suggests that traffic quickly grows to fill any new capacity.

Tackling congestion in this way would also be extremely costly, requiring substantial sums to be diverted from other services such as education and health, or increases in taxes. If I tell you that one mile of new motorway costs as much as £30m, you'll have an idea of the sums this approach would entail.

 

BBC's page on london congestion charges

February 11, 2007
Economic View
What's the Toll? It Depends on the Time of Day
By DANIEL GROSS

FOR the small group of economists and policy wonks interested in applying supply-and-demand theories to the thorny problems of gridlock and ever-longer commutes, the $2.9 trillion fiscal 2008 budget released by President Bush on Monday contained some excellent news: $130 million in grants to finance construction of so-called congestion pricing systems.

Congestion pricing - the concept of charging higher fees to consumers for a good or a service at times of heavy use - is well established in businesses like hotels, long-distance phone service and air travel. And while London and Stockholm have successfully enacted plans that levy fees on drivers who want to enter traffic-clogged city streets, the United States has been slow to apply the concept on the roads. When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed last year that New York look into congestion pricing as a means of unclogging the city's famously clogged roadways, he was roundly criticized.

Actually, congestion pricing was born and bred in New York City. William Vickrey, the longtime Columbia University economist and 1996 Nobel laureate, is viewed as the father of the concept. In 1959, long before E-ZPass was a twinkle in a planner's eye, Mr. Vickrey proposed that cities could reduce traffic by using electronic systems to charge drivers for the privilege of nosing their sedans into urban grids.

Posted on Tue, Feb. 13, 2007
Fattah calls for studying Center City drive-in fee
By Michael Currie Schaffer
Inquirer Staff Writer

Mayoral candidate Chaka Fattah yesterday proposed examining a "congestion charge" that would require drivers to pay to bring their cars into traffic-clogged parts of central Philadelphia at peak hours.

Fattah offered few specifics about what his plan would cost or just how it would be implemented. He said he hoped only to "study" the idea.

"We cannot have a city in which everyone expects to be able to drive their car everywhere they want to go," Fattah said.

Pressure mounts over road tolls
Doulgas Alexander
Transport minister Douglas Alexander

Pressure is continuing to mount on the government over controversial plans to introduce road pricing.
As environmental groups urge ministers to stand firm, the Downing Street website e-petition demanding the policy be scrapped has been signed by more than 1.2 million people.

... 

February 07, 2007

A rush-hour tax on urban drivers
President Bush plans to help cities and states impose 'congestion pricing' as a way to curb carbon gases.
The Monitor's View

President Bush wants to give $305 million to cities and states to come up with ways to charge drivers for traveling at peak traffic. Such "congestion pricing" has worked in a few cities such as London and Singapore. But can it succeed with toll-averse Americans?

A rush-hour fee would not be aimed simply at easing the commuting hassles of only those workers willing or able to pay a few extra dollars a day. It's a scheme with wider benefits, such as reduced fuel consumption, less air pollution, and better efficiency for business.

Congestion Pricing's Conditional Promise: Promotion of Accessibility or Mobility?
---Jonathan Levine

Concentrations
land use and environmental planning
physical planning and urban design
housing community and economic development
transportation planning
planning in developing countries

Abstract-
The derived nature of transportation demand implies that enhancement of mobility per se is not a reasonable goal for transportation policy; instead, improved mobility is desired to the extent that it furthers accessibility-a goal that can be achieved through a variety of measures. The paper uses the mobility-accessibility distinction to distinguish different implementations of congestion pricing. A mobility-based congestion pricing promises to alleviate congestion but threatens to deteriorate from overall regional accessibility as it accelerates metropolitan deconcentration. In contrast, accessibility-based congestion pricing avoids acceleration of sprawl by incorporating policies to ensure that drivers tolled off roads are replaced with residents and travelers arriving at previously congested areas by other means.

Congestion Pricing Prophet:
‘Biking Is the New Golf!'
By: Matthew Schuerman
Date: 2/5/2007
"I notice when I am riding that I run a lot of red lights," the 6-foot-2 Paul Steely White shouted over his shoulder. "The way I think of it, it is more important to watch out for pedestrians than lights, because there are a lot of jaywalkers in New York."
Mr. White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a pedestrian and bike advocacy group, was loping down Mott Street in Soho in a cold January drizzle on a single-speed 1971 Schwinn, weaving in between cars trying to find their way onto the Williamsburg Bridge-a bakery van pulling suddenly over to the curb, a truck snorting forth.
...
Once the domain of traffic nerds, congestion pricing has taken hold here recently like never before. Both the Partnership for New York City, a prominent group of business executives, and the Manhattan Institute, the conservative think tank, endorsed or re-endorsed it in December, joining a list of longstanding proponents such as the Regional Plan Association.

Are London-Style Traffic Charges
The Answer for U.S. Congestion?
January 18, 2007

Crammed roadways and rush-hour traffic once were only problems in major U.S. cities such as New York and Los Angeles, but traffic snarls are becoming a growing problem for more cities. The number of metro areas where rush-hour travelers spend more than 20 hours per year stewing in traffic grew from a mere five in 1982 to 51 in 2003, according to the most recent report from the Texas Transportation Institute.

Traffic policies have long focused on road building. But some now argue that opening toll-based express lanes or instituting extra fees for rush-hour drivers -- as London did in 2003 -- may drive people toward public transportation and make commutes more efficient. Are there unintended consequences of such policies? And how big a problem is congestion if -- in the end -- commuters still are willing brave the morning rush?

The Online Journal asked economists Peter Gordon, of the University of Southern California, and Matthew Kahn, of the University of California, Los Angeles, to discuss the costs of traffic congestion, the problem it poses -- or doesn't pose -- for cities and how policy options such as London's traffic congestion charges might play on this side of the pond.

Kick Out the Jams
Will a toll booth at the corner of 60th and Fifth solve midtown's traffic nightmare?
by Jarrett Murphy
January 2nd, 2007 12:08 PM

A First-Hand Report On London's Congestion Pricing
United Kingdom | Transportation
19 December 2006 - 1:00pm
John Landis, Chair of the City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, provides a fascinating first-hand review of London's congestion charging program, and offers his perspective on transportation and land use in the city.

 

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/transportation/20061213/16/2060

Congestion Pricing And The Future Of NYC: Addressing The Objections
by Bruce Schaller
13 Dec 2006

In his much-anticipated speech on long-term planning for New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out “10 aggressive but achievable goals” to meet the “three major challenges” of the future. One of the major challenges, he said, will be an expected explosion in population growth; one of the goals within that challenge will be to make sure traffic congestion “doesn’t bring our economy grinding to a halt.” And what would assure this? In his speech, the mayor talked about “adding to the capacity of our regional mass transit system, so that travel times stay the same – or get better.” But members of the panel discussion immediately afterwards specifically touched on whether congestion pricing – charging a fee to use congested streets or highways – should be used to provide traffic relief.

Car owners to pay for city entry
Publication date: Wednesday, 6th December, 2006
By Anne Mugisa
and Emmy Allio

THE plan to remove Bodaboda and commuter taxis off the street and introduce a city bus service takes off in February.

Congestion Pricing: An Incomplete Solution

by Tom Angotti
December, 2006

 

Unlocking the Gridlock
New York has been trying to fix its traffic problems for decades. How those big ideas keep getting stuck behind slow-moving politicians.
By Aaron Naparstek

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 26, No. 2, 174-184 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X06288093
© 2006 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Unraveling Equity in HOT Lane Planning
A View from Practice
Asha Weinstein

urban and regional planning, San José State University

Gian-Claudia Sciara

University of California, Berkeley

This article investigates how concern about equity has arisen in the planning and implementation of high-occupancy/toll lane projects, or so-called "HOT lanes." Specifically, the research assesses (1) where and how equity issues have surfaced in the debate over HOT lanes and (2) how practicing planners have responded to these equity concerns. By looking explicitly at the planning process through a series of case studies and a review of newspaper coverage, the research suggests strategies for how practitioners can craft a comprehensive and meaningful framework for assessing and addressing equity issues.

Key Words: transportation planning • transportation finance • HOT lanes • congestion pricing • equity

AS WE ADD MILLIONS: HOW DO WE STAY MOBILE?
November 26, 2006
By 2043, we're being told, there won't just be 300 million of us -- there will be 400 million. With the roadways around our metropolitan regions increasingly clogged, how will we ever stay mobile?
Depending on the tea leaves you choose, some vividly contrasting futures emerge.
Vision No. 1 is ``stay the course.'' Keep driving as we have. In 1980, 64.4 percent of us drove to work alone; in 2000 it was 75.7 percent, according to the Transportation Research Board's recent ``Commuting in America'' survey by Alan Pisarski.
...
This is the hottest new trend, discussed intensely by governors, state transportation officials and state legislators. Multibillion-dollar roadway investments by private financing firms are increasing fast. We've reached what transportation expert C. Kenneth Orski calls a critical ``tipping point.''
...
But still, says Thomas Downs, president of the Eno Transportation Foundation, politicians will have to face deep public doubts about selling off public assets or explaining why they condemn peoples' property to build for-profit roads.
...
So is there a Vision No. 3? Yes, there's a set of tea leaves that says so -- the vote of many Americans earlier this month to support new and expanded public transit. Transit proposals with cumulative value of $40 billion were approved from Rhode Island to Minnesota, Missouri to Utah to California.
My next column will ask: Is Vision No. 3 a sentimental throwback, or a powerful alternative for this century?

Survey of 800 residents that advocates hope will renew City Hall's interest in using new tolling schemes to reduce the aggravation, noise and pollution that too many cars in too little space bring.
Nearly 45% of city residents surveyed by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign said it would be a good idea to charge drivers to enter Manhattan below 60th St. because it would get them into trains and buses.
...
Of those surveyed, an equal percentage - 45% - voiced opposition to charging to go below 60th St. on top of existing tolls at such places as the Lincoln and Holland tunnels.
Other findings of the survey include:
# Only 18% were familiar with the concept of congestion pricing, which also entails charging drivers more for peak-hour travel.
# Nearly 80% believe traffic jams are a problem, and 53% say congestion is a major problem.
# Strong dissatisfaction with Mayor Bloomberg's efforts in addressing traffic: 59% give him a negative rating.
# 77% agree that congestion pricing will reduce noise and air pollution in the city. Almost all of those believe it will speed emergency response.
# 65% of workers take mass transit, while 24% drive their own cars.

Bigger Push for Charging Drivers Who Use the Busiest Streets
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: November 24, 2006

Congestion pricing, the idea of charging drivers for bringing vehicles into the busiest parts of Manhattan, has become a kind of holy grail for transportation advocates and urban planners in New York - a coveted prize that has remained out of reach.

A year ago, officials from a prominent civic group floated a proposal to reduce traffic by levying a $7 fee on cars and trucks driving below 60th Street, but they found themselves treated not like visionary crusaders but like bird flu patients when policy makers at City Hall said very firmly that such a change was not on the mayor's agenda for his second term.

Groups Study Congestion Pricing for City

By ANNIE KARNI
Special to the Sun
November 20, 2006

While Mayor Bloomberg publicly maintains that the city is not interested in charging drivers a fee to enter Midtown Manhattan's business district during its busiest hours, four independent groups are quietly conducting studies to determine how imposing such a charge could reduce city traffic and benefit the economy.

The studies, set to be released within the next few months, could renew pressure on the mayor to consider instating the fees known as congestion pricing.

Congestion pricing creates a financial incentive to reduce the number of cars on the city's most overcrowded streets and encourages the use of mass transit. Opponents say they don't like the idea of New Yorkers paying to use their own city.