The stats are not pretty. More than 800,000 cars and trucks enter the core - Manhattan south of 60th Street - each weekday. Almost 80 percent drive in for free via the FDR, the Henry Hudson Parkway, nine avenues and the East River bridges. And each day, the streets of the central business district - the core of the region - are mired in congestion.
From the commuter's perspective, it's often faster to walk across midtown Manhattan than take a bus or taxi. From the delivery van driver's perspective, there are few options but to wait. Unreliable journey times translate into higher costs for business, and frustration for commuters and residents in one of the most densely populated and densely employed places on earth.
Other major cities - Singapore, Melbourne, Oslo, among many others - have improved traffic by charging drivers to enter their central business districts, or are actively studying how to do so. Beginning last February, London, which is similar in size to New York, confronted congestion by charging cars about $8 to drive into its central business district on weekdays. As a result, traffic volumes are down by 16 percent and motor vehicle delays are down by 30 percent. Most drivers choose time over money, surveys show.
RPA recently took a look at how pricing might mitigate the traffic in the region's core. (See www.rpa.org/pdf/RPA_Congestion_Pricing_NY.pdf ) Our analysis takes advantage of what has been learned from past studies of East River bridge tolls, as well as the actual experience in London and elsewhere, and at the Port Authority crossings. Depending on how much is charged at what times of day, pricing could result in 40,000 to 105,000 fewer vehicles driving into the core. This could result in a 5 to 17 percent drop in traffic during the morning rush. While the number of cars coming into the city would decline significantly, the number of people - and thus the level of the city's economic activity - would not. Our model concludes that less than one percent of the 4 million people who enter the Manhattan Central Business District every weekday would change destination or not take a trip due to congestion pricing. Most people who changed driving habits due to charges for driving into the core would switch to transit.
The specific elements of any congestion pricing plan would affect conditions on the street. If prices vary by time of day, some will choose to drive when the price is lower, smoothing out the traffic flow. This would translate into fewer backups in Brooklyn and Queens, fewer trucks clogging Canal Street, and faster and more reliable trips for taxis, buses and delivery vans. If prices are placed lower on some routes, some drivers will shift to those routes. Right now, the uneven tolling for entry into Manhattan causes traffic congestion in patterns as people try to avoid the tolls.
While congestion pricing has the potential to significantly improve traffic, it also has the potential to raise considerable revenue for important services the city needs. RPA estimates that $700 million to over $1.5 billion could be raised annually, depending on the characteristics of the congestion pricing system. This money could be used to improve transportation and quality of life in a number of ways.
It may seem unfair to charge drivers to use certain city streets or East River bridges. But maintaining city streets and bridges is expensive. It seems only fair to charge those who use the streets to pay for their upkeep, rather than the majority of taxpayers who do not regularly drive into the central business district.
Aside from traffic and revenue impacts, many other issues arise whenever this topic is raised. It is best to address these issues by looking at how a congestion pricing system would work in New York.
More complex are issues of equity and economic impacts. More research is needed on who would pay the charges - where they live, how much they earn, the purpose and final destination of their trip, and their transit options. While initial results from London are promising, it is difficult to establish only six months into their congestion pricing scheme how small businesses in the core have been affected.
For New York there's also the extremely important issue of regional competitiveness. Would less traffic and better street conditions make Manhattan a more attractive place to live and work, and thus improve the city's competitiveness? Or would the charges push business away? How might these impacts balance out? Exemptions and discounts - for residents, taxis, or low income employees - and price setting itself are factors that require more research. These issues and many others are of vital importance. Public acceptance of congestion pricing hinges on their answers. The first step in approaching this issue is identifying our goal. Where pricing programs have been successful, its proponents have a goal, it is presented to the public in terms of that goal, and its success is measured according to that goal. In London, the goal was improving traffic conditions. Congestion had reached a point of city-wide crisis including a highly publicized traffic jam that trapped Prime Minister Tony Blair. In Trondheim, Norway, the core was cordoned to raise funds for transit; traffic improvements resulted as an added benefit. In Singapore the goal is to move more people via transit, and pricing is combined with prohibitive measures against car ownership. In New York, priorities have yet to be clearly formed.
Since the 1920s, the number of vehicles entering the central business district has grown annually by an average of 8,000 vehicles per day. Traffic congestion is surely but slowly choking the core of the City, with concomitant economic costs, pollution and headaches. Likewise, the potential benefits of lowering traffic are exciting - greater ease on city streets for drivers and pedestrians, the ability to close Central Park drives to vehicular traffic, and dramatic quality of life improvements in Long Island City, Brooklyn Heights and other neighborhoods, to name just a few. The assumption that New Yorkers cannot do something about a problem just because it has been around for a long time must be challenged. We got rid of graffiti, we have discounts on our subways and buses, and we may even be on the verge of having clean public bathrooms, but that is another story. We have it within our grasp to do something about mind-numbing traffic congestion.
Although the quality of transit service has improved, thanks to $30 billion of investment over the last 20 years, the region's transit system has not added capacity since the 1940s. Subways may be cleaner but they are more crowded than ever. Commuting from the outer boroughs into Manhattan is slow and unreliable, and the region has the longest commutes in the nation.
Congestion pricing will raise significant revenue, and the public is unlikely to accept a system unless revenue is guaranteed to be used for an agreed-to public purpose. Pricing in Manhattan will require that some people pay more than they do now, for benefits that may or may not directly go to them. This can be balanced with an explicit policy goal of using new revenue to expand transit options for those commuters who are most affected by pricing.
- Alexis Perrotta, Planner, and Jeff Zupan, Senior Fellow for Transportation, RPA