Will Americans Ever Embrace Congestion Pricing?
Though the idea of congestion pricing has won over many planners and officials, as the failed proposal in New York shows, many members of the driving public are far more comfortable with sitting in traffic than paying tolls or riding transit.
"Should you have to pay to drive on the Capital Beltway -- and on Interstate 270, the George Washington Memorial Parkway and all the bridges that cross the Potomac?
Many economists would say yes. The Bush administration would agree. A federally funded study completed last week lays out how much revenue such a tolling system would generate and how much it could reduce traffic congestion.
But if you don't like the idea, don't fire off any angry e-mails just yet. "Road pricing," long the arcane province of a few academics, has become technically feasible and politically at least not unmentionable. But it still generates tremendous suspicion and opposition, and not along the usual left-right dividing lines.
Just ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City. He assembled a coalition of environmentalists, business groups, subway riders and others to back what he called "congestion pricing," an $8 fee he would have charged anyone driving downtown during business hours. The Bush administration offered a $354 million incentive -- or bribe, to opponents -- to be used for public transit if the plan was adopted. But Democrats in the New York legislature killed the proposal a week ago."
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Of reds and reds
It is interesting that this article should so associate congestion charging with the Republican establishment. Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor who initiated congestion charging in that city, is referred to as Red Ken on account of his socialist leanings, not any affiliations with the United States political party of the same color.
It's disappointing to see party politics wreck a plan that would have improved the health and wealth of the majority of New York's residents under a false pretense of equity.