CONGESTION PRICING PILOT PROGRAM

This paper describes the experiences of the development and implementation of a Congestion Pricing Pilot Program. It describes how there has been an interest in road pricing, largely among economists, since the 1920s, but transportation professionals have shown little interest. However, in recent years, several factors have brought pricing into favor as a possible transportation control measure. First, air quality emerged as a serious problem in a number of U.S. cities. Conventional traffic control measures are not sufficient to meet the emissions reductions requirements of national environmental legislation. Second, congestion on many facilities in high growth areas has gotten progressively worse. New capacity is not feasible in many of these situations so new approached need to be developed. Third, electronic toll and traffic management technology has emerged to remove the undesirable toll booth delays. Fourth, in a time of severe budget constrains, pricing looks appealing as a revenue source. The ISTEA greatly liberalized Federal toll provisions and authorized pricing for the first time on Federally funded facilities. Federal monies through grants or loans may now be mixed with State or private monies to build or reconstruct toll roads or bridges (except for Interstate roads). As part of the new toll provisions, Congress authorized a pilot congestion pricing program to fund up to five pilot projects and the projects are presented.