Congestion Pricing: Where Do We Go From Here?

This paper presents two strategies that incorporate congestion pricing as a way to reduce congestion and raise revenue. The authors briefly discuss the proposal by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to establish congestion pricing in a portion of Manhattan, as a way to reduce congestion and raise revenue. But area pricing, the type of congestion pricing proposed for New York’s central business district (CBD), is only one of several approaches that could be implemented in a relatively short time. The authors maintain that systemwide approaches could generate even more revenue than the Manhattan scheme, and make an even more significant dent in congestion. They discuss two such strategies: creating a network of express toll lanes along with active traffic management; and establishing a congestion pricing program that would operate only during peak periods on the entire freeway system. Priced lanes can include high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, express toll lanes, fast and intertwined regular (FAIR) lanes, and truck-only toll (TOT) lanes. Another section briefly considers proposals that do not involve tolls, including parking pricing and converting fixed costs for automobile use into variable costs. The authors describe projects in Miami (Florida), Minneapolis (Minnesota), Los Angeles (California), Seattle (Washington), and San Francisco (California) that are being undertaken to address congestion with lane changes and road pricing strategies. They conclude by reminding readers of the importance of public education, to communicate the value of tolling and pricing as solutions to critical problems in transportation.