Congestion pricing and American driving habits

Two stories that popped up on my Google alerts caught my eye for different reasons, and I'd like to discuss both.

The first was in the New York Times, which reported in Sunday's edition that some local officials in New York are again pushing congestion pricing to help raise money for mass transit. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority there is facing a $900-million budget shortfall next year, due in part to rising fuel prices, and is now proposing to raise fares next year. A fare increase was already scheduled for 2010.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, at right, had initially proposed congestion pricing, in part because he said the tolls collected for motorists driving into lower Manhattan would raise hundreds of millions of dollars for mass transit. The New York City Council supported the plan, but the Democratic-controlled State Assembly refused to take up the matter. Not surprisingly, members of the Assembly are now upset about a prospective fare increase too.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg continues to say congestion pricing will have its day:

“Congestion pricing will come, in New York and lots of other cities, because it is the only way where you were going to do the two things that you need to do: reduce people driving and find money for mass transit,” the mayor told reporters at the National Conference of State Legislatures in New Orleans last week.

New York's loss of federal money for congestion pricing resulted in Los Angeles County getting some of the money. Putting aside the issue of toll lanes, I think the big issue here is mass transit funding. New York already has higher fares than most areas -- a single ticket costs $2 -- and they've got a lot of ridership. And they still can't keep their transit system from hemorrhaging funds.

Among big cities, L.A. has some of the lowest fares, with the cost of a single ride ticket at $1.25. Fares are supposed to go up next year -- the single fare would rise to $1.50 -- but the half-cent sales tax hike proposed for the November ballot in Los Angeles County would delay that fare increase until 2010.

Over at Forbes Magazine, Robert Bruegmann, a professor of art history, architecture and urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote that he doesn't believe what all the pundits are saying -- that gas prices will forever change the way we drive:

"Recently, there has been a rush by pundits, particularly those who live at the center of large, older cities, to claim that rising gasoline prices will lead inexorably to fundamental shifts in the way Americans live and work. They confidently predict a long-term decline in automobile use, a rise in mass transit ridership, a widespread move of families from the suburban periphery back to the central city and the demise of the McMansion and the SUV. These predictions are based more on wishful thinking than on good evidence."

He later continues:

"This has given the automobile a tremendous edge over mass transit. With the rapid rise in congestion in many urban areas, the advantages of the automobile have declined slightly, but it is more likely than ever that in the future most people will use some combination of private or rental automobile, taxi or small on-demand vehicle than they will start using those old-fashioned, big-box transit modes, the bus or the train."

"Traditional transit use may well increase a little in the short run, as it did in the 1970s, but in the long run it is very unlikely to offer most Americans an effective way to get to most of the places they need to go. Mass transit currently accounts for no more than about 5% of total trips in America's urban areas. To scale this up even to 25% would require a staggering capital expenditure and a remaking of urban patterns that would almost certainly be unacceptable to most Americans."

Bruegmann goes on to write that he does think big changes are in store for Americans, but it's hard to say what will happen next. I tend to agree with him. The number of vehicle miles driven by American motorists has been steadily on the rise for the last 25 years (see the chart at right). It has dipped lately but remains about 3 trillion miles a year -- it was about 1.6 trillion miles in '83.

The big difference, of course, is gas prices. They've greatly shot up in the last year -- first crossing the $3 threshold in California in spring of 2007 -- and then shot past the $4 mark this spring. Now gas prices are dropping again and I wonder if the benefits of mobility are so great, most people will just get used to paying an increased cost for them.

-- Steve Hymon

Photo: Susan Walsh / Associated Press

Comments

[M]

Actually Alex, it seems like the solution to the problem your describing is realizing and recognizing that the human population cannot grow infinitely. Even if people spread outward so they aren't stacked on one another in increasingly taller buildings, we still need land for food, other animals and organisms that we depend on for various needs and for our own mental well being. Either we make the decision to stop growing our populations ourselves or the earth will do it for us.

[Michael Ballard]

Saying sprawl is spread over three states is something of a misnomer for New York. Cross the river directly west, you are in another state, go a few miles the other way, you are in another state. Yes, it is large, but how much different than the Los Angeles area? Rail may not relieve congestion, but it sure helps! Every time I watch A-Team or any other shows filmed in the Los Angeles area in the 1980's I feel sad, and very happy at the same time. Sad, as the Los Angeles of the 1980's had NO RAIL options (Amtrak doesn't count). Today, one can take trains all over the area, with a lot more on the way. It is a much better place today. I don't believe in pricing HOV lanes as a way to make it better, just separates those than can afford from those who can't, which shouldn't ever enter into the equation. It defeats the purpose of the lanes (more people not more cars). Charge those that enter into the more congested districts, encourage more mass transit usage. That would help far more than letting solo drivers into the HOV lane.

[savier saens]

As a frequent visitor to NYC by rail and as someone who only rarely drives into Manhattan, I would hope that New York officials take some steps to relieve congestion that are already legal. I walk around midtown and other areas quite frequently and notice that there is widespread disregard to most of the current traffic regulations.

Double-parking on both sides of the avenues like Madison Avenue reduce the traffic flow down to one lane every single weekday. Park Avenue limousines double-park every morning during rush hour. Crosstown obstructions prevent any taxi, car or other vehicle from getting anywhere quickly east to west or vice versa.

Intersections are blocked frequently by cars attempting to beat the light and more often than not the avenue is completely shut down. Just enforcing the fines for blocking the intersection would add considerable revenue for use by mass transit.

Any frequent visitor to Manhattan will tell you to check both ways even after the light changes, because someone is usually running the light. Pedestrians are not much help when they stand in the street waiting for a light to change and block at least one lane. Cars are continously making illegal turns or ignoring the " this way only" road signs.

The final indignity endured by Manhattan visitors and residents is the constant honking of horns; usually for no good reason.

[alex]

Why do people that are for rail lines keep ingoring what has happened in New York City? That city has had an excellent mass transit system for over one hundred years and yet their congestion is far worse than LA's and their sprawl spreads across three states. The evidence is clear, rail lines do not relieve congestion because it causes lots more tall buildngs to be built. Also, human beings all over the world , both young (e.g., China's new middle class) and old, have clearly and repeatedly shown they prefer the convenience of driving. Unfortunatley this means that we will never finish widening or stacking our freeways whether we build mass transit or not (e.g., New York). In the meantime, we can try methods such as resticted parking, congestion pricing, or other economic discentives such as vehicle fees, but realize these methods only force the poorest people out of their cars while the wealthy get to continue to drive and pay to park in lots. The real solution is to restrict and/or redirect real estate development. This is the root cause of the congestion in the first place. We should also invest more money toward the most promising alternative fuels to negate the automobile's negative environmental effects.

[Dana Gabbard]

Like most experts, Professor Bruegmann has pre-existing biases and simply shapes his choice of arguments and crunches statistics in support of same. I simply mention this as people with a string of initials after their name disproportionally get quoted in the media, which has a bias toward filling an expert quota in their reporting versus including the opinions of us mere mortals (experts also have rolodexes and return calls for quotes PDQ). I've seen references in the past to "impartial" expert analysis. No such thing exists. It is a myth, like "the truth is in the numbers". Bruegmann is evidently from the "sprawl is good" school of thinking, whose other adherents include Joel Kotkin and a bunch of Professors down at USC (James Moore, Peter Gordon and Harry Richardson).

I certainly haven't made any broad claims about the social impact of higher gas prices and housing costs. Eventually I do believe there will be a shift in how people live and work. A lot of it is generational--people in their 20s I think are able to undertake changes that people in their 50s generally would find unthinkable. It isn't hard to imagine Prof. Bruegmann in his ivory tower is disconnected from this trend. I live in an apartment near MacArthur Park and despite being in my mid-40s have a front row seat at the emerging gentrification of downtown L.A. and environs (the key clue--dogs!).

[Jimmy]

The NY congestion plan is an excellent idea that should've been passed. If you've been to NYC, you will see that there is absolutely no reason to drive into or around Manhattan. The plan needed state approval, and thats who shot it down. The state would not exist if NYC wasn't providing all the revenue it does. The state should have no say. NYC is practically it's own state in population.

[Tony Fernandez]

The difference between the 1970s and now is that not only are gas prices high, but congestion is the worst that it's ever been. Not only that, but the streetcar revival in our cities (the building of light rail lines all across the country) has given people options for their commute to work. The housing crisis has people on the move. This is a period of transition in our cities. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years.

Also, change in our cities will have to come. The build out model is already reaching its limits and more and more people are searching for places to live. The youth of today seem more interested in living in cities, not out on the fringes. Things seem to be changing.