Congestion pricing will provide an additional $30-60 million per year for transit programs (not chump change), plus it will reduce costs by lessening congestion that busses and street cars now have to muddle through. win-win.

I honestly don’t get why Nevius framed the column (note, NOT an article) as ‘this would be good but transit needs more funding,’ when one major reason for doing this is to increase funding for transit!

It can be so frustrating sometimes

There are simply too many transit agencies in the Bay Area that fight for the same state and federal attention and dollars. I understand that there are local and regional needs, but something must be done to combine interests whenever possible to prevent duplication or competition.

For example, BART to SJ versus Altamont commuter rail. The latter is pretty much in place and can be upgraded for far less cost than the former. Then there’s the Central Subway project. We know today that there is need for an additional Transbay BART/HSR tube. Simply design the new tube to bring capacity to the developing SOMA area, the transit-heavy area east of Van Ness and the Geary/19th Ave. corridors. We need to make it fast and efficient, something MUNI will never be able to provide with 1-car trains sharing the roadway with traffic. Surface is simply not fast even with signal priority (which MUNI never seem to use on the T-line).

Bottom line is that I want to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible and with minimal transit system transfers.

An important part of the congestion pricing argument that is too-often missed is that it allows drivers and pedestrians alike to make more informed economic decisions about their transportation choices.

Driving a car costs the city money that walking or even taking the bus doesn’t. Charging to mitigate those costs is simply an acknowledgment of that reality. Just as any business owner or head-of-household has the right to refuse to pay the way for a freeloader, so can a city refuse to continue to subsidize a behavior choice like driving.

Nobody is creating this fee, the City is just passing the bill to the people who use the service.

http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/2008/08/another-short-film-what-if-trams-were.html

I really think the key fact that Nevius is missing here is that we have not been sinking money into transit – the state’s been taking away money and is likely to take away more. Without steadier revenue streams, as would be gained with congestion pricing, I fear that transit service will decline, even as demand increases.

Even though Measure VV passed, AC Transit is already talking about potential service cuts if the state takes away further transit funding (which looks very likely). We have to reprioritize funding for transit, quickly.