Transbay Blog » Congestion Pricing

The Price Is Right

Eric — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:54:15 +0000

Courtesy of Transport for London.

C.W. Nevius from the Chron is on a roll, but if he doesn’t catch himself soon, he might just roll right off a pier and into the Bay. This past summer, in his piece on the F-Market & Wharves historic streetcar line, Nevius explains that the “cardinal sin” of public transportation is that it becomes “too popular.” That may be a pretty nice problem to have, but wait: now, we learn in Nevius’s latest stab at transportation “journalism” that it’s actually transit — and not, say, people driving — that generates traffic. But let’s back up for a moment. The SF County Transportation Authority recently released the results from its study on implementing congestion pricing in San Francisco. There is no doubt that the Bay Area region has a severe congestion problem, earning the dubious honor of being the second most congested region in the nation, after Los Angeles; and some of the most heavily trafficked Bay Area freeways are those that connect downtown San Francisco to the East Bay and the Peninsula. According to the SFCTA study, there are some 4.6 million daily trips to, from, or within San Francisco, and at peak times, only 40% of those trips are made on transit. By the year 2030, there were will be about 382,000 new daily trips in the already-congested downtown area, and several downtown-adjacent neighborhoods are planned to grow taller and denser in the next couple of decades, including Rincon Hill, Transbay, Mission Bay, and the Van Ness corridor. Left to its own devices, traffic congestion will worsen in time; it is a difficult problem that requires a multipronged solution. One obvious component to that solution, as Nevius rather brusqely points outs in his column, is to provide better transit that lures drivers away from their vehicles. But cities throughout the world, including London, Rome, and Stockholm, have experimented with another technique: congestion charges, designed to give drivers incentive to leave their cars at home when traveling to crowded downtown districts.

The Nevius piece is, to be frank, a bit of a mess. To buttress his position against congestion pricing — a position apparently formulated on the basis of one conversation he had with students — he barely gives any consideration at all to the success that congestion pricing has already enjoyed around the world; he also downplays the revenue that might be collected from such a program. Would you indulge us while we add a few details that Nevius omitted? London, which has become the poster child for congestion pricing, commenced its charges in 2003 and expanded its congestion zone in 2007; the charges are assessed throughout daytime hours, not just at peak time. Congestion decreased by 30% in the first year of the program, and a net decrease in congestion has persisted despite a more long-term background trend that favors increased congestion. In 2006-07, the program generated £123 million in net revenue; reliability of bus service improved; and carbon dioxide emissions were reduced by 16%. Another case study is Stockholm, which implemented congestion pricing in 2006 as a trial run, and then a voter referendum approved continuing the program. Stockholm is a closer comparison to San Francisco than London is, in terms of both population and rail transit coverage, and the Stockholm pricing program fared quite well. Congestion decreased by 22%, carbon dioxide emissions in the inner city were reduced by 14%, transit ridership increased 6%, and $50 million of net annual revenue was generated.

Courtesy of SFCTA.

Here in San Francisco, the SFCTA’s congestion pricing study contemplates a $3 fee, charged only at peak traffic times (weekdays, 6-9 am and 3-7 pm), although several scenarios were studied. Under the less desirable “gateway” alternative, there would not be a cordon-based charge (i.e. a charge to enter a crowded downtown zone, as London has implemented), but instead just a charge at key entry points to the city, including from the south, where Peninsula and South Bay drivers are currently spared payment of bridge toll. The SFCTA also considered a relatively confined Downtown Cordon, which includes the Financial District and adjacent neighborhoods; this cordon could also be paired with the “gateway” alternative, so that regional commuters would be charged twice, but commuters within the city only once. The most ambitious plan under consideration was the Northeast Cordon, which comprises the entire northeast quadrant of the city, in the area bounded by the waterfront, 18th Street, and Divisadero-Castro. This zone includes many of San Francisco’s most congested streets, and it includes neighborhoods that will experience the most growth in upcoming decades; but it also has some patches that are not as well-served by transit as they could be. By contrast, the Downtown Cordon is well-served by transit, but it is also a rather small area, which reduces the benefits and could cause traffic impacts at the zone borders.

Implementing congestion pricing to remove automobiles off of San Francisco streets would shorten travel times and make Muni more reliable. But what’s even better is that depending on the plan that is ultimately selected, congestion pricing in San Francisco could generate some $35-$65 million each year. That money could be applied to many worthy causes, including (i) increasing frequency of transit service; (ii) enhancing streetscapes by providing pedestrian and bicycle facilities, and calming traffic; and (iii) implementing bus rapid transit on Geary and Van Ness. Which is basically the point: federal funding for new infrastructure is both needed and welcome, but the State has been continually withdrawing money from the public transportation fund — money that would otherwise be applied to system operations and maintenance. Little wonder, then, that local transit agencies find themselves in a bind, scrambling for funds. We should seek creative revenue streams, and new, independent sources of funding. Congestion pricing is one such revenue stream, and it’s a stream that will not likely dry up soon, even when many drivers switch to transit. In his column, Nevius inappropriately lays the blame on transit for “causing traffic,” without pausing to consider what Bay Area roads would look like without transit in place. But then he would also cut off an invaluable source of funding.

Courtesy of Treehugger.

The Bay Area, perhaps just as a matter of necessity, has already proven itself to be open to managing congestion, as in 2004, when voters approved Regional Measure 2, raising bridge tolls to fund projects aimed at reducing congestion. Congestion pricing involves a higher charge, but it is another technique in that vein. It should not be viewed as punishment for drivers; rather, it is perhaps best understood as a fee to use street space during peak hours, when space is in the highest demand. City streets are a valuable resource, but their capacity is finite, and a driver occupies more space than a pedestrian, bicyclist, or transit rider, as depicted above. Our roads are grossly underpriced, and so they are also overused. Congestion pricing would help achieve a better balance of uses on our most congested streets, which could then be made more livable, accessible, and pleasant — not just for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders, but also for drivers. It’s a sensible way to mitigate congestion, while capturing a new revenue stream to apply to transit.

Posted in Congestion Pricing, San Francisco

New York Assembly Approves Citywide Surface Parking Lots

Eric — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:34:09 +0000

Which citywide surface parking lots would these be? Why, the congested streets of Manhattan, of course. Members of the Assembly, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves: ashamed of your unwillingness to improve quality of life for millions of New Yorkers, and ashamed of your utter lack of vision. Even Mary Peters — Mary Peters! (remember her? If not, here’s a refresher: she tactfully asserted that bicycles are not transportation) — gets it. Mayor Bloomberg said it best: it is a sad day for New York City.

London is on the Move

Eric — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:49:37 +0000

London is on the move. London, a city that is famous around the world for the bold steps it has taken to curb congestion and encourage use of alternative transportation, continues to prove its worth as a global model for mobility policy, as it strives for a goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by the year 2025. San Francisco is finally starting to investigate some of the good ideas that have been put into action in London, most notably congestion pricing, but also cameras mounted on buses to ticket drivers who make illegal use of bus-only lanes. But in the meantime, London moves full steam ahead with plans to invest $1 billion in a bicycle plan that would make 6,000 bicycles available at rental stations located throughout the central city, roughly every couple of blocks. This plan is a smaller version of the Vélib’, launched this past summer in Paris; other cities throughout Europe have adopted similar rental programs. But if that weren’t enough, London’s mayor Ken Livingstone has also announced that gas guzzlers entering central London will be faced with a new congestion fee, to the tune of £25 each time the vehicle enters the congestion zone; in comparison, the fee for average cars is £8. About 150,000 vehicles enter central London’s congestion zone on a daily basis; of those, about 20% would be subject to the increased fee. Livingstone estimates that with the fee, there will be a 30% decline in the number of these gas guzzlers driving around central London; as such, the fee is supported by over 2/3 of Londoners. The extra revenue collected from the increased congestion fee would be applied to help fund the new bicycle plan.
[Guardian]

Even-Kheeled Thoughts

Eric — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:02:34 +0000

Despite the most recent furor about eliminating all fares on San Francisco Muni, the Chronicle recently reported the completely unsurprising result that fare-free Muni would be, to say the least, a poor idea. The faulty underlying supposition was that in light of the fare evasion problem, Muni might not be collecting much more money in fare revenue than they spend collecting fares in the first place, and that perhaps it might make sense just to dispense with fare collection altogether. Of course, it does not make sense: Muni’s $112 million annual fare revenue is offset by spending just $8.4 million each year on collecting fares. What is more, the system could not successfully handle the increased ridership that would result from eliminating fares. Sharon Greene & Associates, the consultants who prepared a report for the city about fare-free Muni, estimated that the MTA would need to spend over half a billion dollars to add roughly 267 buses and streetcars to the fleet — but simply adding capacity will not solve the underlying problems. Indeed, additional trains would overburden the already suboptimally-operated Metro subway tunnel, and simply adding more buses to crowded streets will not increase service efficiency. And so, the idea of fare-free Muni is already fading into the distance — a vision that befits San Francisco’s transit-first aspirations, but will nonetheless remain a noble fantasy without a substantial plan underlying it that might bring it closer to reality.

But Mayor Gavin Newsom is not the only one with free transit on the brain. New York attorney, labor arbitrator, and environmental and transit advocate Theodore Kheel has also been thinking about it recently. And rather unlike the SFMTA, Kheel actually has a thorough, detailed plan that analyzes what would need to happen to make free transit a reality in New York City. His report (alert, hefty PDF there), which was released this past week, is well-timed, in light of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s recent approval of a fare hike for New York City subways and buses. The plan is centered on the creation of a congestion pricing zone in the Manhattan CBD, which has been the subject of debate in New York for awhile, and which is starting to be more seriously studied here in the Bay Area. Under Kheel’s plan, a 24-hour toll would apply to enter the island south of 60th Street — $32 for commercial vehicles and $16 for private autos. The plan includes a 25% increase on medallion taxi fares (amounting to about $340 million annually), although taxis would not pay the congestion fee. It would also triple the number of metered parking spots and increase curbside parking fees south of 96th Street (summing to about $700 million annually), to help minimize the number of people who drive into Manhattan and then scout lower parking rates uptown. The final result? Free subway, bus, and commuter rail service within New York City. All the funds drawn from these sources would be applied towards offsetting the loss of fares, and there would also be about $170 million in annual savings associated with halting fare collection.

But the benefits do not stop with free transit. Kheel estimates that implementing this plan would, throughout the whole day, increase subway trips by 18%, bus trips by 9.5%, and commuter rail trips by 17%. Trips made by private auto into the CBD would decrease by 27%, which would reduce traffic congestion by 25% in the CBD and 9% across the whole city. This change is equivalent to adding 230 miles of new lanes to city streets. In addition, even after offsetting the lost fares, there would still remain about $460 million available every year that would also be applied to transit — presumably towards maintaining a larger fleet, but hopefully also towards building bus rapid transit routes that would feed into the subway, thereby making the subway more accessible to Outer Borough residents who do not live near it.

A natural question to ask is how New York City’s notoriously overcrowded subways will handle an 18% increase in ridership, and the Kheel report does not neglect this point. The report mentions that 20% of typical weekday subway ridership into the CBD occurs in the crush hour from 8:00-9:00 am, but Kheel’s plan would not put excessive stress on the system even at morning peak. Implementing the plan would generate 28,000 additional riders in this hour time frame, but the estimates suggest that these new riders are more than offset by riders who will shift onto other modes. The assumption is that about 27,000 morning peak trips within the city will shift onto the free commuter rail lines, and also onto the buses that would attract new riders by traveling faster, thanks to decreased congestion and shorter dwell times. In addition, the number of bikers would almost double, both at morning peak and throughout the day. The increase in riders on the subway would be more prevalent during off-peak hours, when the system is better able to accommodate them.

Between the free transit, the substantial reductions in congestion, and the leftover money for transit expansion, Kheel’s plan almost sounds too good to be true, but the analysis is wholly transparent. Indeed, a spreadsheet is made publicly available, detailing the assumptions underlying the calculations. Or, if you would rather just cut to the chase, the Balanced Transportation Analyzer allows users to experiment with changing certain variables — such as the congestion fee, the northern border street of the congestion zone, the taxi surcharge, and others — to see how effective those changes would be in reducing congestion and collecting money to fund transit.

Readers may wonder why I have bothered to go into this level of detail concerning a plan that does not apply to the Bay Area, or even California. The answer is simple: I would like to challenge someone in charge here to do the same sort of bold analysis! Or, Mr. Kheel, now that you have gotten the New York plan just about wrapped up, how about taking a trip to the City by the Bay? Still, as much as I might admire the Kheel report for its sheer audacity — charging private autos a $16 fee at 3:00 am! — and for its unequivocally wholehearted boost of mass transit, my hunch is that his plan is too visionary and politically charged to emerge unscathed and be adopted either in New York or the more auto-centric Bay Area. In addition, New York City is lucky to have a far more extensive network of subway metro and commuter rail lines than the Bay Area. As a result, a congestion pricing scheme in San Francisco should emphasize transit expansion and improvement, rather than the provision of free transit, which was a primary focus of the Kheel plan. Our own congestion pricing plan must be crafted to match local geography and traffic patterns, but what I am really after here is this style of bold vision and seeing where it takes us.

In the final analysis, the Kheel plan reminds us of a crucial but too often overlooked fact: the fate of autos and mass transit are wrapped together; changing policy for one will necessarily have an effect on the other. Widening freeways and building parking garages while simultaneously advocating for improved transit service is counterproductive, and in some sense, hypocritical. Expanding our transit network and capacity is a worthy goal on its own, but making driving more expensive and less appealing than transit is yet another component of a broader policy plan to improve mobility. Our city streets are valuable resources that have limited capacity and are grossly underpriced; as a result, they are also overused. Rather than seeing the fees as punishment, congestion pricing should be viewed as a way to achieve a more reasonable balance of uses on our most congested streets, with the goal of making them more pleasant, accessible, and livable for transit rider, driver, and pedestrian alike.

October 17 Meeting on Congestion Pricing

Eric — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:43:32 +0000

A few weeks ago, I wrote a general, introductory sort of post about the possibility of implementing a congestion pricing scheme in San Francisco, similar to the one which has been proposed in other cities around the country, and which already has been quite successful in London over the past four years. Congestion pricing could charge a fee for drivers entering the central city (on top of any currently existing bridge tolls), and the money obtained through the fee would be turned over to the SFMTA to improve transit. The U.S. Department of Transportation has already secured for the Bay Area about $158.7 million, most of which would be used for congestion mitigation improvements in San Francisco — notably, adding a congestion fee to Doyle Drive that would vary with demand, and bringing Doyle Drive into conformance with earthquake safety standards.

This is only the beginning, though — Doyle Drive is only one roadway, after all — and the SFCTA is currently studying how a congestion pricing zone might work here: different scenarios, but also the transit, traffic, parking, and economic impacts. As part of the study process, the TA is hosting a series of public outreach workshops, including one this Wednesday. Here is the information on the meeting:

Congestion Pricing Community Workshop
October 17, 2007 (5:30 pm to 8:00 pm)
Milton Marks Conference Center
455 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102

Anyone who is interested in learning more about potential congestion pricing scenarios in San Francisco is encouraged to attend the meeting.

Congestion Pricing in the News

Eric — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:52:43 +0000

Awhile back, Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who is also chair of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, proposed to adopt in San Francisco some variant of a congestion pricing plan that was implemented in London in 2003; namely, a plan to charge drivers additional tolls for entering congested downtown streets. In London, the tolls apply for drivers entering the rather well-defined area known as Central London. In San Francisco, the toll streets (or borders of a potential congestion pricing zone) are still being studied, but The Embarcadero and Van Ness Avenue are obvious choices. Both streets are not only chronically congested (the latter actually being U.S. Route 101, and a key regional highway link), but they also both form clear demarcation lines. Other streets being discussed include Broadway and Harrison, but first in line is the congestion associated with the Doyle Drive approach to the Golden Gate Bridge, a project which was awarded federal money to the tune of $158 million.

Congestion pricing is a topic I was meaning to bring up sooner or later, and I figured I might as well start now, since the local newspapers look like they are finally giving it some coverage. Right now, the city is still studying the possibility of implementing congestion pricing, but no well-detailed plan exists yet — so there isn’t a whole lot to say on this issue right now, except that I would most definitely support a congestion pricing project in San Francisco, for several reasons.

The Chronicle article I linked to above cited a statistic that out of about one million daily trips in and out of downtown San Francisco (they did not explicitly state what the boundaries were, but it seems implied that the boundaries were roughly Van Ness, Harrison/Central Freeway, and the Embarcadero) about 50% of those are car trips. The transit share is about 30%. This is clearly a situation we must seek to reverse, particularly for a city that alleges to be “transit first.” Increasing transit share involves many factors, but there are two basic, fundamental approaches, both of which can and should be used in combination to achieve better results:

Make it harder/less desirable to drive; and
Make it easier/more desirable to take transit.

Congestion pricing offers the promise of both of these. Obviously, additional tolls on popular streets makes driving less desirable, but even more importantly, the revenue generated from the congestion pricing tolls would go straight towards the SFMTA to improve Muni service. If Muni can substantially improve its speed and reliability, then we really have a chance of winning over “choice riders” who are currently driving downtown, rather than riding their local Muni line.

Tremendous growth is predicted for the downtown area in the next few decades, particularly South of Market. Currently, the Mission Bay, Rincon Hill, and Transbay developments get the most attention, but if the new Intercontinental Hotel which has gone up at 5th and Howard is any indication, that trend will likely spread west of the Yerba Buena/Moscone area. Traffic congestion on many San Francisco streets is generally not as bad as what you’ll find in the worst parts of New York and London, but there are some troublesome spots that need to be improved. Traffic is sure to increase once the new developments are populated, unless we take measures to promote transit in a concrete way.

Congestion fees are also being studied in a couple other U.S. cities, notably Washington, D.C. and New York City. Even in New York, this country’s most thoroughly transit-oriented city, the road towards implementing congestion pricing has been a rocky one — at first, it looked to be defeated, but then it made a resurgence. There is every reason to think that road will be at least as rocky here, where car culture is noticeably more prevalent and transit culture much less so, but the greater downtown area is set to grow, and we should begin finding congestion solutions now. San Francisco is the second densest city in the United States after New York City, and Bay Area traffic has once again been identified as the second worst in the country. This situation puts San Francisco in an ideal place to be a model as one of the first North American cities to adopt a congestion pricing plan. I look forward to following this story as it develops in the future.