"Congestion Pricing - Let's Provide Alternatives Before Demonizing Autos" Green Car Advisor

Congestion Pricing - Let's Provide Alternatives Before Demonizing Autos

As concerns about global warming, energy independence and plain old traffic congestion grow and the automobile continues to be demonized, it seems that we are, as usual, approaching possible solutions to our problems in a posterior-backwards manner.

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San Francisco authorities want to reduce traffic pouring into downtown on weekdays.
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What kicks off this cogitation is the recent proposal by officials in San Francisco to introduce congestion pricing to attempt to reduce greenhouse gases and time wasted sitting in traffic jams by reducing the number of cars that cram into the downtown area on weekdays and make the city the second-most congested in the nation.

There's nothing inherently wrong with requiring motorists to pay for the privilege of bringing their vehicles into intensely crowded city centers - it is being done all over Europe.

But in Europe, one can get to those same city centers quite easily without a private car: Most countries have decent-to-superlative mass transit systems, both inter- and intra-city.

That's not the case in the U.S., and as we hear and review more and more pitches for ways to get Americans to abandon their cars, at least for a portion of the time most now spend in them, it's become clear that for any such scheme to work, we must first provide public transit alternatives.

San Francisco is one of the relatively few cities in the U.S. in which it is easy to get from point A to point B without a car. More important, people can get into San Francisco from outside the city via mass transit.

It might work there - leaving aside the impact on people's pocketbooks.

But try getting around - or into and out of - Los Angeles or a host of other large metropolitan areas that did most of their growing after 1900. By plan or happenstance, most ended up being developed to serve a populace enamored of the private automobile and public transit, such as it is, is spotty at best.

Intra-city commutes that are maddeningly slow by car often are even worse by bus in many cities. And even in areas with decent light rail systems, those not lucky enough to live or work within an easy walk of a station still need some other type of transportation to complete their daily commuting.

Costly For Some

There's also the question of economic fairness. We've made cars (and their fuel) so cheap and available in this country that they often are the most economic form of transportation for those of modest means who, in other countries, would be using public transit.

In San Francisco, the proposed cost of the congestion pricing seems modest, a fee of around $3 to enter or leave a defined congestion zone in the city during peak commuter hours. That's just a $6 fee.

But that's $30 a week - $1,500 a year - for a daily commuter.

Okay for the lawyers and bankers down in the financial district and the politicians in city hall, but enough to wreak havoc with the budgets of the men and women who travel into the city each day to type up their briefs, run their copy machines and clean up their offices.

There would likely be breaks for tourists. They are, after all, a major contributor to the city's livelihood.

But what about the impact of a $30 weekly fee on the waiters, dishwashers, chambermaids and others who make the city's tourist industry function?

A final plan with firm numbers won't be ready until March, and even if the city approves the idea, it will take action by state lawmakers to make it happen (opposition in the New York state legislature is what killed New York City's effort last year to become the first U.S. city with a congestion pricing policy).

Buses Before Bucks

If San Francisco does makes it work, it will be because the congested city center has a decent public transit system - and is compact enough to enable people who use it to get to within easy walking distance of their ultimate destinations.

But the $35 million to $65 million that San Francisco transportation planners say a $3 congestion fee will raise must be earmarked for improving that public transit system and ensuring that it continues to work well. That must also include subsidies for those to whom the cost of using transit is just as punitive as the congestion fee.

For other cities, and for multi-city urban and suburban areas where commuter traffic also is creating untenable congestion, all we can suggest is a concerted lobbying effort aimed at the incoming Obama administration.

The president-elect has said he wants to make "green" jobs and projects the focus of his economic recovery plan.

Putting taxpayer dollars to work designing and building public transit systems that actually help people move about - from city to city as well as within cities - would go a long way toward achieving that goal while also helping the U.S. reduce both its carbon footprint and its appetite for oil.

And making it possible for hundreds of millions of Americans to easily move about on a variety of public transit systems means that it won't just be our city centers that are relieved of congestion.

And that will make it so much more enjoyable to hop in the car - for weekend and vacation trips and on those weekdays when taking the bus, train or subway just won't work.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor