Phillip Shucet
me spent nearly 50 years profiting from the phenomenon of transportation supply by creating its own demand. The more lanes we built, the more work there was to do. Now I spend most of my days thinking about how to manage demand. With good intentions, we left a few messes for others to fix.
New York City’s controversial congestion pricing program, which charges a $9 fee to most vehicles entering the central business district below 60th Street in Manhattan, is a reasonable step toward a practical solution . After announcing an indefinite hiatus this summer, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) revived, restructured and reduced the consumer cost of the city’s toll plan in November. While the news was very much focused on politics—suggesting that Ms. Hochul acted to hurt Donald Trump before his second term: New York’s congestion problem is real. The facts stand behind this claim.
As traffic recovered from the pandemic, INRIX, a private transportation data analytics company, reported that congestion in New York ranked fifth in the world in 2021, behind London, Paris, Brussels and Moscow.
But in 2023, New York became the most congested city as traffic returned to the central business district, and the city is more congested today than it was before the pandemic. This demonstrates the relentless desire for cars to seek out and occupy every inch of available space in the central business district, even when travel speeds are measured in inches, not miles.
There are four general solutions to crowded streets, all rooted in sound economics that work when too many cars try to fit into a limited number of traffic lanes: build more lanes to increase supply; improve traffic to encourage travelers to get out of their cars; charge a fee to reduce demand; or congestion: the equivalent of queuing traffic.
Congestion is New York’s current answer; cars wait in line to crawl into the CBD. While congestion is a valid economic response, it wears out drivers, irritates taxi and for-hire riders, annoys pedestrians trying to get between cars on gridlocked streets, and disappoints business owners who depend on customers for his life There is no loud cry for more congestion.
Adding more traffic lanes is an unreasonable and practically irresistible approach. Remember past mistakes more than future solutions. And the city already filled the open space with added bike lanes and buses. There is no room to do more. And even if there was space available, imagine tearing blocks of businesses out of the city for construction… No, no.
Adding bus and bike lanes improves traffic in small doses. But New York’s subway system is the big draw when it comes to getting people into the city’s CBD. The Metropolitan Transport Authority says that by 2023 around 1.2 billion people traveled on the Tube and around 430 million traveled by bus.
The money raised from the congestion pricing program marks two of the four ways to curb congestion; bid price to reduce demand and invest in transit to make this option more attractive to drivers.
While the $9 fare reduction is understandable, it’s also reasonable to question whether the price will be enough to visibly curb congestion. Will the tax move the city in the right direction on the list of most congested cities? Are the planned investments in transit sufficient and will they be implemented soon enough? Will program revenues be sufficient to pay for public transit improvements?
Fulfilling the expectation of results
Those paying the fee will wait for results. Rightfully so. MTA now refers to the CBD as a Congestion Relief Zone. Promising relief in New York City is a high bar to clear. The city must remain focused on meeting expectations.
We grew up with a surface transportation system seen as “free.” it is not It never was.
An unfortunate result of this misperception is that investment in transport lags behind mass infrastructure and, in some cases, collapses. Too often we expect public money to match our private travel needs without fully holding up our end of the bargain. In addition, sometimes it is convenient to forget that we are the source of “public” money. If we expect profits, we must bear our fair share of the costs. That’s where New York City sits as we head into a new year.
Despite the politics, it was time to put New York City’s congestion pricing program into action.
Philip Shucet, based in Norfolk, Va., has been commissioner of the Virginia Department of Transportation and CEO of Hampton Roads Transit and Elizabeth River Crossings. He can be reached at philip.shucet@philipshucet.com.
