Congestion Pricing and Hot Potatoes

Readers and commuters in the New York Metropolitan area have likely been annoyed by the on again/off again nature of congestion pricing regarding Lower Manhattan – and President Trump’s recent (likely not legal) efforts to quash it.

I wrote about this subject months ago in National Bus Trader magazine (see https://transalt.com/article/congestion-pricing-how-it-can-make-sense/). My main point was that this approach – talked about for at least 55 years in transportation circles, and which every City in the nation turned out in 1976 when the Federal Transit Administration (then known as the Urban Mass Transportation Administration) offered $ 1M stipend to any city willing to try it.

This time around, with opposition to the plan from almost everywhere but Lower Manhattan – include surrounding boroughs, other cities in New York State, commuters and their elected officials in surrounding states, and others (like myself who thought New York would be the worse City in the country to try such an experiment) – the plan was implemented after considerable funds were spent setting it up and, just recently, halted (thanks to President Trump). This decision was a surprise since the program would hurt the Poor and Lower Middle Classes commuting into Lower Manhattan while it made little difference to the Rich – an alignment that inconsistent with the voters whom President Trump was trying to attract. Of course, most of his base does not reside in New York City, and of the small percentage who do, its unlikely they would “connect the dots” to the President no matter what his feelings are about this approach to traffic control. And, of course, doing what he can to disrupt anything in a State whose electoral votes did not go his way, this resistance is not surprising.

The most interesting thing about this approach during the few weeks in was in effect was that, while it clearly posed a hardship on those Middle Class and Poor commuters forced to endure the changes, it actually appeared to accomplish what it was designed to: Traffic in Lower Manhattan eased up a bit. Of course, no one yet knows what, if any, impact this provision had on improving transit ridership. But if it did, it would not likely affect the subsidies provided by USDOT to New York City since they arrive in the form of “discretionary” grants – not “formula” grants like those that cover 80 percent of the capital costs of every transit agency’s purchases of goods and service (naturally including its buses).

So President Trump’s action was no more than another typical political stunt that he poses, legal or illegal, on his crusade to do what he wants – the core of his Presidency that has little support from even his base. Just the same, I think New York City was a poor place to initiate this approach to traffic control, while its discontinuance will likely dissuade other cities whether the approach would likely make sense from trying it.

Oh, well. This is America, this is the way things happen here, and this is why our transportation sector is mired in deep debt and constant failure.