Why New York's Congestion Pricing Plan Matters
The next 20 years are the beginning of the end of the private cars in cities.
New York is going to implement a 20-years-in-the-making congestion pricing plan for the sake of its own citizens. That makes sense. But New York should also do it for the rest of us — the other American urban dwellers who need their elected officials to think bigger about street infrastructure, the environment, and people-centered downtowns.
New York’s dreams of congestion pricing were inspired by London’s program, implemented in 2003. London was itself inspired by Singapore’s 1975 Electronic Road Pricing program. One of the things that makes cities dynamic and forward-thinking is the way they learn from, imitate, and compete with one another.
Since this will be the first major congestion pricing scheme in the U.S., New York’s program is going to impact the rest of the country. Just watch. Once New York’s congestion pricing program came closer to reality this winter, Boston and Los Angeles began talking about their own potential programs. Once domestic politicians see New York’s system roll out, you can bet city officials from Philadelphia and D.C. and other cities with both high levels of traffic and functioning transportation systems are going to take note.
But the truth is that the impact may not be a slew of congestion pricing schemes around the country, but rather an allegiance to a set of ideas about transportation, the environment, and the quality of street life for American cities. More impressive than the handful of congestion pricing programs in Europe (Stockholm added theirs in 2007) is the proliferation of low-emission zones. Practically unheard of in the United States, there are more than 300 of these efforts to curb urban pollution and favor electric transportation, biking, and walking in both major cities and small ones across Europe. As electric cars and their charging infrastructure becomes more widespread, the U.S. may become more comfortable with this idea. New York’s congestion pricing program may start to build the public’s vocabulary and knowledge of 21st century transportation planning.
Pushing against private cars can be particularly tough now, in the wake of the pandemic, when most city officials want to get people downtown, no matter the costs. Following the announcement of the Federal Highway Administration’s approval of New York’s congestion pricing plan, there was a backlash on social media. People lamented that congestion pricing is just one more thing that will push people to leave the city, or keep suburbanites from coming into the office. That’s certainly a possibility. But there is also the possibility that if New York does nothing, it will continue to see a decline in the quality of life for its residents (55 percent of whom do not own a car) due to traffic-choked streets and poor air quality. And there’s also the potential that the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority will not survive without new sources of funding.
In these difficult times, it may seem impossible or even righteous to pursue transportation, biking and walking over cars, clean air over convenience, investment in infrastructure over subsidizing private cars. But these are indeed the values that will carry cities through this next century as cities figure out how to distinguish themselves in an increasingly placeless world, as the people who live in cities and visit them seek authentic urban experiences, and as cities desperately try to address urban heat island effect with nature-based solutions that will require reclaiming paved roads.
Looking back at 2003, London’s congestion pricing program catalyzed an era of deeply rethinking the balance between car, bike, and pedestrian. The next 20 years will be the beginning of the end of the private cars in cities. New York is playing catch up: Paris is banning private cars from crossing the city center starting next year, Berlin had planned a car-free city center this summer, but a new government may have paused those plans. Radical infrastructure change takes time — just ask New York where the Second Avenue Subway was completed a century after it was first envisioned and a commuter rail line connection to Grand Central Station took 22 years to build.
But change will come, whether due to leadership or technology, such as driverless taxis — perhaps a decade away — that will change the calculus for many urban residents and their officials. In a time when the future can look awfully bleak, the increasing urgency in global cities to rid their centers of private cars, and even in small cities to push for low-emission mobility, is a reason for optimism.
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