I’m perfectly OK with a tax on driving into congested, transit-rich parts of the city but, aside from that, you’re wrong: Congestion pricing will work in NYC. In fact, it works today.

As traffic counts have steadily increased the last few years over the free East River bridges counts have remained relatively stable through the tolled Battery Tunnel. New York City area drivers do change their behavior based on price.

I guess what you are saying is that all existing drivers will simply continue their current habits and pay the fee. And the problem with this is… what? At this point, you are at least collecting some funds from these people’s destructive use of public space. Indeed, standard economic theory of taxation suggests that the best things to tax are both inelastic and with negative externialities. You are arguing that driving is both, which makes it a superb target for taxation.

But consider also: Even if $8 is not enough to change people’s driving habits, surely there must be some other price that is. As a thought experiment, if we set the congestion charge to $100,000 per car per day, do you think there would be a substantial impact on congestion? I think there would be nary a car in sight at that price. So if $8 is too little and $100,000 is too much, there must be a price somewhere in between that is adequate to reduce congestion to a managable level.

And a quick comment about NJ drivers. Seems to me they are all ready paying $8 to drive in. Those Port Authority bridge and tunnel dollars currently do not sustain NJ Transit’s operating budget. A significant % of what NJ drivers pay is currently spent supporting Port Authority projects in New York state. I see a lot of NJ drivers on Manhattan roads, but like others who drive, the service levels are not what they should be (north west of the Hudson). If we are serious about congestion, we should try to get the PA fund distribution model changed. Surplus revenues from Hudson River crossings should be spent to expand rail services in Bergen, Passaic, Rockland and other western counties.

While dollars from the outer boros, LI and upstate should principally be spent expanding rail there. These dollars will be great for the MTA as they will get the lion’s share.

Let’s go!

Doug, I think the fact that the proposed charge runs 6am to 6pm (though I think 9pm would be a better threshold) at least partially goes to the idea that more deliveries should occur at night.

No one can park in the Financial District save what seem like 3 specific streets anyway, unless you are one of the blessed NYC employees with a placard (how many people who work for the City drive, for crying out loud?). So really this is more for 60th street south to about City Hall.

But I digress. For you see, the City has this rule saying that apartment buildings can not have enough garage spaces for residents. They force people into the street. Don’t believe me? read:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/us/12parking.html

You may have to log in. But this is what I want to show you
“”The New York Department of City Planning says the areas of Manhattan where spaces in new buildings are limited to 20 percent of the number of apartments applies to new buildings below 60th Street. Between 60th Street and 96th Street on the East Side and between 60th Street and 110th Street on the West Side, the number of parking spaces cannot exceed 35 percent of the units. In some areas outside the core of Manhattan, developers may be required to provide parking spaces to accommodate higher levels of car ownership.”"

Come ON!

And lastly, NO ONE has said one way to reduce congestion is to get deliveries to arrive later at night, and to do so in SMALL vans NOT large trucks. How often do these vans and rigs double park, block the box, etc?

RPP should not PRECEDE congestion pricing; if it is determined to be useful at all (and this should be through study, not emotion or NIMBY-ism) then it should only FOLLOW congestion pricing.

RPP will balkanize NYC and make neighborhoods who already have it all have even more of it all. The rest will be left out. And do you think another level of bureaucracy is good for NYC? It’s an EASY sell to people who live in an RPP zone, but it is very bad policy for New York City.