Congestion pricing: your views
Would congestion pricing help or hurt your business? Share your views by making a post here.
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DiggSeattle has a similar problem. As a small company with only a few employees, we do high end video shoots all over the Seattle metropolitan area.
Sometimes those shoots don’t start on time because of the insane congestion issues we randomly face any given morning. It affects our business. It affects our clients. And when we get caught in traffic making our days longer, the clients have to pay more for unforeseen longer hours. After years of ‘eating’ these extra hours when we’re caught in traffic, we changed our policy because it was costing us too much.
Congestion pricing would make sense to our business and benefit our clients. And these are big clients, like Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft and other large companies tend to be at the forefront of election initiatives that come up with innovative ways to solve congestion issues and build out more mass transit by asking voters to spend a little more on taxes.
In Washington, we have a totally unfair and reprehensible set of business and occupation taxes. Congestion pricing in comparison I would have no issues paying for and benefiting from.
I live in San Diego. I have no idea where you got these “facts” about the I-15 Toll Road. I have traveled this road from the day it was opened and continue to this day. I use it free, when I have a carpooler with me, and I pay sometimes when I need it and I am a solo. But your comments make little sense with reality.
First … The Road is a “Privately Owned Project” It is not a public road per se. The owners, who are attempting to make a profit, set the prices The prices are supposed to set based on the traffic IN THE CARPOOL LANE, not the traffic on I-15. So I-15 could be gridlocked, and the Toll Road might be cheap or expensive depending on its traffic … NOT I-15.
Carpooling was the initial reason for the lane. It was a requirement for Carmel Mountain Ranch development that the Developer builds the toll road.
From the beginning it has been for BOTH Carpooling (Always FREE) and Single Drivers (who decide to pay whatever sliding rate). It has done a terrible job at encouraging Carpooling. How can I say that.
Early this year the operators went back to the oversight committee and said so. In fact traffic was so bad, that in order to stay in business they had to start charging a “Monthly Fee” to the transponder holders (no money is collected on this toll road you have to have a transponder to use the road or no dice for a single driver. So you need to plan way ahead and the lane is of no use to the casual solo driver). This new fee was to compensate that so few solo drivers would pay the high fee, and that the carpooler’s had never developed at projected.
So where did this statistic “70% The amount car pooling rose after San Diego Adopted stiff tolls” The road ALWAYS was free to carpooler’s. Tolls were adopted to let solo drivers “buy in” and help pay for the road, but it NEVER increased Carpooling. The owners still complain that there is not enough carpooling.
Don’t be mislead by a general increase in ALL traffic. The traffic on I-15 has gone up 70% in the last year. The single drivers in the carpool lane has gone up 70%. We are spending Billions of dollars widening this section of road as the traffic is so bad.
Bottom line, the Toll allowed solo drivers to use a lane that was built for Carpooler’s. The Carpooler’s have always been free … they have never paid a toll. The solo drivers have now congested the carpool lane, costing them more money and increasing traffic congestion for the Carpooler’s. The Carpooler usage has increased at the same rate as all traffic and all traffic congestion. The Road is losing money and has had to charge the Solo drivers new fees in order to stay in business.
All of this is counter to the rosy picture your writer paints for building a carpooling toll road.
Hi, JC,
The data used in the story came from a study by the University of California Transportation Center, specifically on an eight-mile stretch of Interstate Highway 15 in Northern San Diego County. According to the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), “there has been a 93.5% increase in the total express lane usage and a 71.4% increase in carpools.”
Best,
FSB
Working in outside sales in San Diego for the past 15 years, I have only seen the traffic get worse - where did you get the information that “the number of carpools has gone up more than 70%”? I haven’t seen proof of that, and don’t believe any numbers our local government hands out!!
Until we have an integrated mass transit system that provides a real alternative to driving, congestion pricing would do nothing except collect revenue and move the congestion from roads with fees to roads without them.
Think about the places that have tried congestion pricing in anything like a comprehensive manner. Three cities: Stockholm, London, and Singapore.
Look at Stockholm. They have a light and heavy rail system that they started building in 1933. In constant expansion ever since, it has staggering capacity now. Just *one* of the three main lines carries 450,000 riders every day. All told, the system carries 793,000 every single day. London’s rail network is even bigger. They started building it in the 19th century! It carries 3 million people a day! And Singapore. Got to love their solution. A massive network of electronics that tracks every car, everywhere, all the time. A non-starter anywhere in the U.S. And they have in place a massive transit system that carries 1 million people a day by rail, and 3 million a day by bus.
New York might be able to use congestion pricing effectively because most people have a viable alternative to driving: the subway. In Seattle, we are hoping to have an expanded light rail system to provide a real alternative. Then we could put the squeeze on drivers.
If cities want to reduce congestion they should ban traffic in certain areas. Instead they want to tax drivers, allegedly so they wont drive. The mayors know full well people will still drive, this is another way to get additional revenue without “raising taxes”.
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CONGESTION PRICING
I have just read the Nov issue concerning congestion Pricing and have some problems with the “listed” solutions, and as such would like further clarification.
NEW YORK
Where will the new M ASS TRANSIT system be built? It is already too congested. If new bus lines (or similar) use the same routes as other vehicles – there is a very great net loss (busses stop at every block to pickup/drop off). If a train, where will it start/stop (makes a difference if you can’t get to work without getting a taxi – which adds cost and time). Walking distance only works for 3 blocks (try it in a heavy rain storm or winter winds). So if it’s a metro of some kind where is it going to do? If underground who pays for the 10 Billion Bucks? The people – they are already taxed to death to do what the metro is supposed to do and they will have to pay for both – so it is again a net loss
So, the only thing that really happens is that the government just takes in more money with out any net gain to the individual.
The 5 mph and $5 billion is also a farcical number. Someone decided that a person is worth $20/hr (pick any number) and that a 5 mph saving for 250,000 people (pick a local number)/yr = $5 billion dollars ( or some such number) – that’s not logical thinking, but it is numerical thinking.
Time costs money, but a 5 minute saving isn’t going to destroy a business or get you to work on time (leave 5 minutes early – it is only 5 minutes).
The analogy here is this:
A freeway has 2 lanes and handles 5,000 cars per lane per hour for 10 miles – 20,000 cars total and each individual driver spends 30 minutes going 10 miles.
Adding a lane raises the number of cars to 30,000 cars per hour but it still takes an individual driver 30 minutes to go 10 miles. No matter how many lanes are added the individual sees no difference but the volume increases. This is the same type of logic used to support CONGESTION PRICING. If we spend $5 Billion for new mass transit we will decrease traffic – but at what price. Don’t forget the $5 billion is cost only not maintenance and certainly not daily personnel – that runs into $10 million a year – for ever (plus cost increases).
Another analogy is the back of checks – it has a printed area to “SIGN HERE”
A politician made a study and determined that a worker had to “turn the check end for end so that the names were all on the same side. He calculated that by having people only sign on the left side, it would save about $5 million dollars a year. Sounds good if you’re a politician, but the fact is that to enforce it required businesses to put the ink on the paper (there wasn’t any before) and that costs about $7 million/yr due to increased printing costs (printing on the reverse – and costs of ink), and the costs go up yearly. So, where is the savings?
The real time savings would be to eliminate cars during truck delivery times and trucks during car transit times. If you think that that will make people hyperventilate then re-read the dollar costs above. $5 billion dollars to save me 10 minutes a day – that’s what I equate it to. It would be cheaper to pay people to NOT go into the city during certain hours – by over 60% in direct costs and another hundred million or so in indirect costs (less gas, less road maint., less accidents, less congestion, etc)
If its one thing I’ve learned about politicians and “think tanks” is that they only see the overall but not the individual (it’s the individual that we are talking about). And since its just numbers, they can, and do, manipulate them to come out the way they want them to.
Also (last paragraph) it’s a cheap alternative to new roads (no place to build them anyway) and mass transit (no place to put it and it takes more time to get to work). It just means the government gets more money and severely hits the individual responsible for the city being there in the 1st place (selling something – can’t sell it if you don’t have it on the shelves). The true answer lies above, limit access times to trucks AND vehicles during certain hours. Trucks have right of way from 4 – 7 AM (no/limited cars) then from 7-9 PM (no/limited cars). Businesses have to adapt their hours (no government spending there) to accommodate the trucks, and people/businesses will have to adapt work schedules/travel to new times. Now that is a cost effective solution and everyone benefits.
Every one has their opinion and numbers to back them up, so here are mine
Danny Comsa