Today, Explained - RU$H HOUR

Episode Date: April 3, 2019

New York City wants to charge drivers a congestion fee to slim down traffic. We travel the world to see if it’s a good idea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I spent the weekend in New York City and no trip is complete without a stop in Chinatown. You've got street vendors lining the sidewalk. You've got pedestrians everywhere. They're spilling into the streets, spilling into the bike lanes. Did I mention the bikes? They're everywhere too. And there are trucks making deliveries, blocking the bike lanes. There are cabs, there are Lyfts, there are Ubers, there are Goobers.

Half of New Jersey shows up every weekend to visit Little Italy right next door. It is absolute chaos. And I love it. But who are we kidding? It's a nightmare. The traffic is so bad, I can't tell you how many days myself. I just get out

of the car and walk, because it's so much faster. Now, Governor Cuomo wants to make New York the first city in the country to do something about all that traffic. Does anybody favor a total increase? No. By the way, do I favor a total increase? No. No, I don't. He wants to make you pay to drive through the city. Congestion pricing. You have to get fewer cars driving into Manhattan. It's capitalism, baby.

It puts a surcharge on roads at different times of day. Arianne Marshall covers transportation for Wired. A really basic example of congestion pricing is a toll road that costs more at rush hour than it does at midnight. But in the case of New York, they're putting a congestion charge on a whole zone of Manhattan below 60th Street, which, if you've been to Manhattan recently, is some of the most hectic parts of the city. It's gnarly. Yes. So how much will congestion pricing cost in this area of New York? They're not sure yet.

The state legislature put in the budget. It's going to kick in at the end of 2020. We think it's going to cost around $11 to $12 to $14 to enter this congestion zone. Damn! For one car. And it's going to be even higher for trucks. It's probably going to be around $25 for trucks. But not exactly sure what that level is going to be yet. Like a month?

Like a year? Or just one time? That's going to be one time. And they might have limits where you can only get charged that once per day. So if you leave and then you come back, you may only pay your one 12 buck fee and you're done, but they could change it. So we're not exactly sure how it's going to pan out yet. Even if you live at like 60 second and second, so you drive down one block, boom, you're paying money. Yeah. Is this kind of like an easy pass situation where you drive in and they take a

photo of your license plate or they scan your little transponder or something? How does the charge even work? That's exactly the way they want it to work. They want it to plug into the existing E-ZPass system that exists in New York right now. And if you don't have one of those little nifty E-ZPass transponders on your dash, they'll take a picture of your license plate and they'll send you a bill. Now, what that also means is they're going to have to set up a bunch of gantries around New York, which are sort of those big metal things that span the entire street and can take a picture of your license plate or sense if you have an E-ZPass transponder. So it's sort of awkward looking things. But, you know, I'm sure they'll find a way to make them beautiful and pleasant.

Why is New York doing this right now? I mean, is it just to clear traffic from its streets? There's a few reasons why they're doing it. One is that traffic is really bad. The average taxi speed in midtown Manhattan right now is around 4.7 miles per hour, which is a jog. It's not fast at all. And also, you know, traffic costs the region economically. Almost a decade ago, a report came out that estimated that it costs the region $13 billion because of traffic

each year, and that's a ton of money. But the big reason that officials have really been hammering home is what this congestion pricing money is going to. So officials have said it's going to raise $15 billion in bonds over five years for the subway and the bus. So that's a ton of money for the city and for a public transit system that really is very underfunded now. We're dealing with a crisis with our subways and buses like we've never seen before. The governor has been highly critical of the MTA board at his state of the state. He described the way it was formed as diabolical. Now he's calling it a multi-headed monster. Why they rats on the floor?

Clean the train station. You taking $3? Bet. Put that money to use. Clean that shit. I don't want to see no more rats. Master Splinter better be walking nowhere on the damn train station. Let me see a rat on the bus. Real talk. This shit get me tight, son.

New York has tried to implement congestion pricing before, most notoriously about a decade ago under Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and it didn't work. So some folks that I've been talking to in New York transportation circles say that the reason this is happening right now is because the subway is so terrible and everyone is desperate for a way to fix it. It's kind of funny that the obvious way to fix the subway is to charge people driving cars above ground. Yeah, I mean, it's a transportation system, right? It's all connected. I guess there's so many obvious pros here. Less traffic, less congestion. It's going to create a bunch of money for other transit, namely the subway, which has sort of fallen apart. What are the cons? It's going to cost people money. You know, you move into a house and now suddenly that choice is looking very foolish because it's going to cost you over $20 a day to make the normal commute that right now doesn't cost you any money in tolls. Another argument that you're going to hear a lot is that this is a regressive tax. If you make

a lot of money, this might not affect you that much. But if you're a low-income person, it's going to be a much bigger share of your income. So this penalizes poorer people than it does higher-income people. The argument that you'll hear against that is, in fact, the way the roads work right now is that car ownership is actually really heavily subsidized. We subsidize gas in this country. We prioritize funding roads, overfunding public transit in most places in this country. So for people who are advocates for cycling, advocates for alternative transportation, including public transit, this is a corrective. It's a way to kind of rebalance the way the transportation network works in the biggest city in the country. So is New York doing anything to address the concern, though, that this is actually just going to be another tax on poor people? Yes.

Officials have promised that there will be some exemptions for certain sorts of people. So one category might be people who live in that congestion zone below 60th Street, Manhattan, and make less than $60,000 a year. They may be eligible for credit, so they may not pay as much. Another carve-out might be for people with disabilities and who can't use public transit. One fun fact about the subway in New York is that only about a quarter of subway stations are accessible. So it's really hard to use public transit in New York if you, for example, use a wheelchair. So there may be exceptions for those sorts of people. This all sounds like a very New York situation.

You've got an insane amount of pedestrians and cyclists and cars all sort of converging in lower Manhattan, not to mention crumbling infrastructure underground for the subway system. Do any other American cities have this on the table right now? Are other people considering congestion pricing in the country? Yeah, definitely. Traffic is not only a New York problem. In LA, actually, sort of the home of the car, they are looking for a way to fund 28 transportation projects by the Olympics in 2028. The problem is that they don't have the money to do that. So the LA Metro has proposed that they pay for that with a congestion pricing scheme. So actually, just last month, Metro

decided they were going to dedicate funding to study how they could implement congestion pricing in L.A. for about one or two years. So that's one big city where they're really thinking about this. Another is Seattle, which also has not great traffic. Their mayor has said she wants to implement a congestion charge by 2021, which is coming up. And then schemes have been floated, but are a little less real right now in Boston and San Francisco. I bet a lot of cities are watching what New York is doing and is very interested to see how the whole thing will play out there. So what you're saying is congestion pricing is the future. Some people would be very upset to hear you say that, but perhaps. After the break, Ariane and I are going to hop on a boat and travel all across the world to other places that have congestion pricing.

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You don't know what you're missing Five stars Waiting there with you Five stars I want you to say five stars, five stars, five stars today. Today to explain. It's today to explain. So Arianne, since cars are such a problem, why don't you and I get onto a ship, a ship powered by curiosity about congestion pricing and travel across the sea. Let's go on a tour of other places where this is happening. What's our first stop? Stop number one is London. Cool. Yeah. I've always wanted to go to London. Yeah,

it's lovely. I've been there once. I've been there too. So in London, they have a about 13 square mile congestion zone, which is the craziest, busiest part of their downtown there. They've had a congestion charge scheme since 2003. Right now, you pay about 16 bucks to enter the congestion zone. And for them, it's worked out pretty well. Immediately when they implemented this in 2003, their traffic delays fell by 30%. Damn.

But traffic is still not great. That said, the city says they've saved about 12% in vehicular emissions in that area of London, which if you live and breathe down there is probably really nice. Yeah, I mean, here we are right now on our tour in London, breathing a little easier. Yes, yeah, I'm grateful. So where should we go next on our tour of congestion pricing? How should we get there? Should we stick on our boat or should we take some alternate means of transit?

What's up? I'm loving this boat thing that we've got going on. All right, great. So we're headed next to nearby Stockholm. I don't know if that's possible to take a boat there, but we're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to find a way. Whereas London's is pretty small, Stockholm's covers two-thirds of the city. That said, the charge is variable, and it changes depending on the time of day,

whether it's a weekend, whether it's at night. And maximum, you're paying about $11.50 in Stockholm. So Stockholm's kind of sleepy. Where should we go next? Take me somewhere exciting. Yeah, so I think the last place is the most exciting of all, which is going to be a longer trip, but I'm up for it, is Singapore. Let's do it. Singapore has been playing with congestion charges since the 70s, but their most recent program has been around since the 90s. It's called the Electronic Road Pricing System.

They're really unique in that they've really invested there in making their congestion charges flexible and adaptable. So every quarter, the government there reviews the traffic flow and the charges for their expressways and roads there, and they might change them. So this gives them some flexibility to actually adapt to traffic changes and situations. So if they see that there's now suddenly a ton of traffic on one expressway, they can raise the price. Wow. And if they see that, oh, wow, like all the traffic has gone away because no one's living in this neighborhood anymore for whatever reason.

They can get rid of the charge or make it much cheaper. How's it working out? Is it super functional? They seem to have kind of tamped down traffic in a way that you haven't seen in a lot of really highly urbanized places around the world. The other thing about Singapore, which I should mention, is that they also charge exorbitant fees to own a car. They have really high taxes on cars, which means that there's already a disincentive to own a personal vehicle. I'm going to bring the boat back to the United States and we're just going to close this out at home. What's the measure of

how this is really working? Is it just like, hey, there are fewer cars in the street, we did it? Or is it much more complicated? It's really tricky, I think, actually, because it depends on what the city's goal is. So if the city's goal is to totally reduce traffic, then you're going to look at metrics like traffic delays. But if your goal, as it seems to be in New York, is to raise a ton of money, then that's going to be the most important metric. So they don't want to slap a, you know, $100 fee on a single car going into this zone because no one's going to do it. And they want to raise a billion dollars for the subway. So that's not the goal here for New York in particular. And what about all the taxis and Ubers and Lyfts in New York, which is

already a whole mess onto itself? Are all the ride sharing options and taxi options going to get more expensive too, potentially? So earlier this year, New York City actually, in a kind of separate move, created congestion fees for taxis and Ubers and Lyfts. Right now in New York City, if you take a taxi or an Uber or Lyft below 96th Street, you're going to end up paying a congestion fee. So Uber and Lyft actually lobbied really hard for congestion pricing in New York. The way they think about this is if there is anything that disincentivizes people from owning their own personal cars, that's going to be great for them because if they don't own a car, they still might have to take the occasional car trip and they might do it with Uber and Lyft. Is that what this is ultimately about, that the United States made such a big bet on cars and built cities around cars and now they're dealing with the repercussions of that? Yeah, definitely. I think

that's a big part of it. So one thing that cities often try to do is build more highway lanes. And there's this kind of behavioral economics principle called induced demand, which is the idea that basically if you build it, they will come. You build more highway lanes and people think, hey, the highway's wider now. Maybe I don't have to carpool to work anymore. Or maybe I can take that extra trip to the grocery store, that extra trip to that restaurant. And you actually get more people on the road because of those lanes, and you end up with the same sorts of traffic problems. So I think slowly, transportation officials in the U.S. are realizing that you can't build your way out of traffic. And even if you did try to build your

way out of traffic, it'd be very expensive. So there might be other cheaper options that are better for the environment. Vehicular emissions account for about a quarter of this country's overall emissions. So if you go after anything, transportation is kind of a low-hanging fruit. Plus, scooters are a thing now. There's a lot of excitement around cycling advocacy and building more protected bicycle lanes than there used to be. So I think this is an interesting moment when all these different things are converging. And it seems like making it a little harder for people to own cars might be a great policy option. We'd be remiss to not mention the problems that come along with transportation alternatives, right? Like people hate the bike docks coming into their neighborhoods

because it brings a lot of foot traffic and noise. The scooters, someone died on a scooter here in D.C. There's been a bunch of injuries. How should cities best approach all of these changes that are happening very, very quickly? You know, it's true that a few people have died on scooters and that's horrible. But almost 100 people die in cars every day in the U.S. Some people put it in a kind of health crisis lens in the same way that some people talk about gun ownership as a public health crisis. This is something that kills a lot of people in America every day. Is there something that cities can do about it?

Is car ownership sort of like going out the door? I don't know about that. I think cities like New York, like even Washington, D.C., San Francisco, where I live, are sort of outliers in that they're really dense. And it is possible right now a car to get to work every day because there's not great public transit and there aren't a lot of options. So there's been in the past decade or so a lot of kind of deep thinking about whether car ownership is dead, whether millennials in particular want to own cars. But it turns out as time has gone on that a lot of them are owning cars because they just don't have a choice. There's not a lot of other options out there.

These are big systems, a lot of infrastructure, and it's really slow to change. So I'm not sure the personal car is dead yet. Arianne Marshall writes for Wired. She's from New York, and she loves the chaos too. I'm Sean Ramos for M. This is Today Explained. Thank you.