March 26, 2006 New York, Smart Streets

Published by The New York Times.

The City
Smart Streets
Published: March 26, 2006

This is a tale of two cities.

One had a plan to curb traffic. The other actually implemented it. The city that took action was London. The other — the one with the vision thing — was New York, which came upon the idea of congestion pricing a half century ago. The plan then went to that dark, lonely place where great ideas often go, never to be resurrected.

But now, a discussion of congestion pricing as part of the broader debate on how to limit traffic on New York's busiest streets can no longer be avoided. On any given day of the week, some 800,000 cars — more than half of them personal vehicles — pour onto the streets south of 60th St. in Manhattan. Forget a tipping point; New York's traffic has long passed that.

And every year, the daily number of cars creeps upward by the thousands — some 13,500 annually, according to a study conducted by Bruce Schaller, a Brooklyn-based consultant. Transportation Alternatives, the group that commissioned the study, is one of several organizations pointing out what should be obvious — that the city is choking in traffic.

While Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken some steps to address traffic flow problems — including restricting turns on designated Manhattan "thru streets," and moving to encourage walking and cycling for commuters — the larger issue of actually containing or reducing traffic seems to be on the back burner. It could be that the mayor too clearly remembers the hostile reception that forced him to abandon the idea of adding bridge tolls in his first term. Even so, ducking the traffic problem seems at odds with the sensibilities of a mayor who has otherwise given high priority to productivity, health and other quality of life issues — all of which are negatively affected by the traffic logjam.

The mayor could start by taking a harder look at the success of London's congestion pricing program. The city charges daytime drivers in the central business district a fee of $14 a trip, allowing a 90 percent discount for residents who take the car for a spin in the area.

The result has been a drop of nearly one-third in vehicle traffic. But commuters have not been seriously discomfited; in almost all cases, workers who once relied on cars have been using public transit, which in turn has been upgraded with funds from the congestion surcharge.

Critics who fear congestion pricing argue that crowded streets reflect a vital economy. But in New York, traffic congestion has always been too much of a good thing. William Vickrey, a Columbia professor who came up with the notion of congestion pricing in the 1950's, could not have imagined the clogged streets we have today.

Gridlock can be measured in appointments missed, tardiness, environmental damage and even elevated blood pressure. Taking a third of the vehicles off New York's most heavily used streets can't hurt.