San Francisco Desires To Cost Drivers To Enter or Exit Downtown – Cause.com

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) is considering implementation Congestion prices downtown to solve some of the city’s traffic problems. The main objectives of the project are “to get traffic moving and achieve road safety, clean air and equity goals”.

Congestion pricing is a broad term for a system that charges people based on the use of a lane. The specific type under consideration for San Francisco is “cordon pricing,” which charges people a flat rate every time they enter or leave a certain area of ​​the city.

Noisy San Francisco Chronicle, the SFCTA is currently considering two possible zones for cordon pricing: a small one around the Financial District, Chinatown, Tenderloin, and South of Market, and a larger one to the south that would include North Beach, Russian Hill, Fisherman’s Wharf, and Mission Bay.

According to the current proposal, the authorities would only calculate congestion prices during morning and evening rush hours. The plan would also include a full exemption for the lowest-income drivers and possible exemptions for people with disabilities and those living in the zone.

Anyone making $ 100,000 a year or more would pay $ 6.50 to enter or exit the city center.

SFCTA claims that most of the people subject to the new fees are higher-income drivers (at $ 100,000 a year or more) commuting to office buildings across the city.

Even so, not everyone is excited about the idea of ​​making it more expensive for people to work or patronize businesses in the heart of downtown San Francisco, especially during a pandemic. It would just add one more fee on top of a lot of taxes California residents already pay to live and work in the state.

“Overload prices in SF?” San Francisco-based political commentator Richie Greenberg said on Twitter: “Insane, ridiculous, anti-business, anti-tourist, anti-resident. What traffic jams? People in the wallet aren’t rational at all. “

Baruch Feigenbaum of the Reason Foundation said it was “complicated” whether San Francisco congestion prices would actually reduce traffic.

“There is a concept in transportation called ‘induced demand’. This means that if you take a vehicle off the road, another vehicle will use it, as driving is preferred to transit for most people, ”he says. If San Francisco already has some catching up to do in driving, even if some people stop driving because of the traffic jam prices, others will take their place when they see the traffic decrease.

Congestion Pricing is supported by some libertarians as an alternative, market-based solution to traffic problems caused by traffic jams. It is a way of preventing driving that is relatively non-invasive and still allows the individual driver to make their own decisions. And there is some evidence that it has worked quite well internationally.

“Congestion pricing for entire highway networks has been used successfully to relieve congestion in several cities around the world,” writes Randal O’Toole in a Cato Institute policy paper. “In 2004, Santiago de Chile introduced variable tolls on major highways in the city, and this proved to be significantly faster travel times and improved highway safety. Norway introduced congestion pricing on major highways in Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim, both of which helped have to finance these roads and relieved congestion. Several highways in France use congestion prices for all lanes, which has significantly reduced traffic delays. “

“Economists agree that pricing should be the way to solve traffic jams. But apart from this primary finding, there is a lot of disagreement,” noted Canadian economics professor Robin Lindsey in an overview of 100 years of business literature on the subject.

Feigenbaum emphasizes that the desirability of congestion prices “depends on the use of the income”.

He points to the cordon pricing system proposed by New York City, which uses a large part of the money on public transportation, which drivers avoid. Feigenbaum wrote about the plan with intern Joe Hillman for the Reason Foundation. They see this as a downside, as it means that a large portion of the benefits paid by NYC congestion prices go to wealthier people near major public transportation hubs, rather than the people who pay the congestion charges.

“In the long run,” they say, “the revenue from congestion prices is likely to benefit commuters, especially those who live near a subway station in the city or a train station on Long Island, Staten Island or Connecticut.”

The SFCTA study on the implementation of the program is currently underway is in progress. The agency says an overloaded pricing program would take at least five years to prepare. What happens by then could determine whether this is a good solution for traffic or another way for California to cause further inconvenience to its citizens and to waste their money.