Peter Gordon, Why Congestion Pricing Failed, and The City of Water
by Sandy Ikeda
Fri, 18 Apr 2008
I'm long overdue in recommending the excellent blog of my friend and colleague at USC, Peter Gordon, "Peter Gordon's Blog," which covers mainly urban planning and real estate issues with engaging common sense.
In his April 11 post, Peter blogs an article from the journal Transport Policy, called "The political calculus of congestion pricing," in which the authors argue that congestion pricing on freeways will have the greatest chance of political success if the revenue is distributed to cities, and particularly to cities through which the freeways pass. In contrast to a number of previous proposals, we argue that cities are stronger claimants for the revenue than either individual drivers or regional authorities. As Peter summarizes it, "any pricing revenues must be carefully directed so as to assemble a winning political coalition." In the case studied by the authors, the Los Angeles metropolitan area, this would mean that revenues from the pricing of "freeways" go first and foremost to the cities that freeways intersect, because that is where its impact would be felt the most.
This could explain why congestion pricing failed in New York, because the Mayor and other advocates of the policy failed to credibly guarantee to those New Yorkers in the outer boroughs who would bear the brunt of the cost that they would be the principal beneficiaries of toll revenues – i.e., believable assurances of improved and expanded mass-transit service throughout the City.
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Peter also sent me this link showing that between 2000 and 2006, 90% of metropolitan growth took place in the suburbs.
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The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance and the Municipal Art Society of New York have produced a documentary on the possible futures for the New York waterfront called "The City of Water." You can view a trailer here. I haven't seen it yet, but it appears to address important questions about how and even whether the NYC's 578 miles of waterfront should be used. It will air on Channel 13 (PBS) this Saturday, April 19, at 1:30 p.m. I will give my impressions in a future blog. A list of public screenings is also on the website.
This might be the place to mention that to my knowledge there is only one "beach" in the City where you are actually encouraged to walk out and touch the water: near the playground under the Manhattan bridge on the Brooklyn side, just north of Fulton Ferry State Park. Any others?
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