Congestion toll in Boston?

[bigeman312]

^Re: Arlington's proposed map. I would like the idea of including Storrow in the Congestion Charge Zone, but to justify it, politically, there would definitely need to be improved transit, i.e. Blue-Kenmore. There are a lot of car trips made via Storrow that can not be easily duplicated with transit.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Anyone heading down Storrow would have a choice: Pay the Storrow congestion charge or pay the Pike toll, no?

 

[Arlington]

^Re: Arlington's proposed map. I would like the idea of including Storrow in the Congestion Charge Zone, but to justify it, politically, there would definitely need to be improved transit, i.e. Blue-Kenmore. There are a lot of car trips made via Storrow that can not be easily duplicated with transit.

You could probably put these residential areas outside the CBD boundary if they recoil from tolls and complain that they don't have great transit
- Brownstone Back Bay Proper
- Brick Built Beacon Hill & Flat
- North End

Once you've built the Red-Blue connector, I'd suspect that Beacon Hill would be ok being all-in

North End, would probably freak at being fenced off from tourists (not realizing that their real problem is parking). And I think they and Back Bay can essentially be give a "local option" (tolls & no congestion vs outside w/congestion)

Here's a true Business CBD boundary:

(haven't quite mastered ScribbleMaps, but you get the idea)
If somebody wants to drive into the city, do a loop around the Common or North End and drive home with no congestion charge, the system could probably tolerate that. Same goes for putting the Convention Center outside the boundary--people visit too rarely and transit is too lame to be really worth punishing auto trips as long as they stay out of Seaport Proper.

The real thing is taxing daily, habitual, work-peak trips by auto in business places with great transit. That's probably (technically) the inner boundary shown, but as fattony points out, it'd get a little hard to explain.

 

[Mongo]

I would think you would have to exempt any cars registered within the zone from the congestion charge. It's not like those cars represent extra trips into the city if they are parked there to begin with.

 

[bigeman312]

I would think you would have to exempt any cars registered within the zone from the congestion charge. It's not like those cars represent extra trips into the city if they are parked there to begin with.

Residents would have a large discount. For example, in London it's a 90% discount.

 

[MBTAddict]

Does London use some type of EZ-Pass-esque system to charge? Do they also do license plate photos and mail tickets? I love this idea in theory but always run up against how it would work being implemented given the wide array of local streets that could be used. I don't think we would want to see hordes of people cutting through the alleys of the back Bay to avoid congestion tolls.

 

[Max Power]

instead of dealing with all the hassles of a congestion charge - can't we just increase the rates at parking garages during peak hours?

-people passing through (specifically in the big dig tunnels and not going to Boston) won't need to pay
-residents don't need to pay
-delivery trucks/other small trips wont' need to pay
-easier enforcement
-lower capital costs
-less political cost

just make it so everyone driving to work in downtown/back bay has to pay an extra 4 dollars a day. boom, congestion charge complete, and easy.

 

[MBTAddict]

That revenue wouldn't go to fund a better transit system though, and it wouldn't take any cars off the road to improve air quality, both of which I think are important goals for a congestion pricing system.

 

[fattony]

instead of dealing with all the hassles of a congestion charge - can't we just increase the rates at parking garages during peak hours?

-people passing through (specifically in the big dig tunnels and not going to Boston) won't need to pay
-residents don't need to pay
-delivery trucks/other small trips wont' need to pay
-easier enforcement
-lower capital costs
-less political cost

just make it so everyone driving to work in downtown/back bay has to pay an extra 4 dollars a day. boom, congestion charge complete, and easy.

You might be onto something here, but it cannot just be garages. The biggest problem with parking in Boston is that on-street parking is entirely too cheap relative to the cost of garages and the cost of public transit. We need to raise on-street parking costs - period. Raising garage rates means that we need to raise on-street prices even higher still. I'm not at all opposed to that actually.

Can we achieve everything we want from congestion tolling by raising parking costs? Has that been tried elsewhere? Why hasn't London or New York gone that route? Thoughts?

 

[Matthew]

That revenue wouldn't go to fund a better transit system though, and it wouldn't take any cars off the road to improve air quality, both of which I think are important goals for a congestion pricing system.

It could do both. Even Pittsburgh implements a significant parking tax. No reason (beyond politics) it can't be done here.

 

[choo]

It is an interesting solution -both the parking and congestion- because it really gets the driving to pay for the benefit they receive from transit availability. Just take a look at 93 when the red line and south side CR go down.

Both have the same effect. On the congestion side, i am more supportive of a Toll at like Andrew Square and more north on 93 and not on the CBD. Just make it so local cars get some of a discount, but really, we don't want to just kick traffic off a main interstate a couple exits early and overwhelm local roads.

Also, it should be dynamic. Go as low as $0.25 in the middle of the night and as high as $3 (to get even with the Tobin) at peak.

 

[bigeman312]

It could do both. Even Pittsburgh implements a significant parking tax. No reason (beyond politics) it can't be done here.

Ideally, both should be part of a solution. The congestion toll works best when a city has efficient, alternative modes. A parking tax/raising of parking rates can work even when alternative transportation is still a work-in-progress. While we should strive to raise on-street parking to market rates everywhere, I believe the congestion toll area should be small to start.

 

[Mongo]

You might be onto something here, but it cannot just be garages. The biggest problem with parking in Boston is that on-street parking is entirely too cheap relative to the cost of garages and the cost of public transit. We need to raise on-street parking costs - period. Raising garage rates means that we need to raise on-street prices even higher still. I'm not at all opposed to that actually.

Can we achieve everything we want from congestion tolling by raising parking costs? Has that been tried elsewhere? Why hasn't London or New York gone that route? Thoughts?

San Francisco implemented a system where the on street parking rate changed
based on demand.

http://www.aei.org/publication/sfs-success-with-dynamic-demand-responsive-meter-pricing/

Seattle is implementing a similar system. This would be perfect for Boston

 

[Max Power]

You might be onto something here, but it cannot just be garages. The biggest problem with parking in Boston is that on-street parking is entirely too cheap relative to the cost of garages and the cost of public transit. We need to raise on-street parking costs - period. Raising garage rates means that we need to raise on-street prices even higher still. I'm not at all opposed to that actually.

Can we achieve everything we want from congestion tolling by raising parking costs? Has that been tried elsewhere? Why hasn't London or New York gone that route? Thoughts?

Yeah. same idea can work for on street parking. there's no reason parking at rush hour should cost as much as during 7-8PM.

I just think it'll be 10x easier to implement a parking surcharge that dedicates funds to transit than to fiddle with a congestion charge.

 

[Jahvon09]

I'll be so bloody glad when speed-trough lanes are added to replace that ancient troublesome & exasperating toll booth system on the Mass Pike at Beacon Park!

It's a bottle neck trying to get through there during rush hour traffic status, and the original purpose of that design was so that vehicles registered with the EZ-Pass transponders could get through there with far less of a problem, but since there are more vehicles on the road now, and motorists without the EZ-Pass registration don't pay attention to where the cash lanes are, they get confused and try to switch over to the proper lane at the last-ass minute & tie up traffic even further, which has made the present system so obsolete, ancient & outdated!

Traffic backs up all the way to the entrance of the Ted Williams Tunnel going west, and in the morning, all the way from 128 heading east! Enough is enough! Just widen that area and fix the damn thing!

 

[HenryAlan]

That revenue wouldn't go to fund a better transit system though, and it wouldn't take any cars off the road to improve air quality, both of which I think are important goals for a congestion pricing system.

Why? It could easily be earmarked for public transit in the enabling legislation. I agree that politically, such an earmark might be a hard sell, but nonetheless, there is nothing that says congestion pricing would go toward funding transit either. As for taking cars off the road, more expensive parking increases the cost of driving. That will convert some drivers toward other options.

 

[EricS]

Does the City of Boston have the existing authority to levy a parking tax? (Or raise the existing tax if there is already a city tax?)

I do agree that this should be done in conjunction with raising meter prices to essentially market level. (The Shoup model of there almost always being one space available per block, ideally.)

 

[TallIsGood]

Why? It could easily be earmarked for public transit in the enabling legislation. I agree that politically, such an earmark might be a hard sell, but nonetheless, there is nothing that says congestion pricing would go toward funding transit either. As for taking cars off the road, more expensive parking increases the cost of driving. That will convert some drivers toward other options.

Because - they would just reallocate the other money for transit to some other pet project. We have tried earmarking 1% of sales tax for MBTA, then increasing sales tax, then increasing gas tax and we are still continually underfunded.

Boston is not so congested that it needs a congestion charge. How many cities have this? Commuter rail is great if you work 9-6, otherwise, its not so good. Trains maybe run every two hours in the evening. Not a practical solution.

Can the T handle a surge of new riders? They dont have the equipment for it and wont for years.

 

[bigeman312]

Because - they would just reallocate the other money for transit to some other pet project. We have tried earmarking 1% of sales tax for MBTA, then increasing sales tax, then increasing gas tax and we are still continually underfunded.

Boston is not so congested that it needs a congestion charge. How many cities have this? Commuter rail is great if you work 9-6, otherwise, its not so good. Trains maybe run every two hours in the evening. Not a practical solution.

Can the T handle a surge of new riders? They dont have the equipment for it and wont for years.

So: The T can't handle riders because it's underfunded -> The T is underfunded because we don't have good revenue sources -> We shouldn't create new revenue sources because the T can't handle riders

Circular logic.

 

[Arlington]

Boston is not so congested that it needs a congestion charge. How many cities have this?

They're big in Europe (Scandanavia in the 1990s and then to germanic lands and Singapore, the first all-electronic in 1998). The original implementations were small-ish medieval cities with a ring road where their innermost fortified wall went, and then a "North-End-Like" core of pedestrian-scale streets. To cross into the medieval core, you had to pay the toll (& display a paper tag), otherwise the ring road diverted you around or transit took you in.

The breakthrough for US policymakers was how well London's has worked. And now NYC has come up with a plan (upthread) that the outer boros will go for.

And yes, they work on a lockbox-for-transit principal where the few times you pay for a fast-and-easy car trip into the CBD pays for the radial transit that carries you in/out on all other days (and for circulator transit within the CBD...like in PIT where you can ride the subways free within downtown)

Commuter rail is great if you work 9-6, otherwise, its not so good. Trains maybe run every two hours in the evening. Not a practical solution.

Can the T handle a surge of new riders? They dont have the equipment for it and wont for years.

The T can definitely handle a surge of riders after 6pm (and midday) if congestion charges created one. They have enough equipment to run at rush hour frequencies (every 20 mins?) its just that outside of rush, today, it doesn't pay to keep the staff around to keep all that iron in motion. But the future of CR is to run it at frequent "clockface" headways (every 15 mins but I'll settle for every 20). This is what Toronto is doing.