L.A. hoped to learn from NYC’s congestion pricing rollout. Now what?

Rush-hour traffic is clogged at the intersection of the 110 and 101 freeways.

By Ryan FonsecaStaff Writer

June 14, 2024 6:30 AM PT

Good morning. It’s Friday, June 14. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

L.A. is still studying congestion pricing. New York’s flip flop could change the equation.
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And here’s today’s e-newspaper

New York’s congestion pricing flip-flop will make it harder to implement in L.A.

Los Angeles and New York have plenty of differences. For example L.A. has nice weather and great food. But we do share a common affliction: soul-crushing traffic.

Thankfully, there is a solution to this scourge (hint: It’s not widening freeways). To make driving less of a smog-spewing, time-sucking vortex of misery, we have to drive less. It’s that easy! 🥲

Transportation experts know how to make that happen: congestion pricing — charging people to drive on busy roads at peak times.

New York City was about to be the first North American city to implement a broad congestion pricing program, charging car drivers up to $15 daily to enter Lower Manhattan. The roughly $1 billion per year in revenue would have gone to the city’s struggling transit system.

But in a stunning reversal, Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered the program to be paused indefinitely just weeks before it was set to begin, after years of strongly supporting it.

L.A. Metro officials had hoped to see NYC’s program in action to learn from the rollout, they told me this week. Now they’re taking notes on the backlash the program faced and the backpedaling that halted it — maybe forever.

L.A.’s own congestion pricing research hasn’t come far

Traffic slows on the San Bernardino Freeway near downtown Los Angeles

Transportation officials have been studying the feasibility of congestion pricing in L.A. County since 2019.

L.A. Metro has been modeling the impacts of charging commuters to drive their cars into a few high-traffic zones:

Along the 10 Freeway between downtown L.A. and Santa Monica
On arterial streets in downtown L.A. and the many freeways that cross through it
Through windy canyon roads and freeways (mainly the 405 and 101) that link the San Fernando Valley to the L.A. Basin

Nearly five years in, that initial study is still TBD. San Francisco transportation officials paused a similar study in 2022.

“[We’re] working to put the best possible recommendations forward to our board based on our technical modeling and our public outreach,” said Mark Vallianatos, project manager for Metro’s Traffic Reduction Study.

It’s not clear when Vallianatos’ team will have those recommendations ready. They have sought more funding to further explore pricing, but state budget negotiations have delayed it.

The agency also would not disclose the prices they’ve been tinkering with, except to say they are “significantly lower than New York’s [$15] daytime price,” according to Vallianatos.

“We are looking at what’s the lowest toll we would have that would impact enough drivers to make the rest of the drivers better off,” he said.

Congestion pricing is unpopular everywhere (at first)

A recent poll showed that 63% of New Yorkers opposed the plan (though 44% of respondents said they don’t really travel to Manhattan).

Essential California readers tilted toward opposing congestion pricing when we asked last year. One sent an uncryptic “F— NO.”

“I do not have the privilege to choose what time my commute is,” wrote Elisabeth O. “Already I am paying for crazy things like gas, food and shelter. I cannot afford more expenses.”

Michael Manville, a professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, has studied congestion pricing and its political acceptability for roughly 20 years. His thoughts on NYC’s congestion pricing implosion? “Shocked, but not surprised.”

“Congestion pricing has always been a very big lift,” he said, adding that it’s possible political leaders elsewhere will get more “gun-shy” about trying the policy.

“Had New York moved forward, I think it would have opened up some breathing room for Los Angeles and San Francisco to take their fairly dormant proposals and rev them back up,” he said.

Congestion pricing has cut traffic in Singapore for decades. It was unpopular in Stockholm when first implemented, but support grew to over 70%. In London, the U.S. Embassy refuses to pay over $18 million in congestion charges.

Does L.A. need to change its pitch for congestion pricing?

Studies have shown that reducing traffic can mean better air quality, higher transit ridership and safer streets. But Manville argued leaders should frame their pitch a little differently: as “a great thing for drivers.”

“The people who benefit the most are the people who pay the toll because they get to drive unimpeded,” he said. “You get something in return for your money, which is a bunch of your time back.”

Plus, congestion pricing isn’t a completely new concept in L.A., according to Manville.

“If you get on those Express Lanes that Metro runs, you pay a toll and you save a bunch of time,” he said. “And you can have more of that.”

That remains a tough sell in sprawled, car-dependent L.A., where public transportation isn’t nearly as abundant or popular as New York. And if congestion pricing stalls or dies (Hochul’s delay order could face legal challenges), what chance does it have here? L.A. Metro’s study concepts could help begin to answer that question.

“Everyone in L.A. hates traffic and this is the one way to help fix it — [but] people don’t like to pay for things,” Vallianatos said. “When these two powerful forces collide, what happens? We don’t exactly know.”

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Commentary and opinions

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Today’s great reads

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Other great reads

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