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Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts

Friday, 17 May 2024

New York is coming: but it is hardly a model for other US cities: UPDATE NEW YORK CANCELLED BY NEW YORK GOVERNOR

UPDATE: On Wednesday. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul issued a video statement in definitely suspending the New York congestion charge scheme. This is despite the entire system having been installed and tested with literally weeks to go before implementation. I'll write more about this soon, but it is a devastating set back for congestion pricing/time of use charging in the United States.  The reason being to "address the rising cost of living in New York" even though it would affect a tiny proportion of New York drivers or even commuters into lower Manhattan. It's completely bizarre that she claims one of the reasons for suspending the charge is because commuting on Mondays and Fridays is at a lower level than before the pandemic.  More details on the announcement are here.

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On the 30th of June 2024 New York will be the first city in the Americas to introduce time-of-day based road pricing on existing roads.  It may have been designed to generate revenue for the subway, commuter rail and bus systems in New York, but it is also expected to relieve congestion, let's hope it does.

New York Congestion  Charge Zone

What it is officially called is the "New York City Central Business District Tolling Program", which is a fair description.  It is arguably NOT congestion pricing because the rate structure being applied is blunt, and applies 24/7.  It is urban road pricing, but it is applying pricing at all times so may also reasonably be called a toll on existing roads.  It is being called the "Congestion Relief Zone" and I am sure officials in New York City will be relieved to see if it has a significant and sustained impact on congestion, I expect it probably will have some immediate impact as it is modelled to reduce the daily vehicle count by 100,000, which is around a 14% reduction in traffic overall. 

The time-of-day charging component is essentially a higher price during daylight hours, which are 0500-2100 weekdays and 0900-2100 weekends. 

Nevertheless, it is significant. Although the US is peppered with what are variably called HOT, express or toll lanes, which have peak (and in some cases dynamic) pricing of lanes, these are mostly conversions of HOV lanes to enable better utilisation of their capacity, by offering a premium level of service.  This is the first implementation of charging, varying by time-of-day, on previously untolled roads.

It is important to note that it is a cordon as in Stockholm, not an area charge, as in London. Trips wholly within the zone are not charged (setting aside special fees for taxis and for-hire vehicles), but relatively few vehicles are likely to never leave the zone and not enter again.

Note that one can drive all of the way around the periphery of lower Manhattan and not be subject to the charge, providing essentially a through route from the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel to the north of Manhattan. It's not clear this is necessary, but it has meant a lot of charging points have had to be installed on the roads connecting with FDR Drive and the West Side Highway (which at the southern end is an at-grade arterial route).

Price structure

During the peak period (0500-2100 weekdays and 0900-2100 weekends) cars and light commercial vehicles will be charged US$15, and during the off-peak period US$3.50.  This seems highly likely to encourage a rush of traffic before and after the peak period, although before 0500 is likely to be insignificant, after 2100 may be moreso.  

Motorcycles are to be charged US$7.50 during the peak and US$3.75 off-peak.

Smaller (rigid) trucks and some buses will be charged US$24 during the peak and $6 off-peak, whilst larger (articulated) trucks and tour buses will be charged US$36 during the peak and $9 off-peak. 

There are credits for vehicles that have entered lower Manhattan through tolled crossings, specifically the Holland, Lincoln, Queens-Midtown and Hugh. L. Carey Tunnel (Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel), but only during the peak period, not the overnight period.

The full price schedule is here and pictured at the bottom of this article.

Taxis and licensed per hire vehicles are subject to a different charge. Each trip from, to, within or through the zone will be subject to a fee of US$2.50 for for-hire vehicles, and for taxis, green cabs and black cars it will be US$1.25 per trip, with the fee not varying by time-of-day.

Cars and motorcycles are subject to a single charge per day, other vehicles are not. 

There is the power to impose a 25% surcharge on Gridlock Alert Days, which is when the UN General Assembly meets and "throughout the holiday season". 

Discounts and exemptions

Two discounts and five exemptions are listed.

These are:

  • A 50% discount for low income vehicle owners enrolled in the Low Income Discount Plan. This applies after 10 trips per calendar month, to all peak period trips after that point.  This discount requires an application. It is eligible for those enrolled in a qualifying government assistance program or with an income no greater than US$50,000 in the previous calendar year as reported to the IRS. It requires an EZ-Pass toll account.
  • A tax credit for residents within the zone with an income of no greater than US$60,000 in the previous calendar year.  Details on this tax credit are due in Fall 2024.
  • Individual Disability Exemption Plan.  Applies to individuals who have disabilities or health conditions that prevent them using public transport. It either applies to a vehicle registered by the individual or identified by the individual as owned by a person the individual designates (such as a caregiver). 
  • Organisational Disability Exemption Plan. Applies to organisations that transport people with disabilities. To qualify, vehicles must be used in the zone solely to transport people with disabilities.
  • Emergency Vehicle Exemption. This includes vehicles for fire, ambulance, police, civil defence, corrections, blood and organ delivery, environmental and hazardous substances emergency response and sanitation patrol.
  • Commuter and school bus exemption. Applies to buses providing scheduled commuter services, school buses contracted with the Department of Education and licensed commuter vans. Note this does apply to scheduled fixed route commuter and intercity buses, but not tour and charter buses.
  • Specialized Government Owned Vehicle Exemption. Applies to vehicles providing public works, owned by federal, state, regional or local government. This includes garbage trucks, street-cleaning trucks, snow plows, pavers, bucket trucks, etc.

How to pay

The system is set up to prefer vehicle owners to use the EZ-Pass DSRC based toll system used on NY and NJ tolled roads already. All of the exemptions and discounts require EZ-Pass accounts. Those without an EZ-Pass will get "toll by mail" with invoices sent to the registered vehicle owner, identified by Automatic Number Plate Recognition, and will be subject to additional fees to recover the cost of number plate reading and posting the invoice (although the website indicates that these will be waived for the first 60 days).

How much money will it raise?

By law it is required to net US$1b per annum. One estimate, reported by New Jersey Member of the House of Representatives Josh Gottheimer is that it will be much much more, at around US$3.4b per annum, with most of the revenue (understandably) raised during weekdays. The report also noted around US$83m p.a. in revenue could decrease due to reductions in traffic reducing use of tolled crossings to lower Manhattan.  The net revenue in any case are to raise up to US$15b in debt to finance upgrades to the subway system.  It's not clear what motorists think of their money being used to pay for NYC transit systems, especially those driving from New Jersey (which is not served by the NYC Subway, but rather the Port Authority's PATH subway). 

New York Congestion Charge tariff schedule Part 1

New York Congestion Charge tariff schedule Part 2

What next?

It will be interesting to see the impact of the zone on traffic in NYC, both within and outside the zone and hopefully it will not worsen traffic on routes seeking to bypass it, or result in any major distortions of behaviour (or negatively impact businesses or residents near the edge of the zone at the north). It ought to reduce congestion during the day, improve the flow of commercial and private vehicle traffic and buses.

However, it is not likely to be followed by other US cities in the short-term. Lower Manhattan is a lot more like central London than other US cities, most of which have much more dispersed trip patterns using their highways.  For example, downtown Los Angeles has around 1% of all of the employment of the LA metro region, so a cordon for that location would have little impact on congestion except perhaps on some offramp or routes approaching it. That isn't to mean that downtown cordons are not worth considering, but in themselves they will have little impact on congestion.

My hope is that New York will be a success, and may spur interest elsewhere in the US, and for New York to expand in some form, whether it be additional zones or some corridor charging on major highways from the New York State side (which don't have tolling).  New York succeeding should help to encourage more debate and discussion about using congestion pricing to reduce congestion even though the primary driver of this scheme is to generate revenue for the subway.




Sunday, 28 July 2019

Congestion pricing - the United States awakens

Singapore pioneered a basic form of urban congestion pricing in 1975, and introduced what is still the most sophisticated, economically rational and effective congestion pricing in the world in 1998, called ERP (Electronic Road Pricing).  In 2020 it is transitioning its operating technology to GNSS On Board Units (albeit to initially apply the same mix of corridor and cordon charging as applies today, but with the focus on delivering more information about pricing, traffic, parking and alternative modes through the system).

However, if you've been following the recent very public debates and commentaries about congestion pricing in the USA you'd be excused for thinking it is new and innovative.  Innovative it is, it is just that the US has come a bit late to the concept, but what is driving it is not so much congestion, but the desire to use congestion pricing to raise revenue - typically not for roads.

For many years congestion pricing in the USA has largely been referred to in the context of express/HOT/toll lanes. Although such lanes offer options to pay to bypass congestion on some highways, they are not "comprehensive" in addressing congestion and more importantly are not technically able to be implementing except on roads with limited access. In most cases they have been implemented by converting high occupancy vehicle lanes to HOT/toll lanes. It is rarely economic to build new lanes and charge just for them (because there is insufficient willingness to pay for the capital costs of new capacity, particularly when such capacity may only be utilised for short periods during weekdays), so HOT/toll lanes are rarely seen outside the USA.

The positive example of toll lanes is that they demonstrate that the instrument of price is effective in managing demand so that a road can operate in free flow conditions, but of course such lanes are not practical on most roads and they always have an unpriced alternative.  At best they offer an option in some cases, and demonstrate the concept.

So full congestion pricing has not been seen in the US to date. By that I don't mean having peak pricing on an existing toll road to spread demand on that road (this is seen on many crossings, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, E-407 Toronto and the Sydney Harbour Crossings), but rather pricing of a network or placing a cordon (either on its own or as an area charge) on a zone, with priced access at set times/days.

This isn't common as all. Although there are many low emission zones in European cities (which prohibit or heavily charge vehicles that don't meet low or ultra-low emission standards) and restricted access zones to cities (this is seen in many Italian cities, keen to preserve historic centres of cities ill suited to large volumes of vehicle traffic), the only cities that charge a network or a zone for access on a significant scale are:

- Singapore

- London

- Stockholm

- Gothenburg

- Milan

- Dubai

- Tehran.

There are a handful of smaller examples, Oslo transitioned from a cordon set up for revenue raising to one that has a congestion management purpose now, but by and large congestion pricing is hard to implement.  It's been investigated in multiple cities in the UK (Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh) and elsewhere in Europe (Dublin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki), but has always come up against one major issue - public opposition.


What has woken up the US?

How about the US then? Suddenly cities, states and the media have discovered congestion pricing because of one simple reason - New York is going to do it. This follows previous attempts to introduce it, most notably by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had his proposal for a cordon on lower Manhattan vetoed by the State Legislature.

The New York Senate and Assembly have approved it, along with the State Governor. The details are to be worked out by a new Traffic Mobility Review Board, but it is essentially a cordon that starts at 60th St, excluding FDR Drive and the West Side Highway. All of the net revenue is to spent on the public transport network, specifically the subway, bus network, the Long Island RailRoad and Metro-North. Private cars are only to be charged once a day, whereas ridehailing/sharing and taxi services are already subject to a surcharge of between US$0.75-US$2.75 per trip, depending on the service since 2 February 2019.  Although Charles Komanoff indicates that the effects will be much less than promised (still a 2.5% increase in average traffic speeds is worthwhile).

Some of the details to be worked out include:

· Charge rates (will they vary by vehicle type)

· Area charge (will vehicles be charged for circulating within the cordon as well as or separately from crossing the cordon)

· Direction of charge (will there be a charge for entering AND exiting the cordon)

· Time of operation

· Variation of charge by time of day

· Discounts and exemptions (it might be fair to assume that emergency vehicles and NYC transit vehicles might be exempt, but will the ride hail/share surcharge liable vehicles be exempt too)

· How those entering lower Manhattan on tolled crossings will be treated

New York is basically implementing a simple charge, primarily to raise revenue for other modes, so it will be interesting to see what impact it has and whether it is designed to spread demand by time of day, as much as it is to raise revenue. It will clearly be a trailblazer, although it is unlikely that other US city has either the density of public transport or geography to lend itself to a relatively simple cordon as the solution.

What about the rest of the US?



San Francisco has studied charging before, and looks like pursuing it again. The San Francisco County Transportation Board Authority voted earlier this year to spend US$0.5m on a study of downtown congestion pricing, suggesting that it has already decided that a downtown cordon is worth pursuing. It will be interesting to see what impacts that might have, and particularly how boundary issues are addressed. The San Francisco Mobility Trends report indicated that "vehicular traffic entering San Francisco grew 27% since 2010, although public transport use also rose 5% and cycling by 6%, on a 9% population increase (indicating that the growth in population is pushing a big increase in driving), with a decrease in private car travel speeds by 23%. It's hardly surprising that pricing access to downtown is a priority, although hopefully it will mean pricing that varies by time of day.

Los Angeles has already had a study released by Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) which proposed a pilot cordon at Westside LA, for a number of reasons (see page 94 of the below report).

Proposed Westside LA cordon from SCAG study

 The Mobility Go Zone and Pricing Feasibility Study indicated that it could result in a 19% drop in private cars entering charged zones, and a 9% mode shift to public transit, with 7% each to walking and cycling. Whilst this might be a good place to start, LA is going to need a much more comprehensive solution to address congestion across the region. LA Metro is about to launch a study that looks more widely at options, with the intention that pricing would support a package of improvements to public transport and active modes.

Boston, Portland, Seattle and Washington DC are all considering congestion pricing, which has to be welcome. The US has gone through a couple of eras in urban transport policy, from the 1940s to the 1970s the focus was almost entirely on building roads to meet demand. That has tailed off, with a focus from the 1970s of building (mostly rail-based) public transport infrastructure to try to attract motorists from their cars, in other words supplying alternatives. More recently, cycling has had a boost in some cities, but the primary argument in all cities is one of what to supply, rather than how to manage existing demand and supply.








Friday, 17 August 2012

Massachusetts permitted to use Turnpike revenue on other roads

Generally speaking, tolling can be undertaken either at specific points on a road or continuously along an entire journey.  Conventional tolling finds fixed points on a road network to charge the road user, whereas distance based road user charging, vehicle mileage tax, time-distance-place road pricing, is about charging a vehicle for its trip on all roads.

It is fair to say that as vehicles don't typically carry the technology to allow the latter, and governments (which own and operate most roads) don't have the political will to shift towards that, there is a preference, for now, to stick with conventional tolls.

So what does a government do when it finds it difficult to raise fuel taxation, but has a series of toll roads which are happily generating surplus revenue, and has a difficulty meeting demands for funds for road maintenance.   Does it divert the surplus from the profitable toll roads into untolled roads?

That's what Massachusetts did and it upset more than a few.

For many a toll road should be self-contained.  The toll should be related to the road it applies to, and the money raised should be enough to pay for its capital and maintenance costs (and upgrades), not to pay for other roads.  

Yet an alternative view is that if the state has assets that are profitable, then why not treat those assets as businesses that can be used to support related infrastructure?

In 1997, Massachusetts faced a problem.  It was the cost of the Big Dig, possibly the world's most expensive urban highway scheme ever (at an eye watering US$22 billion).  The state decided to start using money from the Massachusetts Turnpike to pay some of those costs. 

The Newspaper.com reports on what happened when some of those motorists were unimpressed:

In 2009, turnpike users sued the turnpike authority over 58 percent of their toll money -- $440 million -- being siphoned off for the expensive tunnel, which they argued changed the money from a "user fee" to a tax under the state constitution. The coalition of motorists and trucking associations behind the suit argued the system was also fundamentally unfair.

"The majority of travelers who use Metropolitan Highway System (MHS) facilities each day pay no tolls at all: MTA collects tolls from only 46 percent of the travelers who use MHS facilities each day, allowing 54 percent of travelers to pay nothing at all for their use of the most expensive part of the MHS," lawyers for the plaintiffs argued. "This court should not hesitate to invalidate a tolling scheme that impermissibly functions like a tax or that unreasonably or disproportionately burdens those who are singled out to pay tolls."

The court judgment summarised the claim as:

"according to the plaintiffs, the tolls are lawful user fees when applied to pay the expenses of the tolled roads and tunnels, but an unconstitutional tax when applied to pay the expenses of the nontolled roads, tunnels, and bridges."


The tolls "were collected to compensate the authority for the expenses incurred in operating the MHS (and limited by statute to the amount necessary to pay those expenses), not to raise revenues for the commonwealth...Where, as here, a public authority manages an integrated system of roadways, bridges, and tunnels, and chooses to impose tolls on only some of the roadways and tunnels in an amount sufficient to support the entire integrated system, its purpose does not shift from expense reimbursement to revenue raising simply because the toll revenues exceed the cost of maintaining only the tolled portions of the integrated system... Because we conclude that the tolls collected by the authority on the MHS were fees, and because we conclude that they would still be constitutional excise taxes even if they were taxes, we affirm the dismissal of the plaintiffs' state constitutional claims"

In other words, the Court treated the Turnpike as part of an integrated network and that just because tolls have not be imposed on all of that network does not mean revenue can only be spent on the tolled segments.  It treated the tolls as "user fees", because they could be avoided by driving on untolled roads (taxes can't be avoided).

Massachusetts can happily continue to reap profits from its toll roads to cross-subsidise the rest of its network (and so offset other taxes).

Background

The Massachusetts Turnpike is one of the oldest toll roads in the USA and is essentially an east-west artery from New York State (where it connects to the tolled New York State Thruway) to Boston.  It is part of the Interstate highway network, being the easternmost end of I-90.  It utilises both manual tolls and the basic "Fastlane" DSRC (RFID) toll tag system (soon to be transferred to the EZPass franchise which it is interoperable with).   Wikipedia has an excellent map depicting how important the Turnpike is to the state.  Within Boston, part of the "Big Dig" project includes a link used as part of the Turnpike (the Ted Williams Tunnel which itself is tolled in one direction) which completed its connection to Boston Logan International Airport.