Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Congestion Pricing

Street Safety Benefits of Congestion Charging Are Bigger Than We Thought

By Charles Komanoff | Mar 9, 2016 | 2 Comments

Evidence keeps mounting that congestion pricing can catalyze major reductions in traffic crashes. A year ago I reported on research that vehicle crashes in central London fell as much as 40 percent since the 2003 startup of London’s congestion charge. The same researchers are now expressing the safety dividend in terms of falling per-mile crash rates, and […]

A Flat “Congestion Charge” for Taxis and Uber: Yea or Nay?

By David Meyer | Dec 4, 2015 | 14 Comments

Would a new surcharge on taxi and for-hire vehicle trips in Manhattan below 59th Street thin out traffic on congested streets? Not much it won’t, according to transportation economist Charles Komanoff, whose traffic analysis has helped shape the Move NY toll reform campaign. Every year the city’s Independent Budget Office releases a list of options to cut expenses and […]

Why Is There So Much Traffic in NYC? It’s the Free Roads, Stupid

By Stephen Miller | Sep 17, 2015 | 63 Comments

Since the de Blasio administration attempted to cap for-hire cars this summer, the debate over Manhattan traffic has gotten louder, but not more productive. Uber claimed it definitely wasn’t the problem. Some council members wondered if bike lanes were slowing down cars. Amid all the noise, something important got lost. At a hearing about Manhattan traffic this morning convened by Borough President Gale Brewer, a simple […]

The Real Reason Uber Traffic Matters in NYC

By Ben Fried | Jul 23, 2015 | 16 Comments

For a moment yesterday, it seemed like the big clash between the taxi medallion industry and app-based car services, framed in terms of Uber’s effect on snarled Manhattan traffic, might veer into unexpectedly brilliant territory. There was Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris in the Daily News, telling the MTA that City Hall would consider the Move NY traffic […]

Just in From London: Congestion Charging’s Street Safety Bonus

By Charles Komanoff | Mar 11, 2015 | 10 Comments

Add street safety to the list of benefits from congestion pricing. That’s the takeaway from a new “working paper” analyzing traffic crash rates in and around the London congestion charging zone by three economists associated with the Management School at Lancaster University. “Traffic Accidents and the London Congestion Charge” slices and dices the monthly changes […]

The Move NY Fair Tolling Plan Is Polling Better Than Congestion Pricing

By Brad Aaron | Jun 16, 2014 | 31 Comments

Toll reform is polling better in New York City than congestion pricing did, even when pollsters don’t mention that the Move NY plan would mean billions in transit revenue. Capital New York’s Dana Rubinstein reports: “Would you support or oppose a plan to charge tolls on the East River bridges, which go into Manhattan, and […]

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