Alex Armlovich

Find the full-length report draft here. New York’s political community and the general public have yet to come to terms with reality on congestion pricing. While COVID-19 has suppressed travel demand across the region — deeply for now and to an uncertain extent over the next several years — that decrease has been concentrated in mass transit. Bridge and tunnel crossings into Manhattan are, as of this summer, only down 9% from the pre-COVID baseline. The average daytime travel speed in Manhattan below 60th Street is already back down to 8MPH, barely above the pre-COVID average of 6.9MPH. As the recovery continues, traffic will only get worse — and we need a flexible and dynamic tolling regime that can “roll with the punches” of varying traffic and economic fluctuations as it permanently solves the congestion problem. The paper offers four novel suggestions for congestion pricing in New York City: 1. A speed target should be at the center of policy, rather than revenue, and the fee should vary dynamically in response to traffic volumes to achieve the target speed subject to a maximum peak toll. (Subject to political constraints, the closer the peak toll cap can get to $26, the better the economically estimated balance of speed and toll price). 2. Upstream tolls should be credited broadly to increase regional equity and ensure the incentives to choose any given route to Manhattan depend only on traffic management, not on revenue considerations. 3. Dynamic tolls on each entry point to Manhattan should float independently to incentivize only useful “toll shopping”. Current toll differences on priced and unpriced crossings are arbitrary and divert traffic to the busiest free crossings, while independently floating tolls would equilibrate to balance traffic volumes across all crossings. 4. The cap on licenses for For-Hire Vehicles should be removed and […]