Moving on from 20th Century Technology
Number-plate reading technology to enable localized local pricing began as a 20th century technology first implemented by Singapore starting in 1975. 28 years since then, London started congestion pricing, soon followed by Milan and Stockholm. London’s Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology is powered by thousands of cameras that communicate with a central database. This system while being effective in the short turn, comes with a high price in terms of capital costs, civil liberty and privacy concerns. Even a year-long train similar to those in Stockholm and Milan can be capital intensive and may not be suitable for Boston if we are looking for an inexpensive congestion-control strategy that can be easily tested.
Why increasing current tolls wont work?
While it would be more straightforward to institute a pricing system with the existing toll roads, it will be extremely challenging to monitor all the other arterials, primary and secondary streets leading to Boston. Any significant increase in toll on the freeways will eventually alter driver behavior with the assistance of applications such as WAZE. Cars will be re-routed to alternative routes significantly increasing neighborhood traffic leading to the City of Boston. And it will be a losing proposition to start building ANPR infrastructure on hundreds of entry points to Boston for a trial study.
Carrots & Sticks
There are two broad carrot and stick approaches to limit congestion
Incentivize Public Transit
Charge incoming automobile traffic
A good solution probably lies somewhere in between. While “sticks” (taxing) can be hugely unpopular among drivers, ‘carrots’ can be equally complicated to implement as it would require significant inter-agency collaboration and buy-in. With MBTA running a deficit, it would be hard to convince MassDot to reduce fares so that the City of Boston can directly reap the benefit fewer cars.
The Solution: Parking Pricing
Per Donald Shoup’s classic “The High Cost of Free Parking” a significant blame for city traffic goes to cars cruising around to find a parking space. Unless it is rideshare or taxi service, most cars entering the City will occupy a parking space - either in a structured Garage, or in one of those fast disappearing parking lots, or within an on-street parking space . It will not be a heavy lift to assemble a database of existing public garages and off-street parking spaces in office building (from building permit database). Instituting a weighted parking charge for short-term on-street parking, day-long garage parking, and off-peak hour parking will act as a major deterrent for those who have the option of taking public transit.
Road Blocks
Over the short-term, this could trigger a major opposition from the owners and operators of parking garages. But, given Boston’s meteoric rise in real estate prices, garages are certainly not the highest and best use, and most property owners would eventually be delighted to convert them to higher revenue producing commercial and luxury residential uses.
What about issues of Equity?
Those who live on the economically margins are less likely to drive and park in the City in the first place if provided with a robust public transportation alternative at a reasonable price. Means-tested, transit subsidy would certainly help in alleviating the transportation cost in such cases.
How do you solve a problem like TNCs?
According to a 2018 Study Transportation Network Companies (TNC) like Uber and Lyft with their “while touted as reducing traffic, in fact add mileage to city streets. Even with these shared services, TNCs put 2.6 new TNC vehicle miles on the road for each mile of personal driving removed, for an overall 160 percent increase in driving on city streets”. A parking charge will not work for these services cluttering city streets at 20mph. In such cases, increasing the frequency of intra-city shuttles and bus services and a congestion tax on Uber & Lyft is likely to reduce the traffic on street.
Summary: Parking Premiums as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
It will not require any additional investment on capital infrastructure to increase the pricing in parking meters and to to levy additional fees for garage parking spaces and TNCs (proportionate to the miles traveled). While the pushback would be swift from TNCs and Garage Owners, if the City can weather the short-term political storm, there is a good chance Mayor can reward our residents with a homerun in reducing congestion.