The headline is, "Congestion Pricing in Manhattan Is a Predictable Success." (Alternate link)
This is not something from a publication that sees most sorts of collective action and government interventions as highly suspect.
Congestion pricing works:
Maura Ryan, a speech therapist in New York City, was dreading the introduction of congestion pricing. To see her patients in Queens and Manhattan she sometimes drives across the East River a couple of times a day. The idea of paying a $9 toll each day infuriated her. Yet since the policy was actually implemented, she has changed her mind. A journey which used to take an hour or more can now be as quick as 15 minutes. “Well, this is very nice,” she admits thinking. Ms Ryan is not alone. Polls show more New Yorkers now support the toll than oppose it. A few months ago, it saw staunch opposition.
Congestion pricing came into effect in Manhattan on January 5th, just two weeks before Donald Trump became president. So far it has been almost miraculous in its effects. Traffic is down by about 10%, leading to substantially faster journeys, especially at the pinch-points of bridges and tunnels. Car-noise complaints are down by 70%. Buses are travelling so much faster that their drivers are having to stop and wait to keep to their schedules. The congestion charge is raising around $50m each month to update the subway and other public-transport systems, and ridership is up sharply. Broadway attendance is rising, not falling, as some feared.
We've known this for decades, ever since Ken "Red Ken" Livingston implemented the program in London.
Making drivers pay for the negative externalities of their behaviors is good policy.
More generally, making anyone who shifts the costs of their behavior onto the rest of society is good policy.
2 comments :
The Economist is a new magazine. They tend to report accurately.
I assume that you meant, "News," not, "New." The Economist was founded in 1843.
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