Valuing the commons: Congestion pricing's hidden payoff

[marmar]

from Grist Magazine:


Valuing the commons: Congestion pricing's hidden payoff

Posted by Charles Komanoff at 8:09 PM on 15 Jul 2007

I wrote this piece linking NYC Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal with a carbon tax, in June. I shopped it around but none of the big papers took it. Now, NY Times columnist Tom Friedman -- perhaps the second-most visible supporter of carbon taxes (after Al Gore) -- has written a column backing the Bloomberg pricing plan. "Crunch time" for the plan may come as early as the next day or two. So it's time the piece saw the light of day.

Every so often there arises an environmental controversy that tests the capacity of Americans to face reality. One such case is emerging in New York City, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has proposed a "congestion fee" on cars and trucks driving into Manhattan.

Backers from the mayor on down tout the fee as a cure-all: it will unsnarl traffic, relieve pollution and create a revenue stream to upgrade subways and buses, while also cutting global warming emissions.

These claims are a bit overstated. More probably there will be a single-digit increase in traffic speeds, a one percent drop in emissions citywide, and perhaps a $400 million revenue infusion for a transportation system whose annual costs top $30 billion.

But even though the immediate benefits of the congestion charge are relatively modest, the act of imposing such a charge is transformative in itself.

The real significance of the congestion charge is this: it establishes the principle that safeguarding "the commons" -- our air, water and public space -- requires that we exact from ourselves a commensurate price for uses that damage or deplete it.

The congestion charge puts our money where our mouth is. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/14/2057/10377