Funny that I should mention London’s congestion tax yesterday, because today I read that the city council is considering a similar idea for Boston:
Saying the half-million commuters who drive into Boston each day are major contributors to traffic and parking congestion, Councilor Paul J. Scapicchio wants the city to look into requiring passes costing $1 to $5 daily and catching scofflaws by installing cameras to record license plates of cars crossing over from the suburbs without the passes. Today, he will ask for a council hearing to explore the idea.
Modeling his proposal on a similar program in London and an effort under consideration in San Francisco, Scapicchio said the fees would help fund public transit and road improvements in a city that has struggled in recent years.
‘’This program could remedy three problems: congestion, pollution, and the lack of revenue," said Scapicchio. ‘’This could discourage the use of our overburdened roadways and create a revenue source to fix our falling bridges and pothole-filled streets."
Politically this is a non-starter: the city council doesn’t really have policy authority that would stand up against the State Legislature, and there’s little built-in constituency for the provision. We’re a city and state that loves cars.
But what of the merits of the idea? I don’t know that Boston’s situation is comparable to central London’s — here, much of the congestion is intra-city, not inter-city. And putting on a tax is going to break up the tightly knit economic zone of Boston. Cambridge and Brookline are separate municipalities, but they feel like part of the same urban space.
And contrary to what the Conservation Law Foundation thinks, it wouldn’t work to use a congestion tax to pay for capital expansion of public transportation — the funds would have to be diverted to operational expansion of public transportation in order to accommodate those who will no longer be driving into the city. That means more commuter rail runs, better subway efficiency, and new suburb-to-city bus routes. I desperately would love to see transit expansion here — eastward extension of the Blue Line, northward extension of the Green Line, and an urban ring seem especially vital needs for our city. But the money for capital improvement is going to have to be actively raised on top of running the MBTA to demand and on budget. And politically, the city as much as the suburbs are going to have pay their share of it.
Addendum: In other transit news, the Bostonist is as leery of the T’s new closed-circuit TV plans as I am. More revenue for the T would be nice, but having seen the quick flop of Channel One in my high school, I know these revenue schemes aren’t always what they’re sold to be. Besides, already electronic display signs, bus signs, escalators and token machines break down with frightening regularity. What will make these TVs work better?
UPDATE: Both The Third Decade and Steve Brady have excellent points about why this scheme won’t work.
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