Traffic congestion is a major problem in Los Angeles. Carpool lanes and investment in mass transit have failed to significantly reduce traffic during rush hour. An alternative policy is needed. Los Angeles should follow New York City\u2019s new policy and place a toll on vehicles entering the central business district in the downtown area. The evidence shows this is an effective way to reduce traffic congestion.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles is famous for many things, congested highways being one of them. Los Angeles\u00a0has the most congested roads in the country. L.A. drivers waste 122 hours annually, worth $3,214 in time and fuel sitting in traffic.<\/p>\n
New York City faced a similar congestion problem. Politicians decided to tackle the issue by introducing a tolling system this past January.\u00a0 Between 5 A.M. and 9 P.M. on weekdays, passenger vehicles pay $9 to enter the central business district in Manhattan. They pay $2.25 during off-peak hours. Vans, trucks, and buses pay higher tolls during peak hours.\u00a0 Taxis pay $0.75 per trip.\u00a0 Low-income drivers get a 50 percent discount on the first ten trips into the toll zone each month.<\/p>\n
What impact does this new system have on traffic in the toll zone and surrounding areas? A study\u00a0recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds the policy has improved traffic flows in the Greater New York Area.<\/p>\n
Average traffic speeds in the toll zone have increased 15 percent compared to similar areas in other cities.\u00a0 Travel times within and driving to and from the toll zone declined 8 percent.\u00a0 Carbon Dioxide emissions declined between 2 and 3 percent.\u00a0 However, particulate emissions did not change.\u00a0 Speeds increased the most in neighborhoods closer to the toll zone.\u00a0 Finally, they found no difference in the speed increase across neighborhoods with different income levels.<\/p>\n
A second study\u00a0by the Regional Plan Association found traffic delays in the toll zone declined 25 percent compared to 2024.\u00a0 Traffic delays outside the toll area fell 9 percent.\u00a0 The normal post-holiday decline in congestion was 19 percent higher with tolls.<\/p>\n
These results should come as no surprise.\u00a0 Tolls create incentives that will alter the travel patterns of people.\u00a0 They will be more inclined to carpool or use transit.\u00a0 They will shift less essential trips to off-peak hours when tolls are lower.\u00a0 These are the same adjustments observed in Singapore, London, Milan, and Stockholm when this type of a toll system was implemented in those cities.<\/p>\n
In the past, this kind of toll system could not be implemented if Interstate Highways were part of the plan.\u00a0 The federal government restricted the use of tolls on these highways.\u00a0 Tolls on Interstate Highways could only be used to build new lanes, reconstruction, or high-occupancy toll lanes.<\/p>\n
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act established a Congestion Relief Program.\u00a0 This program provides grants to finance the establishment of a zone-tolling system in large cities with populations over 1,000,000 people for the purpose of reducing congestion.\u00a0 This means federal regulations no longer block Los Angeles from establishing this type of tolling system.<\/p>\n
New York is the first city in the U.S. to use tolls to modify travel behavior in the central business district. The evidence so far suggests it is reducing congestion. It is time for Los Angeles to adopt a similar policy to reduce the high level of congestion that plagues the city.<\/p>\n
Robert Krol is an emeritus Professor of Economics at California State University, Northridge and author of \u201cTolling the Freeway: Congestion Pricing and the Economics of Managing Traffic,\u201d Annals of Computational Economics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traffic congestion is a major problem in Los Angeles. Carpool lanes and investment in mass transit have failed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":82525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,11890,2961,224,5337,1269],"class_list":{"0":"post-82524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-commentary","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-opinion"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114895560610557706","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}