What's good for the driver in the middle is also good for public health. (Photo: FHWA)

Take performance parking. Both urbanists (and drivers) seem to believe that it's good (or bad), because it makes parking more expensive, which is bad (or good) for drivers. But this assumes that a free parking system, where open spots are almost never available, is desirable for drivers.

That's like saying that a store that gives away bread for free -- and which subsequently never has any bread -- is good for people who like eating bread.

For the most part, thinking about congestion pricing follows this same rule. Urbanists tend to like it because it makes driving more costly and raises revenue for transit infrastructure. Drivers tend to oppose it, because they don't want to pay more to drive. In fact, congestion pricing would be good for people who really want to drive and good for people who'd like to have an alternative to driving.

This message has been slow to sink in, but the fact that drivers may benefit from congestion pricing may be beginning to resonate with urbanists. Unfortunately -- and so powerful is the what's-bad-for-drivers-is-good-for-cities mentality -- the absorption of this message has caused some urbanists to conclude that they've been wrong all along, and that congestion pricing really is bad. If drivers might benefit, it must be the case that cities, and the earth, will not.

So writes the New Yorker's David Owen, in an extremely misguided piece in the Wall Street Journal.

By requiring car drivers to pay a fee to drive in a city at peak hours, congestion pricing reduces traffic and raises money that can be used to support public transit—both worthy goals.

Yet congestion pricing has dubious environmental value. Traffic jams, if they’re managed well, can actually be good for the environment. They maintain a level of frustration that turns drivers into subway riders or pedestrians.

He is saying that congestion pricing is a bad idea, because traffic encourages drivers to switch to transit or otherwise get off the roads. But this misses the point that congestion pricing works by ... encouraging drivers to switch to transit or otherwise get off the roads. And as a bonus, it creates revenue which can be used to build more transit alternatives for frustrated drivers.

Owen seems to be arguing that the primary effect of congestion pricing may be to spread driving out over a longer period of time rather rather than to encourage a shift away from driving. But of course, the primary effect of congestion might also be to spread driving out over a longer period of time rather than to encourage a shift away from driving, particularly in places that don’t have good transit systems (which makes the revenue question all the more salient).

The argument doesn't make sense, and it doesn't appear to be supported by actual experience with congestion pricing schemes, as Charles Komanoff points out here. In London, better driving conditions after the adoption of a congestion pricing regime encouraged some drivers to take additional trips, but that increase didn't come close to offsetting the drop in vehicle trips induced by the cordon charge.

As difficult as it may be for all involved to accept, congestion pricing manages to benefit transit riders and drivers. Commutes are faster and emissions are reduced. But the benefits don't stop there.

A new economics paper by Janet Currie and Reed Walker explores what happened to neighborhoods near congested highway toll plazas after those plazas were replaced by the E-ZPass electronic tolling system. Here's the abstract (paragraph breaks mine):

This paper provides evidence of the significant negative health externalities of traffic congestion. We exploit the introduction of electronic toll collection, or E-ZPass, which greatly reduced traffic congestion and emissions from motor vehicles in the vicinity of highway toll plazas.

Specifically, we compare infants born to mothers living near toll plazas to infants born to mothers living near busy roadways but away from toll plazas with the idea that mothers living away from toll plazas did not experience significant reductions in local traffic congestion. We also examine differences in the health of infants born to the same mother, but who differ in terms of whether or not they were “exposed” to E-ZPass.

We find that reductions in traffic congestion generated by E-ZPass reduced the incidence of prematurity and low birth weight among mothers within 2km of a toll plaza by 10.8% and 11.8% respectively. Estimates from mother fixed effects models are very similar. There were no immediate changes in the characteristics of mothers or in housing prices in the vicinity of toll plazas that could explain these changes, and the results are robust to many changes in specification.

The results suggest that traffic congestion is a significant contributor to poor health in affected infants. Estimates of the costs of traffic congestion should account for these important health externalities.

That last line is key. We're used to seeing estimates of the costs of congestion, which tend to peg those costs in the tens of billions of dollars annually in the United States. Those estimates primarily estimate cost in terms of wasted time and wasted fuel. Some may attempt to estimate the cost of additional greenhouse gas emissions. Few take into account the direct health effects of congestion.

It's interesting to think about this research in light of the equity arguments made against congestion pricing. Set aside the fact that drivers tend to be richer than transit riders, and that congestion pricing would generate revenue for progressive transit improvements. Neighborhoods located in the shadows of congested highways are unlikely to be filled with wealthy families.

We want our cities to work better, and congestion pricing is one of the very best policy tools available to help that happen. It can make cities more efficient, more equitable, and greener, and it can lead to improved mobility for transit-riders, pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.

As tempting as it may be for those who love cities to conclude that whichever policies irk drivers the most are the ones we should adopt, far more progress will be made if we recognize that some of the most promising policy changes can be good for nearly everyone.

The administration's view could not have been much clearer -- this business is all very important, but we're not ready to commit to anything at this time.

Roy Kienitz, the Department of Transportation's Undersecretary for Policy, made it quite clear that the administration is not prepared to support any of the new funding mechanisms proposed -- not a VMT tax, not indexing the gas tax to inflation, and not taxes on imported oil and refined gasoline.

Kienitz did leave the door open to a tax on trading of oil futures, which he said the administration would have to investigate thoroughly. A key concern is that in a world where oil is traded on global markets, such a measure would simply shift trading off of American soil.

Why the stubborn refusal to engage in the funding debate? Ostensibly, the administration is reluctant to adopt new taxes or fees amid recession.

But this explanation rings hollow. Congress could easily delay the time at which revenue-raising measures take effect until 2011 or later, as is being done with funding mechanisms in the health reform bills under consideration.

The president must know this. A reasonable assumption is that he simply does not want to have a tax debate at this time, not with other key priorities involving new tax burdens also being considered.

With the administration all but out of the discussion, the rest of the hearing seemed somewhat academic, but the committee pressed on. The primary interest groups are, not surprisingly, arguing for their own protection.

C. Wick Moorman, CEO of the regional freight rail operator Norfolk Southern, declared himself supportive of tax incentives for new freight rail investments. Peter Pan Bus Lines President Peter Picknelly asked that the intercity bus line fuel tax exemption be extended in any new transportation bill reauthorization.

And Barbara Windsor, there to represent Hahn Transportation and the American Trucking Association, was quite adamant in expressing the trucking industry's opposition to new revenue-raising measures.

ATA has endorsed continued reliance on fuel taxes, but it strongly opposes use of a VMT tax, or any tolling of lanes not associated with switching HOV lanes to HOT.

Windsor also had sharp words for the Waxman-Markey energy bill recently passed by the House.

She said she'd been told that it would result in an increase in diesel fuel prices of between 70 cents and 90 cents per gallon for truckers (numbers that are almost certainly incorrect; reports from the Congressional Budget Office and other reputable sources suggest that the carbon prices necessary to generate that increase in fuel prices won't obtain for decades).

Given that America's trucking fleet averages about 6.2 miles per gallon, according to Windsor, those higher fuel costs would be quite damaging to the industry.

A more hopeful note was sounded by the American Automobile Association's Robert Darbelnet, who noted that AAA supported an increase in transportation investment and supported measures to raise revenue to fund that increase.

Darbelnet pointed out that the value of the federal gas tax has declined some 50 percent since it was last increased in 1993, thanks to inflation and increased fuel efficiency.

Given improvements in accountability and a comprehensive national transportation plan, AAA could support an increased gas tax, a VMT tax, or congestion pricing in places with alternatives to travel on priced roads.

All told, it was plenty for the administration and legislators to chew on as they attempt to fill the $200 billion gap between current revenues and planned spending. One important thing to keep in mind -- while new taxes might play poorly now, amid recession, recovery will almost certainly result in higher oil prices, which will also make it politically difficult to raise or introduce new taxes.

There's never a perfect time to try to increase revenue. Hopefully leaders will soon coalesce around a few good ideas, so they can begin the difficult job of selling voters and interest groups on the necessary measures.

The biggest menace to motoring since pedestrians. Photo: Matthew Roth

Your story today on SFPark is a new low, infantilizing a parking management pilot that is the envy of municipalities across the country and has the attention of cities as far-flung as Tokyo, Japan. For an agency that is getting more than enough bad publicity on things that it does poorly--and we're the first in line to harp on the negative--the MTA deserves credit for coordinating with the Port to develop the largest and most sophisticated parking management system in the world, which will allow city managers to finally measure with precision the driving and parking patterns in San Francisco so that the streets can become more efficient and less congested.

How do you cover this giant leap for parking-kind? You exaggerate a simple learning curve for a new multi-space meter as though it were a technological Berlin Wall.

"These newfangled meters take much more skill to operate than simply dropping coins into a slot," writes Rachel Gordon, who I'm hard pressed to believe took this editorial tack on her own, given that she rides transit regularly, has been covering transportation issues for awhile and isn't as bound to the windshield perspective as her editors seem to be.

Just how much more skill do these "newfangled meters" take?

Drivers have to remember the number assigned to their space and then log in the information on a keypad. Then they have to decide whether to pay with a credit card, debit card or coins, and finally they have to figure out how to select how much time they want.

To steal from SNL's Weekend Update: Really? Really?!?

However will the piteous parkers decide what form of payment to use and how much time they're planning to park? I guess they should just give up before they begin, not come into San Francisco at all, and spend their dollars at the mall in Walnut Creek, where parking is so much more civilized and free (what's more ridiculous is that some of the comments on the story essentially say as much).

MTA spokesperson Judson True, ever more diplomatic than me, acknowledged that this kind of coverage is unfortunate.

It's a little frustrating to have the focus be on the challenges that are natural with any new program, but we are working hard to improve the signage and fundamentally we know that these new meters and all new SFPark meters are going to bring better parking management to San Francisco.  That's going to be more convenient for people and better for the city as a whole.

The story comes around at the end with a compensatory nod to one of the primary benefits of SFPark, namely that it provides more payment options for motorists. Not to mention the radical departure it will mark from the catch-as-catch-can parking management, enforcement, and meter maintenance that passes for street management currently. With future iterations of SFPark likely to include real-time parking information beamed to cell phones, static directional signs, and on-board navigation systems, San Francisco will see a great reduction in cruising for parking and the attendant environmental and congestion impacts of what, in some cities, is as much as 45 percent of all traffic.

Good solutions to this could net you $50,000. (Photo: ITSA)

Well, it's time to make notes on that brilliant traffic-calming idea. The Intelligence Transportation Society of America (ITSA) kicked off a $50,000 "Congestion Challenge" today that seeks to pair social networking with innovative transportation policy-making.

Co-sponsored by Spencer Trask, a private equity firm specializing in high-tech investments, the contest asks transportation professionals and everyday citizens to submit their proposals for clearing the nation's jam-packed roads, bridges and transitways. Each submission will be judged based on its ability to address five issues: sustainability, safety, behavioral impact, economic competitiveness, and speed & efficiency.

But the most compelling aspect of the challenge is its approach to judging. Instead of subjecting entries to an evaluation panel that might be too tied to outmoded ways of thinking, the ITSA asks aspiring judges and contestants to set up their own Facebook-style profile pages (mine can be seen here) and rate entries themselves.

Photo by Bryan Goebel

I also asked him about criticism from some advocates and officials in other agencies that the Mayor has hamstrung the MTA in some areas, preventing bold action to make San Francisco a true Transit First city.  

"I think, from my meetings with the mayor, there’s some situations where he wishes we were moving a whole lot faster," said Ford. "There are situations where we are very aggressive, and then there’s some situations where we need to be a little bit more deliberate in what we’re doing."

Part II of the interview with me and reporter Matthew Roth was recorded on April 8th:

On the funding crisis facing transit agencies:  "All of us are working very hard to develop a strategy to talk about the relevance of the funding, and it is very interesting to me at a time where we are seeing ridership increases over the last year or two that now is the time we’re going to have a difficult time trying to increase our service capacity.  So this couldn’t come at a worse time.  We are working hard to educate our local legislators; we’ve sent letters to them.  Two weeks ago, there was a state lobbying day for all of the transit systems.  We participated in that.  But we have a lot of work ahead of us, because I think the voters, this was a mandate from the voters; they wanted this state transit assistance program to be part of the state budget, and now for it to be raided and divvied up at a time that the citizens probably need transit more than they ever needed it for their transportation needs, it’s unfortunate.  So we will be working closely with our colleagues across the state."

On criticism the Mayor is preventing bold action at the MTA: "From my meetings with the mayor, I think there’s some situations where he wishes we were moving a whole lot faster, but for resource constraints and things of that nature, we want to be very deliberate in what we’re doing.  We are testing out some things with the pavements, the parks strategy in terms of projects that make the city more walkable and enjoyable, and there are situations where we are very aggressive, and then there’s some situations where we need to be a little bit more deliberate in what we’re doing.  I think we’re fortunate between the mayor and the Board of Supervisors, we have passionate people about transit.  They may have different opinions about how we go about it.  Passionate about transit, but passionate about pedestrians, passionate about bicyclists.  So we’re not short for any passion and advocacy on any of those fronts. We get an adequate amount of pressure to move things along, but I mean for example, with the bike plan, what is it, shoot and then aim?  And I think in this case we shot and then ended up with an injunction that slowed us down significantly, because we wanted to be very aggressive in terms of expanding the bike network.  I think that should be a lesson to all of us that while we all feel we have the greatest idea and the timing is right to move forward rapidly, not everyone agrees with us and there’s ways...legally, through the courts...to make sure that we adequately review what we’re doing before we implement it. "

On moving the Bike Plan forward:  "As soon as we get from under the injunction, we’re moving rapidly forward with the projects that are listed out in the plan.  We do have to bring this back to the MTA Board to get their approval before we go forward, and full disclosure, one of the challenges that we’re seeing for I’d say a small percentage of the projects, is there are trade offs and some controversial trade offs as it relates to its impact on Muni versus impact to automobiles versus impact to pedestrians, and I think that’s a difficult challenge the staff will have to try and balance out.  We have a transit first mantra, and that’s the city’s charter policy in terms of transportation decisions, but we do recognize that there is a shared use of our rider ways and our conveyances, and we need to balance that out.  So I think the vast majority of the project is pretty straightforward; it’s striping, it’s building and getting some infrastructure in place, and we’re excited about that.  And then we do have the more difficult trade off type situations that we just need to think through and make sure we’re trying to make the right decision." 

How do you balance the different modes? "I’ll tell you, I think that’s the type of stuff that keeps me awake at night and keeps a lot of our staff challenged and we’ll go in my conference room and we’ll lock the doors and we’ll come out hopefully with something that the vast majority of our citizens would prefer.  The challenge that we do have is we live in a dynamic environment, and there’s no kind of cookie-cutter policy on these things. I guess some would say it’s cut and dry, transit first, bikes, pedestrians.  We have to be very careful in that, and we want to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the city.  I think it’s very clear, there’s a large majority of individuals that feel that automobiles should be last on the list, and automobile or parking infrastructure, parking availability should be last on the list, and we take that very seriously.  We are transit first.  We want everyone to ride Muni, and if they’re not on Muni, either walking or riding a bike, and we’ll put those filters into place when we make those decisions."

What are the MTA's goals for reducing the amount of auto trips? "Well one, our goal, initially I think our primary goal, is to get them on a reliable transit system, and then if people do choose and need to use an automobile, that when we provide our parking resources, that they’re adequately priced, so they help out the transit system. If there is a parking need, that availability is readily available so people don’t have to circle around to find a parking spot, thereby creating more greenhouse emissions, thereby creating more congestion.  Our SF Go and SF Park projects are kind of build around that, primarily the SF Park project, which is real time information on parking availability, but also pricing that parking based on the availability at that moment.  So it’s not going to be easier to park, but if you need to park, we’re going to make it readily available for you to quickly get in your parking spot, and then we’re going to charge you what the appropriate rate is to discourage you from doing it, but also to support the transit system and the bike infrastructure and the pedestrian infrastructure in the city.  So that’s our global strategy in trying to deal with that.  There are some people that definitely need to use an automobile, but we’re going to make sure all the other conveyances are first rate, and then if they choose to, that they’re doing it in a very orderly fashion."

Next in Part III: Pedestrian safety and infrastructure in the city.

Listen to Part I.

After seven rounds of voting and nearly an hour of exasperating political theater, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors chose newly elected District 3 Supervisor David Chiu as its president.  A voluble cheer erupted in the North Light Court at City Hall, the overflow room where more than three hundred people crowded around a television monitor.

Supervisor Chiu, the son of immigrant Chinese parents, is the first Chinese-American president of the Board of Supervisors, and will preside over the first "majority minority" board in San Francisco.  His district, which includes Fisherman's Wharf and parts of the downtown business district, will be the epicenter of the fight over congestion pricing. It will also host Sunday Streets this summer and play a significant role in the pilot zone for SFPark.

Supervisor Chiu lives car-free, utilizing a car-share service when a vehicle is needed, and regularly extols the benefits of mass transit and cycling.  In his campaign, he said he would support measures to reduce the number of private automobile trips and increase the mode share of transit and cycling even if it means making driving and parking more difficult.

Livable Streets advocates were understandably thrilled with the outcome.

"David is somebody who understands sustainable transportation and understands how we need to prioritize walking, biking and transit," said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum.  "He's a regular bicyclist himself--he's not one of those guys who just says he rides--I've encountered him on a bike, in his suit, with his briefcase, on his way to work.  He will bring a breath of fresh air to the board."

"The Decider," District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi

The vote saw the five moderates on the board steadfast in their support for Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, while the progressive wing leaned first toward Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, then shifted to Chiu when it was clear Mirkarimi wouldn't get the required six of eleven votes.  Ironically, it was Mirkarimi who cast the deciding yea for Chiu, a fact he was quick to point out in an interview later in his offices.  Laughing, he dubbed himself "The Decider."

When asked about what the city's transportation priorities should be even moderates who voted for Supervisor Maxwell struck a promising tone on transportation policy.  Supervisor Bevan Dufty said his priorities were increased funding for transit, especially the J-line, and community plans to widen sidewalks and improve pedestrian amenities on Castro Street and at the Duboce and Church transit hub.  Supervisor Maxwell said she was very excited to see the continuation of Sunday Streets in 2009.

Photos: Matthew Roth

The Municipal Transportation Agency's federally-funded parking experiment, SFPark, is shaping up to be the most powerful tool remaining in the city's traffic-busting toolbox considering the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce's criticism of congestion pricing and Mayor Newsom's recent tempered support for the plan.

SFPark is the largest dynamic parking demand management project in the world, with 6,000 curbside parking spaces and 11,500 off-street spaces in city-owned garages. The pilot will last for a year-and-a-half and focus on seven target areas, most in the downtown business district and tourist areas along the Embarcadero and Fisherman’s Wharf.

Assuming the time line isn't delayed, the MTA will release a request for proposals by the end of January for vendors to install the technology required to map parking patterns in the pilot areas.   With $19.8 million in federal funding from San Francisco's Urban Partnerhip Agreement set to roll into city coffers in February, the MTA will install meters, sensors and networks within two months and start collecting baseline data in May.  After sixty days, parking managers will start adjusting parking rates, which by law can be raised by no more than $.50/hour every 30 days in the pilot zones; the control zones will not see any change in pricing throughout the trial.

Jay Primus, the MTA's SFPark project leader, believes the public outreach that has already occurred with businesses, transportation experts, environmental advocates, and community stakeholders will facilitate its acceptance. If the pilot works as projected, Primus said the MTA expects the rate of parking fines will be reduced.  Though San Francisco's parking fines are 57% of parking revenues (PDF, page 3)--a far cry from New York City's parking woes, where parking fines are half a billion dollars annually and more than 500% of parking revenues--the agency hopes to fulfill its mandate to voters to improve the management of city streets

"Part of [SFPark] is to continue to realize the original promise of the MTA," Primus said.

Better parking data should reduce traffic from cruising.

The theoretical framework of dynamic parking management was popularized by Donald Shoup in 2005 with The High Cost of Free Parking, a nearly 800-page parking and land use bible.  Shoup’s dynamic management principles borrow from the example of telecommunications systems operating during peak load capacity periods.  Like telephone lines, parking in a city is essentially a fixed supply, though demand can fluctuate wildly by time of day and location.  When there is more demand for parking than supply, drivers waste a great deal of time and fuel looking for scarce spaces. 

Shoup argues that parking managers should price parking in accordance with market demands, raising the cost during peak usage periods and lowering it when there are surplus vacancies.

Shoup demonstrated that because of curbside saturation from under-priced parking, drivers in a 15-block area in Westwood, Los Angeles, traveled the equivalent of two round trips from the Earth to the Moon and burned over 47,000 gallons of fuel each year looking for parking.  In Park Slope, Brooklyn, Transportation Alternatives found that  45% of traffic is circling the block looking for a place to park.

Most advocates, like Tom Radulovich of San Francisco's Livable City,  hold out hope SFPark will deliver as advertised:

The way we manage on-street parking creates shortages and the political response is to create a lot more off-street parking.  It doesn’t fix the on-street problem, but drives up the cost of building, makes housing less affordable, and generates more traffic.  Hopefully SFPark will show San Franciscans that the solution to the problems with on-street parking is not to require more off-street parking but to manage on-street parking better.