San Francisco’s on-and-off flirtation with congestion pricing seems to be “on” again.
At a little-watched transit board meeting, San Francisco County Transportation Authority commissioners, who are also the Board of Supervisors, described a field trip to New York City to learn more about the city’s January debut of congestion pricing.
The takeaway? It could work in San Francisco’s downtown, under the right conditions.
SFCTA commission chair and Supervisor Myrna Melgar led the trip to New York City, flanked by SFCTA staff and Supervisors Matt Dorsey and Chyanne Chen.
“The program has been a resounding success,” Melgar said of New York’s congestion pricing.
Dorsey said the trip showed New York has a “proof of concept” that’s working.
While San Francisco is still recovering from the pandemic, Dorsey said, if downtown bounces back and the city builds more housing, traffic congestion may rise as a pressing issue.
“That might very well create a more welcoming and necessary environment for San Francisco to consider congestion pricing,” Dorsey said.
The idea has sputtered into the civic conversation repeatedly over the years, flaring up in 2021 during a transportation authority study of charging cars to enter downtown and Fisherman’s Wharf. The study has since been put on pause.
Any move by city government to make driving or parking more difficult, even to aid transit, often invites political uproar. Transforming the Great Highway into a park has sparked a recall threat against Supervisor Joel Engardio, for instance. Raising parking meter rates, as the city is now considering, has also gotten drivers out of their cars and into City Hall, fuming.
New York experienced that too — President Donald Trump infamously called the program “dead” in a social media post where he also referred to himself as a king.
Far from scuttled, congestion pricing has brought in more than $100 million in New York since its launch in January, helping the city reinvest in transit.
Although the SFCTA paused studying downtown congestion pricing, there’s still ongoing analysis into congestion pricing on Treasure Island and on nearby freeways, Melgar said, making it “very helpful” to learn about New York’s path.
By all measures it’s been successful, Melgar said, with traffic congestion eased, and 60,000 fewer vehicle trips into New York City each day since the launch.
Chen, another supervisor who attended the trip, lauded New York’s “amazing” outreach in nine languages, increased foot traffic to businesses, and the funding generated for local transit by charging drivers. New York transit officials also saved money by placing toll devices on existing traffic infrastructure.
“That’s something I took away [from the trip]: how can we bring it back to San Francisco to improve our cost effectiveness and efficiency?” Chen said.
An entity to administer and collect tolls would need to be established to enact congestion pricing. That could be an existing entity or a new tolling authority, the transportation authority wrote in a study.
Dorsey acknowledged the public pushback that can sometimes follow proposals to charge drivers. But, he said, congestion pricing echoes a new book from Ezra Klein and Drek Thompson called “Abundance,” as part of a movement asking elected Democrats to govern “effectively.” And, he added, the people he spoke to in New York City ultimately are warming up to congestion pricing — even when they were vocal in opposition.
“It was interesting to talk to cab drivers and just to people who are just like, ‘yeah, I was against this, but you know what it’s working,’” Dorsey said.