A Better Way to Get New York’s Traffic Moving

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/opinion/primus_nyc-traffic-congestion-parking.html

Version 0 of 1.

Traffic is strangling New York’s economic vitality and quality of life, while the city’s transit system creaks because of chronic underinvestment. One solution, congestion pricing, would undoubtedly reduce traffic and generate desperately needed revenue for transit. But this has proved politically difficult in New York, both when attempted in 2007 and again this year. Congestion pricing asks people to pay to drive on roads they used to drive on without charge, so the politics won’t get easier anytime soon.

There is a good alternative. New York could use a parking-based approach to achieve much of the same congestion management and revenue goals. This has three elements.

First, the city would prohibit garage operators from selling parking by the month. Monthly parking is like an all-you-can-eat buffet — if the parking next to your office is already paid for, why not drive to work every day? Whether someone takes a car to work really matters because such trips are usually at peak times when alternatives are most viable — that’s when trains and buses run most frequently and it’s easiest to car pool.

Requiring parking to be sold by the hour is like moving from all-you-can-eat to à la carte. Even if the hourly cost is the same as what’s implied in a monthly rate ($400 a month is equivalent to about $2.50 per hour if you park 40 hours a week), simply ensuring that people pay for parking every time they drive in will change how they decide to make some trips and, as a result, reduce congestion. Garage operators could still charge whatever they like, but would be required to price parking in a way that will reduce traffic.

Second, New York could increase and expand its parking tax, which is now at 18.375 percent in Manhattan and 10.375 percent in the other boroughs. New York could increase this to 35 percent, expand it to all boroughs, and dedicate the revenue to funding transit operations. A higher parking tax is not uncommon. San Francisco charges a citywide 25 percent parking tax that is dedicated to supporting transit. Chicago charges 22 percent for weekday parking, Philadelphia 22.5 percent and Pittsburgh 37.5 percent. The tax is mostly invisible to drivers: with a 35 percent parking tax, a $27 charge to park for two hours means $7 was added to $20 for parking.

This is a straightforward, efficient and sensible way to gently discourage driving while helping to finance public transit improvements. As those with higher incomes are more likely to drive into the city, making parking cost a little more to subsidize public transit will improve equity.

Third, New York could require all garage and lot operators to offer an off-peak discount, as is already done in San Francisco’s municipal garages. People who park for at least four hours would receive, say, a $4 discount for arriving before streets are congested as well as a $4 discount for leaving after traffic subsides, for a total discount of up to $8. That is a powerful incentive for people to drive when there’s less traffic. Every year, city transportation managers would review and adjust the time thresholds (say, 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.), minimum length of stay and discount level to ensure consistency, a level playing field for parking operators and sufficient incentive for drivers.

The magic of this approach is that it is tantamount to a peak period surcharge but framed as an off-peak discount — no one (other than economists) likes peak period surcharges, but everyone loves a discount. The effect is the same but the political viability is crucially different.

This is also more politically feasible than congestion pricing because it affects parking, something people are already accustomed to paying for, and requires only local rather than state approval. It also avoids the technical complexity, cost (hundreds of millions of dollars to install, maintain and operate) and privacy concerns raised by the hundreds of surveillance cameras congestion pricing would require.

Ideally, New York would complement this with policies to further reduce congestion and, when people choose to drive, make it easier to find parking. These include: smarter pricing at parking meters (like time-of-day demand-responsive pricing, as in San Francisco and elsewhere); facilitating the loading of goods and people at the curb to reduce double-parking; forbidding businesses to offer parking validation so that everyone has to pay; reworking how New York manages street parking in residential areas; requiring large employers to offer transportation subsidies instead of subsidized parking; and looking at ways to have parking pricing apply to not just publicly available parking but also private spaces (say, the downtown law office that leases spaces for its partners).

This parking-based plan for congestion management does not preclude other ideas, including some that have already been considered in New York — a fee for commercial vehicles and trucks entering Manhattan at peak times, a surcharge on trips in for-hire vehicles (like yellow taxis and Uber cars) and traditional congestion pricing.

No city has pursued a parking-based congestion management plan before. New York could show the world how sound parking policy, rather than heavy investments in technology, can help address the urgent and universal issue of congestion. Cities are looking for ways to be smart — and this no-tech, no-cost, data-free and politically feasible approach to congestion management could be the smart way forward.

Jay Primus, a former manager of SFpark, a parking-based approach to handling traffic, for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, is a consultant.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion).