September 19, 2007
Baby, You Can Charge My Car
That idea of congestion pricing in San Francisco, meaning charging people to drive in certain places around the city, has moved from crazy pipe dream stage to crazy pipe dream planning stage. Recently, the city was awarded $180 million to study the idea and there are already two potential places being mapped out by the people mapping it out. Instead of charging cars to go downtown, the idea would be to take it to the bridge as it were. The first place would be on Doyle Drive, one of the roads that takes you to the Golden Gate Bridge . In fact, one of the conditions of all this money is that the city would just have to do such a thing. Another spot being considered is right outside of Treasure Island. They're thinking up the idea of maybe charging $1 or $2 a car and it could work by having people use the FastTrak system, or at least we hope so as being from the East Coast, having to stop constantly for tolls gets kind of tedious. Also a bad place to be if you've just started a mob war against the Tattaglia and Sollozzo families.
The reason for the idea of congestion pricing is two-fold. The first is a way to hopefully stop congestion by giving people one more reason to say screw driving and take public transportation. This has become an even bigger issue in light of recent studies saying we're the #2 area for bad traffic, although we're currently ranked #3 on the AP poll. Another reason is to raise money to help with the expected crunch of new riders of public transportation. It's currently being used in all those un-American socialist countries in Europe, you know, the one's with state-run health care and generous benefits, and is now an idea being bandied about by other cities, including New York and D.C.
Another $1 million has been given to the city to look into the idea of driving fees on any major road in the city.
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The day SamTrans, Muni and Bart are fully funded, mostly-corruption-free, and deliver a ride that takes less than triple the time it takes to drive the same distance, I could support this idea.
Well Katy - you've found quite the catch-22 haven't you.
If we charged people more to drive, less people would drive and we'd have less traffic and double parkers delaying public transit, and we could spend the money to fix transit problems.
Except nobody will take transit because it's underfunded and takes too long because the busses get stuck in traffic and behind double parkers.
Congestion pricing has not proven to be effective at reducing congestion. People just drive and pay the fee. This is just a new tax. If it happens, the money should be used to substantially improve public transportation, and nothing else.
Additionally, how can they test it on just one street? Won't people just take other routes?
Even if it doesn't reduce congestion - because people just drive and pay the fee - it's a great idea. People that use the roads, pay for the roads.
Certainly this is a regressive scheme as those with more money are penalized less - but that's pretty much true about everything, groceries, housing, clothing, etc... and arguments that someone "needs to drive" - they don't need to drive, they just need to get from point A to point B. They don't need to eat Heirloom Tomatoes and Caviar, they need to eat. They don't need to live in One Rincon, they need to have a place to live.
Last night someone told me "I have to drive as I have to go to sales calls for work". I just said "Sounds like you need a new job".
Why the patronizing snark, Murph? Is my assertion that public transit needs to shine up some in order to be more attractive than an $2 charge so out of this world?
Katy, I would guess that you would pay $2 to avoid transit, instead of paying $2 to take transit.
Good. That means you can help improve transit for the rest of us.
Well, aj, since I take BART and SamTrans for my daily commute, your comment isn't really accurate. I want transit improved for myself and you to, but I don't see the logic of asserting congestion pricing is a part of the answer as it does not change people's behavior. Tell me, do you support congestion pricing? What's your reasoning?
So let's say somebody lives way out in the 'burbs. Maybe s/he moved there because she and her husband/wife have a kid and decided to leave the city because, well, the one-bedroom apartment wasn't workin' out for all three of them and it didn't make financial sense for them to rent a 2 bedroom, what with it costing about as much as a decent used car each month.
And let's say that s/he has an option to take public transit each day, but it costs ~$10/day and takes her/him 30 minutes extra each way. And maybe we should assume s/he pays a bridge toll of $4 when s/he drives...maybe s/he doesn't pay a toll at all, but let's just say s/he does.
Would YOU part with an extra $6 each day to be minus an hour of your time?
I'm not pro-car, by any means (I ride Muni for better or worse), but saying that somebody doesn't need to drive is not always true.
baldguy - in what planet did gasoline, car maintainance, depreciation, and insurance become free. Pretty much anywhere that is a $5 BART ride is a gallon of gas away from downtown, more than your $6 differential. I'll even grant that in order to not pay insurance you need to actually get rid of your car - though you pay more for insurance with such a commute unless you are lying to your insurance company.
And no matter what sort of multi-tasker you are in your car, you can make more use of time on BART, GG Transit, Caltrain, etc... than you can behind the wheel of your car.
In general people really underestimate the cost of car ownership. Generally speaking, you could probably pay an extra $500-$1000 a month on rent if you didn't have a car, once you add in the normalized cost of purchase, insurance, maintainance, parking, tickets, etc... And in a place like San Francisco, you get a excellent standard of living adjustment per dollar of rent if you rent a place without parking.
I know from what I speak - I sold my car, my wallet got fat. And no, I don't simply freeload off my friends with cars. And no, I'm not always late to meet them because I am relying on transit - I'm typically on time because I plan - whereas they wait until the last minute, show up late, and blame traffic and not being able to find a parking spot. Assholes.
This kind of crap goes over great with the supes because, well, mostly it'll hurt commuters from outside the city. And guess what? They can't vote SF supervisors out of office.
The implementation studies, fat-cat contracts, bureaucracy, corruption, overtime, "improved" implementation studies, more bureaucracy, etc. will cost more than this thing will ever bring in.
If you spent $1000/mo on your car, you're doing something terribly terribly wrong... or driving to Fresno and back for your daily commute.
**Sloppiest SFist Reporting of the Day Award**
The $180 MILLION dollars wasn't "awarded $180 million to study the idea".. (that'd be one HUGE study). It got the money ($158 million, per the SFGate article you linked) to help relieve congestion.. a big part of which will be re-building Doyle Drive with more lanes/shoulders, etc. A condition of getting this federal money was the city has to kick in a bunch too-- and they will study congestion and look for ways to have drivers pay tolls-- particularly on Doyle Dr. Big difference.
guest 11 -
The average new car costs 28,000. Say it's financed at 2 percent, a 5 year loan. 7.25% sales tax included. That's $525/month right there.
Insurance on said new car. $100/month
Gas - assuming a commuter, 1000 miles/month, let's be generous and say 35 gallons/month. $100/month - roughly
Registration. $50/month.
Parking - let's assume you either live in SF, or drive to SF for work. If you have a spot, $100 a month at least. If you pay to park here - even more. If you live here and don't pay for parking, you're probably hitting 2 tickets a month. I'm calling this $100/month - on average. Even if you "own" parking, you pay for it in your mortgage.
That's 875 a month, and we haven't changed our oil, bought new tires, windshield wipers, fixed any fender benders, paid a speeding ticket, replaced a windshield that was broken into, paid a toll. New floormats. A pine scented air freshener and a bumper sticker.
Of course, after 5 years you aren't making payments anymore. You're replacing transmissions. And paying lawyers for your DUI. Going to traffic school. Replacing it when it gets stolen and you dumped your comprehensive.
Some buy used. Some don't commute so far. Some are vigilant and never get parking tickets. etc... On average - cars cost a lot more than you think.
It seems very odd to me that they'd be charging this based on bridges. Wouldn't the net effect be that they're just raising the bridge tolls rather than actually instituting any sort of congestion charge?
Likewise, what happens for those people who are going in the opposite direction? My girlfriend works over in Oakland and often needs to travel around the East Bay for work. Since her commute is reversed is she really fairly penalized for driving through the zone when she's going in the opposite direction of the people coming into the city and causing further congestion?
Finally, the biggest problem for me is that the way the roads are structured in this city often means that you end up routed around well away from where you want to be. I had a job interview down in South Beach the other day and missed the single turn that I could have made that would actually get me back to the 280, instead I found myself herded North along third street with no other options, shunted up past Market and through Union Square before I was finally allowed to actually get back on Market, now thoroughly out of my way. Because I missed one turn a 15 minute trip on the freeway turned into a 30 minute plus excursion through downtown. The city operates very strongly against the idea of using your car to, y'know, go where you want and instead often insists on herding you to wherever the city planners want to send you apparently to make roads more efficient for theoretical people who never actually want to turn off anywhere. On the occasions when you actually want to go straight you usually end up shoved over into a turn-only lane and unable to get out once the signs show up because of traffic blocking you in.
Katy, re your question, I *do* support congestion pricing. Time is money. It saves time for drivers, and reduces congestion for non drivers.
The bottom line on all of this has not been brought up- there are just too many people. Not only here, but all over the world.
At some point, the total population will be unsustainable and mother earth will take self-healing action. As they say on Wall street, either a "minor correction" is on the way, or at worst a collapse.
People can't keep having unregulated numbers of babies. We can't keep cutting down jungles and forests to create farmland to grow hamburgers. Oil will dry up, as will drinkable water. For example, India is screwed, as most of their water comes from snow in the mountains in the north and that source is starting to disappear.
So all that said, I'm absolutely for congestion drive pricing. More importantly, I'm for congestion spay and neutering.
why can't they just use that 181 million for making road improvements and whatnot to reduce congestion.
Rather than using 181 million to think about it...
...or put that money into fixing public transportation so that it could get you where you're supposed to be on time?