Congestion Pricing in D.C.?

November 6, 2010 9:57 PM

I'm writing a paper for congestion pricing and need resources that argue FOR (and how) congestion pricing can work in Washington D.C.

For my proposal paper, I chose congestion pricing in D.C. mostly because I had been interested in the topic and wanted to use this opportunity to learn more about it.

Now that I've started researching it, I'm becoming more and more intimidated by my own proposal (and it's too late to change). My professor expects me to create a map of the area that I want to propose congestion pricing for, however, as I read more DC commuter stories, I am discovering that the traffic within the city itself isn't that bad--it's the traffic emerging out from the suburbs. Great.

I'm not sure how to handle this new information and would appreciate some resources that explore congestion pricing specifically in D.C. (I have read the case study for why it failed to pass in NYC).

I live fairly close to D.C. so I could always jump on the metro if there is some sort of resource _in_ DC you think I could use.

Thanks!

posted by bluelight to Travel & Transportation (10 answers total)

Well, a good place to start would be TRIS, the main database for transportation research. "Congestion pricing" is the term used by the database. Though many of the articles and papers will not be specific to DC, but there are quite a few comparisons.
Have you been able to look at the archived traffic data? I'm pretty sure the CATT Lab has sets you can look at for that area.
posted by kendrak at 10:40 PM on November 6, 2010

Elena Safirova and colleagues, of Resources for the Future, have done work on this.

Nelson, P., Gillingham, K., Safirova, E., 2003. “Revving up the Tax Engine: Gas Taxes and the DC Metro Area’s Transportation Dilemma,” RFF Issue Brief 03-05.

Safirova, E., Gillingham, K., Harrington, W., Nelson, P. 2003. “Are HOT Lanes a Hot Deal? The Potential Consequences of Converting HOV to HOT Lanes in Northern Virginia,” RFF Issue Brief 03-03.

Safirova, E., Harrington, W., Nelson, P., Parry, I.W. Gillingham, K., Mason, D. “2003 Welfare and Distributional Effects of Road Pricing Schemes for Metropolitan Washington, DC,” in Santos, G., ed., Road Pricing: Theory and Evidence, Elsevier Science.

citations for more of her papers
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:43 PM on November 6, 2010

press release summarizing some of Safirova et al's work on congestion pricing in DC - here's the full paper, Long Term Consequences of Congestion Pricing (a case study modeling congestion pricing in DC)
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:11 PM on November 6, 2010

Screwed up the link - here's the PDF of the full paper Long-Term Consequences of Congestion Pricing
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:12 PM on November 6, 2010

I can't point you to a specific article, but you'll find some good resources at the University of Minnesota's Congestion Pricing Listserv. It served me well when I was researching congestion pricing. You'll have to figure out how to search the archives to tease out what you want.
posted by reeddavid at 11:29 PM on November 6, 2010

David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington has blogged about congestion pricing. He linked to a 2008 FHA report:

Examining the Speed-Flow-Delay Paradox in the Washington, DC Region: Potential Impacts of Reduced Traffic on Congestion Delay and Potential for Reductions in Discretionary Travel during Peak Periods
[PDF]
posted by djb at 6:51 AM on November 7, 2010

Search Ryan Avent's blog for "congestion." He's an economist based in DC and has written a lot about DC congestion pricing (on the pro side) on his own blog and in other online forums.
posted by oneaday at 7:28 AM on November 7, 2010

You might also want to look at the London experience where it does seem to have worked reasonably well (although London is about 10x bigger). Stockholm, which is a more comparable size to DC does it too.
posted by rhymer at 7:51 AM on November 7, 2010

You should also look at the unique political landscape of DC and various attempts to create commuter taxes. The difficulty of congestion pricing in DC is going to be that congress ultimately sets all the rules in DC. DC lacks a voting representative in the house or senate. So in order to impose the scheme one would need to convince the Senators and Reps in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs to support the scheme. There is also a significant demographic trend where people are returning ot the inner suburbs and DC proper resulting in a shift in over all commuting patterns, you might want to reach out to the DC statehood folks and the Greater Washington Board of Trade and the Waahington Metropolitan Area transport authrotity to get more detailed information.
posted by humanfont at 7:58 AM on November 7, 2010

You might also spend some time at 14th & H Sts NW during the evening rush. No shortage of bad traffic.....
posted by jindc at 12:36 PM on November 7, 2010