In the bleary pre-dawn hours, thousands of Bostonians roll out of bed, shuffle downstairs, and prepare for the day, hoping to beat the morning rush hour. Just as the sky begins to lighten, they are out the door and into their cars, to inch along bumper-to-bumper to the office, the slow torture lasting oftentimes over an hour. The drive back home is rarely any better.
Last week, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation began implementing a new tolling system along the I-90 Turnpike, tearing down manual toll booths and replacing them with electronic tolling. Construction is expected to take about a year, temporarily snarling traffic, but once the new tolls are completed, they will be able to process cars about four times faster than a human being could. Since Bostonians won’t have to slow down to fish some coins out of the glovebox, traffic should flow more smoothly.
Cash will no longer be accepted at the new tolls. Flickr/Nicholas Erwin.
The most pressing traffic problem is not how quickly cars move, however, it is how many cars are on the road. But what can Boston do to get people to quit driving, which would improve commuting, as well as road safety and general quality of life in their city?
Since 2003, drivers entering central London between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays have to pay a congestion charge of £11.50 (around $14). This may seem like extortion, but the payoff has been tremendous: there has been a 30% reduction in congestion, a 14% decrease in travel time, and a 20% increase in bicycling. In the first decade, over £2.6 billion (more than $3.2 billion) was raised from the charge, about half of which has been reinvested in public transit and other sustainability initiatives.
Flickr/mariondo59.
Those that cannot afford the congestion charge or want to avoid paying it have flocked to other types of transportation, such as rideshare, the Underground, and buses. Because of the revenue stream from the charge, these Londoners enjoy increased reliability and speed of the transit network. Additionally, electric cars and plug-in hybrids are exempt under the Green Vehicle Discount, further incentivizing less-polluting alternatives.
Other European cities, like Milan and Stockholm, have introduced successful schemes modeled after London’s. Beijing and São Paulo are aiming to implement similar projects in the near future as well.
In 2014, Boston was ranked the sixth most gridlocked city in the country, coming in behind Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and San Jose. Rush hour traffic, in which the average Boston commuter spends over two-and-a-half days a year, is more than just an inconvenience — it poses serious economic and public health risks. Wasted fuel and lost productivity due to traffic add up to a more than $160 billion drain on the U.S. economy. For the Boston area, this “congestion cost” is nearly $1,400 per commuter each year. Additionally, every thirty minutes of a daily commute increases the chance of obesity by 3%, and every hour triples the possibility of a heart attack.
Traffic is only going to get worse, not better. By 2030, the number of people commuting by car is expected to increase by nearly 5% over 2010 levels, due to projected population growth. The typical response from traffic engineers is to add lanes to existing highways or build entirely new roads. But as any Bostonian knows from the Big Dig, widening and expanding only leads to more demand. The Big Dig, officially known as the Central Artery Tunnel, served 70,000 vehicles per day when it opened in 1959; by the 1990s, that number was in the 200,000s, and today it’s over half a million. In a centuries-old city with little room to spare, this kind of growth is unsustainable.
It’s time to try something new: a congestion charge. It’s worked across the pond, and it can work in our city too. Sign this petition to let Governor Baker and Mayor Walsh know that you support a congestion charge in the greater Boston area, especially since it means you might just get to hit the snooze button.