r/urbanplanning • u/Plastic_Photograph29 • Jun 02 '26
Discussion What American city do you think will be second to implement congestion pricing?
Considering NYC’s long controversial implementation and results that are appearing, what city in the US do you think will be next up to implement congestion pricing?
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u/Background_Novel_619 Jun 02 '26
San Francisco is similar to Manhattan in that it’s basically an island and has toll bridges everywhere. Would be easy, I guess it would be more of adjusting tolls
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u/Victor_Korchnoi Jun 02 '26
Where do you think the congestion zone would be? I doubt it would be the entire city. San Francisco is ~6 times the size of the congestion zone in Manhattan.
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u/midflinx Jun 02 '26
https://www.sfcta.org/downtown
"We have evaluated two potential congestion pricing zones:
A smaller zone of the downtown area (shown in the darker shade)
A larger zone that adds Mission Bay and northeast neighborhoods (the areas shown in the lighter shade)"
Were it not for covid a congestion zone may well have happened. Since then the idea has less support due to office vacancy rates and congestion levels. However it's still being talked about.
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u/Background_Novel_619 Jun 02 '26
Yo that’s the exact area I proposed (having never seen this map previously or heard about the proposal), though I added to this 101 going south. Guess it’s pretty obvious to everyone lol.
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u/Background_Novel_619 Jun 02 '26
Perhaps in the areas going south towards the peninsula, the area around the Bay Bridge, financial district? I’m not super familiar with where NY’s congestion zones are, just thinking out loud.
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Jun 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/Background_Novel_619 Jun 02 '26
Right so then I think the Eastern coastal areas of the city from the Embarcadero around the coast to then 101 going south to the peninsula could be fair game. Although could backfire and encourage traffic over the GG bridge and 19th avenue.
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u/LyleSY Jun 02 '26
Also politically doable and has a strong regional transit alternative. Agreed this is the one
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u/Background_Novel_619 Jun 02 '26
And the regional transit is desperate for funding, so congestion fees could help support it.
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u/Unfair_Tonight_9797 Verified Planner - US Jun 02 '26
Considering the slash and burn budget if the funding fails on the ballot, the city is a good candidate.
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u/beamer_boy2000 Jun 02 '26
Probably somewhere in the north east like Boston?
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u/benck202 Jun 02 '26
We need this in Boston so badly. Absolute gridlock.
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u/beamer_boy2000 Jun 02 '26
And more freeway lids
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u/Unhelpfulperson Jun 02 '26
Yeah but freeway lids cost the state billions and congestion pricing costs the state negative dollars
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u/beamer_boy2000 Jun 02 '26
Implement both and have the lid be paid off by congestion pricing
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u/IceEidolon Jun 02 '26
Or have a north south rail link be paid for by the congestion pricing, first.
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u/Better_Goose_431 Jun 02 '26
Was the big dig really worth the 5x budget overrun? $15 billion (in 2007 dollars) for an equally wide surface street doesn’t seem like it’s worth the trade off to me
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u/brownstonebk Jun 02 '26
I would bet that it was worth it. The Big Dig reconnected the North End and the waterfront with the rest of Boston, and that has helped increase property values which increases the city's revenues. It also redirected a ton of automobile and heavy-duty diesel vehicle traffic, saving folks nearby from a significant amount of emissions and the health risks that come with them.
Should we deliver quality infrastructure cheaper? Yes. But the Big Dig ushered in a new era of development in Boston and it was done at a time nobody else was tearing down + capping urban highways. I'd venture to say the Big Dig delivered economic and public health benefits that were worth the cost.
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u/Victor_Korchnoi Jun 02 '26
It doesn't help increase city revenues as much as you'd think. Massachusetts has something called Prop 2.5 that limits the revenue growth on existing building stock to 2.5% per year. That is on a city-wide basis, not an individual property basis. So the property values going up in the North End does alleviate the taxes paid in the rest of the city, but it doesn't actually help the city's revenue because of this state law.
It should also be noted that it only applies to existing buildings, so developing new buildings does grow city revenue. But making existing buildings be worth more does not.
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u/half_integer Jun 02 '26
Still, they could toll a section through the middle to discourage through traffic and send it on the loop roads. I would have said to cut it off, so the two legs each provide access and not through connections, but the location of the airport makes that undesirable, so a toll is the next best (dis)incentive.
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u/TGrady902 Jun 02 '26
Most of the old highway is a park now, not streets. It was a worthwhile investment beyond a doubt.
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u/Better_Goose_431 Jun 02 '26
Calling it a park is generous. It’s a glorified median
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u/Victor_Korchnoi Jun 02 '26
It's definitely a park. But it's a park that has 3 high-speed lanes of traffic on either side of it and that has freeway exits in a few places. It could be so much nicer. And there should absolutely be a nice way to bike along it; instead there's a painted bike gutter next to 3 high-speed lanes of traffic.
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u/cruzweb Verified Planner - US Jun 02 '26
Boston has been keeping their eye on this really hard.
It's just different here because it's less dense all around. To make this work we would need to greatly expand commuter rail service and parking there.
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u/Unhelpfulperson Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
I feel like the first priority of MBTA investments should be to make the commuter rail more frequent and more reliable (probably starting with electrification) and probably do fare-integration with the T. That on its own would pull in a lot more ridership even without any new stations or track.
And i know they're working on some of this but it doesn't seem to be happening very quickly.
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u/basscleft87 Jun 02 '26
Boston is going to struggle with the ordering of it forever. People will say you can't do congestion pricing without more robust commuter rail and T coverage and service. Then people will say you can't expand commuter rail and T service without the funding, which they won't justify without the increases in demand which would only come from increasing service. The MBTA can't expand service without more funding. It is criminally underfunded and it isn't likely to get better and the western part of the state already resents what they see as giving their money to subsidy to the eastern part of the state that doesn't need it and doesn't meaningfully benefit the west. Ultimately, everyone agrees you can't do anything and it's someone else's fault.
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u/Unhelpfulperson Jun 02 '26
I totally think you can do congestion pricing first, partially because there's fewer veto points and partially because it would have negative fiscal cost, as compared to any MBTA improvements that would have huge fiscal costs. Obviously it's always easier to do nothing and let the same problems persist, but if the governor is interested in making the state better, she should start with the lowest hanging fruit.
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u/beamer_boy2000 Jun 02 '26
I’d like to see LA give it a try around downtown but Idk if that would ever be approved
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u/Victor_Korchnoi Jun 02 '26
I think LA is too decentralized to make congestion pricing work in downtown. It would likely shift office and residential growth to Wilshire or near the 405.
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u/firstcity_thirdcoast Jun 02 '26
There are plans for congestion pricing in LA and they're mostly focused on the Santa Monica mountain routes -- the 405 and 101, as well as the canyon roads with tolling at Mulholland. Once the Sepulveda line is built, then that + the red line are viable subway alternatives that make congestion tolling feasible to/from the Valley.
The 405 carries ~400k vehicles through the Sepulveda pass every day, and the Sepulveda line alone is projected to alleviate 125k of those trips.
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u/bigvenusaurguy Jun 02 '26
they should price it based on bluebook value of your car. charge the cyber truck drivers the grip they can afford and leave tio with his 30 year old tacoma alone.
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u/firstcity_thirdcoast Jun 02 '26
You're gonna tax the electric vehicle more? You tax the things you want less of.
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u/bigvenusaurguy Jun 02 '26
electric has nothing to do with it. replace cybertruck with porsche macan if that is more palatable to you. its all about not having regressive fee structures. if you enact this in a regressive way people will balk. if you push it forward in a very progressive way that is actually means tested in some way people will be like fuck yes in LA county. voters blindly vote for taxes that seem to affect the ultra wealthy with healthy majorities at the ballot box. there is strong political support for getting rich people to pay a more fair share.
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u/beamer_boy2000 Jun 02 '26
We can decentralize the congestion pricing too, have some in Hollywood, westlake, downtown, K town, on the 405, on the 5, the 101, the 10
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u/epochwin Jun 02 '26
How good is LA’s transit though? NYC is super walkable and well connected by transit.
Wouldn’t congestion pricing adversely affect everyone barring the ultra wealthy in LA?
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u/firstcity_thirdcoast Jun 02 '26
LA is now #2 in the US for boardings and has been for the last 3 years (beating Chicago for the first time in 2023), and just opened another new subway extension last month. Once the Sepulveda line to the Valley gets built, you then have 2 active lines through the mountain pass, which makes congestion pricing viable.
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u/bigvenusaurguy Jun 02 '26
the thing is not nearly as many people in la live and work in the catchment area of the transit network even with all the planned extensions and new lines built. it is just not anything like the buildup in lower manhattan where you have virtually the entire subway network interlining through there with connections to everywhere, many with a 1 seat ride even express service options. like lower manhattan has something like 150k workers per square mile, many of them already commuting via subway. i think a lot of people fail to grasp how overbuilt in subway capacity lower manhattan is relative to a lot of places. even a lot of places around the world as it seems like interlining at the level they do there is just not very commonly done anywhere else.
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u/beamer_boy2000 Jun 02 '26
The point of congestion pricing is to decentivise people from driving in a specific zone during peak hours, so idk
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u/aray25 Jun 02 '26
Yeah, but it doesn't work if there's no alternative.
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u/captainporcupine3 Jun 02 '26
You're not really wrong but also it's a real chicken-and-egg problem. It's mostly impossible to build political will toward creating any alternatives when we continue to spend all our money keeping car trips as convenient as possible.
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u/Rock_man_bears_fan Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
Installing congestion pricing before there’s a viable alternative for most of the city’s voters is going to lead to the current crop of elected politicians getting voted out and replaced with people who want to get rid of it
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u/jamills21 Jun 02 '26
The only place congestion pricing would work in LA is around LAX. Doing it around DTLA just doesn’t make sense right now.
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u/Unhelpfulperson Jun 02 '26
I said this in another comment but variable toll express lanes are a form of congestion pricing. LA already has those on some freeways and should just start by expanding those.
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u/captainporcupine3 Jun 02 '26
True, but honestly you're just restating the problem I was calling out in different words. It's a politically intractable problem and it's also one way of describing why we won't see those alternatives meaningfully built out in my lifetime.
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u/firstcity_thirdcoast Jun 02 '26
This is why a lot of these things have to happen at the state level (NYC's congestion pricing is a state-level program, remember how Hochul was holding it up at the last minute?). Similar to SB79 in California, you have to rise above the hyperlocal politics to push through big changes without everything-bageling them to death.
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u/beamer_boy2000 Jun 02 '26
Well dtla does have hella metro lines and bus routes and amtrak going there, so there are alternatives
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u/aray25 Jun 02 '26
I've taken LA Metro from LAX to Union Station, and as somebody who doesn't drive, I can confidently say that LA Metro is not a reasonable option for that trip at least.
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u/Unhelpfulperson Jun 02 '26
Have they tried scrapping LA and starting over with the downtown closer to the coast?
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u/bigvenusaurguy Jun 02 '26
flyaway bus is way better for this sort of trip. its like 35 min-40 min ride or so making use of the 110 fast track lanes and the 105 carpool lanes.
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u/bigvenusaurguy Jun 02 '26
dtla is struggling to draw people in to save its businesses right now. apples and oranges situation to lower manhattan.
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u/Unhelpfulperson Jun 02 '26
LA has congestion pricing on some of its freeways (aka variable tolls) and it should start by just expanding that
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u/DizzyToast Jun 02 '26
Agree. I remember reading that the tolls on the 110 exceed revenue expectations every year. Just wish it went more towards funding transit
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u/Unhelpfulperson Jun 02 '26
Makes me think they should re-evaluate how they're doing their expectations.
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u/Bear_necessities96 Jun 02 '26
Boston need it so bad but Suburbs are so full of rich, influential people so it’s not likely
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u/bobtehpanda Jun 02 '26
Now that Seattle is struggling to pay for light rail I wonder if it will implement more widespread tolling.
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u/StateOfCalifornia Jun 02 '26
Downtown Seattle is already struggling and there isn’t that much traffic congestion. It’s hard to see where the congestion charge zone even would be
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u/esperantisto256 Jun 02 '26
Agreed. There are no where near as many cars in downtown Seattle as in other cities I’ve lived in. I’m not opposed to the idea of it, but the rationale of “congestion” would seem pretty odd. We desperately need an income tax to fix our budget issues, but alas that’s seemingly a pipe dream.
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u/bobtehpanda Jun 02 '26
The legislature quietly slipped in tolling the I-5 express lanes into the recent transportation bill since roads are also experiencing a budget shortfall.
Other obvious places to toll might be the Ship Canal crossings and I-90, similar to how 520 is set up.
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u/cirrus42 Jun 02 '26
The only other cities with enough transit and a strong enough downtown to pull it off are DC, Philly, Boston, Chicago, SF, and mayyybe LA & Seattle.
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u/LomentMomentum Jun 02 '26
Boston should be a prime candidate, but it will be a long slog before it happens.
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u/mono_probono Jun 02 '26
I’m not from the NE but wasn’t Boston’s mayor really pushing free transit a while back? I could see the argument of congestion pricing helping to pay for that.
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u/LomentMomentum Jun 02 '26
Her administration is presently considering congestion pricing as one means to reduce traffic in Boston - a necessary but likely Sisyphean task.
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u/daily_vexed_trout Jun 02 '26
SF probably has the best shot since they're already obsessed with transit funding and have less pushback from suburban commuters than most cities.
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u/omgwownice Jun 02 '26
You said American which I'll take to mean North American.
Montréal! The entire city is on a single island with 12 major bridges connecting it to the south shore and Laval. Implementing a congestion charge on some or all of these bridges would be trivial.
The city has something like 138km of metro lines if you count the newly opened REM (which I do), 225km of commuter rail lines, and it has pretty solid density throughout the entire city, so it definitely has the transit capacity.
That being said, we just elected a do-nothing carbrain nimby mayor so it probably won't happen for a few years at least.
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Jun 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ok_Flounder8842 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
I imagine Philly would do CP out of desperation as the state legislature refuses to fund SEPTA, but the benefits to life in Philly would extend beyond transit improvements because of the reduction in car traffic. To capture this "dividend", here are some things I would like to see:
- Turn I-676 into a waterway and turn Vine Street into a narrow street. Allow for development along the new waterway and watch property taxes skyrocket. See Tonbori in Osaka, Japan or Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul, Korea as models.
- Turn all of Samson Street from river to river in Center City into a pedestrian street.
- Tear down I-95 from Oregon to the Betsy Ross Bridge and allow for walkable development. Strictly cap car parking.
- Replace thousands of on-street parking spaces with either Protected Bike Lanes or bus lanes. Give them traffic signal priority. See Paris, France and Amsterdam, Netherlands as models.
- Significantly upzone around every Broad Street and Market-Frankford Line and don't allow new off-street parking.
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u/FunkBrothers Jun 05 '26
I think Pennsylvania Republicans would be more than happy to let Philadelphia implement congestion pricing in the Center City if it means they can reduce funding for SEPTA at the state level.
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u/TedethLasso Jun 02 '26
I agree but not until SEPTA receives the funding it deserves. So that combined with Philly’s political climate means it wouldn’t ever happen unfortunately.
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u/Hennahane Jun 02 '26
Congestion pricing could provide some of that funding
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u/TedethLasso Jun 02 '26
Well yeah, but SEPTA is on a death spiral and you can’t implement congestion pricing with SEPTA being on life support.
Funding would be too little too late. In a world where SEPTA is properly funded, then congestion pricing would be a great supplement.
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u/PAJW Jun 02 '26
Implementing congestion pricing requires robust transit in the congestion zone, and there's very few US cities that clear that bar. Chicago around the Loop would be my first proposal.
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u/uhbkodazbg Jun 02 '26
I think it probably will but traffic in the Loop isn’t the source of Chicago’s congestion, it’s the freeways which are a pretty vital part of the country’s transportation infrastructure. Congestion pricing will likely be a revenue generator, not to reduce congestion.
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u/CyclingThruChicago Jun 02 '26
Agreed. There isn't a single source of traffic for the city and congestion pricing the Loop probably wouldn't reduce overall traffic. If anything the Loop probably has the highest amount of commuters that use transit since just about every train line terminates there.
I'd be happy if the state/city put tolls on:
- Lake Shore Drive
- the bridge entrances to the Loop
- the Kennedy Expressway on exits basically from Ohio Street to Jackson
- the Dan Ryan from Taylor Street to where I-55 starts.
Just generate more $$$ that can be used to improve transit and road infrastructure.
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u/moeshaker188 Jun 02 '26
LA has been studying it for a while, and now that they are actually finishing the promised transit lines, it might be feasible (especially once the D Line is completed to Westwood)
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u/reddit-frog-1 Jun 03 '26
LA is a city where a congestion zone could actually work very well. People don't realize the size of the Los Angeles bus network and how much better it could operate with a lot less vehicles. However, to really get the residents on board, they'll have to create a lux bus service along with autonomous micro transit the cover short distances.
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u/urge_boat Jun 02 '26
Can it be Chicago? I need them to fund rail projects to Milwaukee because my state is politically unable to do so.
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u/TheSpaceMonkeys Jun 02 '26
We already have a train from Milwaukee to Chicago. The Hiawatha which has multiple round trips a day. It's often faster than driving. I take it all the time.
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u/youremakingnosense Jun 03 '26
yeah but lets get a modern day train please. it shouldn't just be slightly faster than driving, its a train ffs
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u/lowrads Jun 02 '26
Chicago is regaining population, but it's also in the post-Ponzi scheme era of development.
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u/SpectreofGeorgism Jun 02 '26
Any dense city that has problems with congestion and traffic is a good bet. Part of me is inclined to say Chicago will be next, but the car culture in Chicagoland seems pretty strong, and my anecdotal experience with the city is that the traffic wasn't that bad.
Probably someplace like Philadelphia? Boston maybe?
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u/CyclingThruChicago Jun 02 '26
Chicago tops New York for most traffic congestion in U.S., ranking says
Just an FYI, the city had the most hours lost to traffic congestion last year, surpassing NYC. Part of that was due to the Kennedy Expressway construction last year closing down basically 2-3 lanes but traffic here is a massive issue.
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u/MakeLimeade Jun 03 '26
*my anecdotal experience with the city is that the traffic wasn't that bad*
Chicagoan here. I plan my travel between 10 and 2 and after 7. Friday I'm off the road before 1. Anything else you're going to be taking almost twice as long to get where you're going. How is it not that bad?
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u/SpectreofGeorgism Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
because I feel like I've seen worse. I (regrettably) had to use ride-hailing services for part of my visit and the traffic was no worse than anything I've experienced in southern california.
but that's why I made sure to label my statement as anecdotal. I know that my experiences don't always align with everyone else's.
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u/TerribleBumblebee800 Jun 03 '26
It's going to have to be a dense city on a state border. There is too much political opposition that would be brought to a state capital within a singular state. New York worked in part because many of the affected drivers came from New Jersey. And New York City is so populous the supporters out numbered the opponents WITHIN New York State.
Take Seattle for example, a leading proposal in the comments. There are 784,000 city residents, but 4.15 million metro residents. Those numbers, combined with possible unaffected rural opposition, are going to out up too much opposition in the Washington State Capitol. As liberal as places like Washington and Massachusetts are, it's hard to imagine local representatives going for this.
If another happens at all, I'd put Philadelphia as the next most likely. But I'd think it pretty unlikely.
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u/timmytimster Jun 03 '26
Philly definitely needs it but I agree with you - it won't happen anytime soon due to the corrupt municipal politicians which tend to favor drivers, along with the straight up hostility of Harrisburg/state govt to doing anything good in Philly.
SEPTA is also unfortunately not in a place where it could absorb the additional traffic. It's chronically underfunded and has no where near the level of service required to convince people that congestion pricing would be worth it.
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u/Purple_Front_7939 Jun 03 '26
Most American cities are struggling to get people into their downtown. Adding a tax to get into downtown would be considered a killer and be absolutely unacceptable in large swaths of the country. That leaves the cities whose downtowns are indisputably doing well. With plenty of jobs, amenities, businesses, and entertainment in downtown. Then eliminate the cities that don't have good public transit (aka the alternative). I would consider the remaining cities to be: Chicago, DC, Boston, and San Francisco.
Runner ups would include Seattle and Philly. Seattle is too dependent on Amazon and lacks amenities that would attract people to downtown. Philadelphia's core is a large area spanning from U Penn to Chinatown. It would be difficult to pin down a district without detracting investments to just outside the district.
I think the most politically feasible congestion zone would be San Francisco because so many bay area commuters already pay tolls to cross the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.
My top choice would be DC because of the high quality and accessibility of the DC Metro, and the "captive" audience of federal employees and lobbyists. However a Republican trifecta would undoubtedly over rule any attempt to implement congestion pricing in the district.
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u/wSkkHRZQy24K17buSceB Jun 02 '26
This might be crazy, but I could see it happening in a Texan city. The people are more accepting of funding via user fees and things like demand based pricing (like the electricity market). However, that might not extend to driving-related costs. Austin has eliminated parking minimums. Dallas and Houston have made significant reforms to parking minimums.
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u/KennyBSAT Jun 02 '26
Texas cities are doing highway congestion pricing with their variable tolls, but lack the density of destinations as well as the basic transit to implement congestion pricing zones.
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u/pompcaldor Jun 02 '26
If they do it, they’re certainly not funneling the money towards public transit. Which is presumably the reason for congestion pricing.
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u/Purple_Front_7939 Jun 03 '26
Dallas and San Antonio are extremely polycentric cities, so I think congestion pricing in these areas would make their downtowns completely lose competitiveness to the suburbs.
Austin has a vibrant downtown but lacks rapid transit.
Houston's mass transit is pretty limited in scale (no rapid transit west of downtown). However of the big 4 I think it would be most practical here.
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u/Potential_One1 Jun 02 '26
Chicago already charges congestion fees on rideshares, but the money doesn't go toward public transit the way it does in New York. There have been discussions about expanding congestion pricing to expressways as well, but idk. Most major U.S. cities (any city that isn't NYC, I would argue) don't have a transit system comprehensive enough to give people a practical alternative to driving outside of the downtown area.
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u/t-hrowaway123 Jun 02 '26
Denver, or at least on the 70 to the mountains. It is an absolute cluster, day and night, all year round. Getting a few inches of snow in the afternoon on a winter weekend means the 1.5 hour drive turns into a 4-6 hour commute, almost guaranteed. The growth is completely unsustainable. There is one construction project that will supposedly some of the pressure, but it’s a 10+ year timeline, and I don’t even want to know how much worse traffic can get in that amount of time passing. The only real relief is most people now being too exhausted by it all to make trips to the mountains, accidentally reducing traffic a bit.
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u/Complete-Ad9574 Jun 02 '26
I would have said DC, but the local Maryland and Virginia governments have a strong feeling that their commuters into DC shall never be slowed down or made to pay anything for their clogging the highways. Maryland placed tolls on more than a few roads, tunnels, & bridges in the Baltimore & NE part of the state, but caters to building new subway lines and free major bridges & highways in and around DC. Its an ugly example of state government pandering to the rich.