6 Comment

• Angostura March 1, 2019 at 11:00 am

  Re: Congestion pricing. It’s a good idea, generally (how about $5 every time a vehicle crosses or enters 610), but it probably represents a real wealth transfer from middle class suburbanites to wealthier ITL property owners.
• Innerlooped March 1, 2019 at 11:01 am

  Re: Pink house. Sorry, but Austin is no longer weird. It’s a bunch a lame suburbs full of boomers. I commend that guy and his Pink house he loves.
• joel March 1, 2019 at 12:03 pm

  While I don’t think Houston has the population densities or sufficient mass transit reach to responsibly implement congestion pricing,let’s face it, in a city that is building only toll roads and actively adding tolls to every existing freeway, not implementing congesting pricing is an act of stupidity.
  .
  Would be far smarter to tax congestion rather than intentionally increase commuting times by giving away some of the most valuable public land in the entire city to a separate entity.
• GoogleMaster March 1, 2019 at 6:35 pm

  Or you could “tax” congestion by ceasing to add freeway lanes. The congestion would build up until the problem took care of itself.
• The Price is Right March 1, 2019 at 6:51 pm

  Re: Congestion Pricing
  .
  I can agree with all three proposed areas for this to apply since all three (Galleria, Downtown, and Medical Center) all get snarled during rush hour and are perfect candidates for deflecting optional and marginal traffic. The Galleria is such a clusterflock that I avoid it on all days at all times. There’s no store or business that I can’t find another branch away from there – or do stuff online. Downtown is largely the same and I don’t work in that zone.
  .
  The medical center is one zone that is choking on its congestion and actually threatens lives. Ironically, if you are having a medical emergency, you may want to be out of that zone during AM/PM commute times.
• TheNiche March 2, 2019 at 12:03 pm

  Strange that the author of the Houston Press article about congestion pricing wasn’t already aware that Houston does implement congestion pricing on high-occupancy/toll roads. With the ability to pay by mail rather than having a toll tag, it isn’t that much of a leap to think that it could be implemented off of limited-access freeways as well, but I have to think that the devil would be in the details and that educating the public about how this works would be a pain in the ass.
  .
  A much better strategy would be to convert all of the limited-access freeways to toll roads with congestion pricing. Tolls would be very low, nearly zero, in off-peak hours — but quite high during peak hours. This would encourage employers to shift operating hours to non-peak hours or to offer telecommuting to employees. It would encourage commuters to shift to cheaper mass transit, and more demand for mass transit means that there would be sufficient economies of scale to offer it with greater frequency or between more destinations.
  .
  There is one place in Houston that is already a proof of concept: downtown. For decades, METRO has built up its high-occupancy lanes, now with a congestion-priced toll option, park-and-ride services, and vanpooling, almost always with suburb-to-downtown service as the chief goal. Many downtown employers give their employees the option of taking a transit stipend rather than a parking pass; and don’t forget, a downtown parking spot is *very expensive*. This means that employers are saving money by reducing their parking requirements, which means that there are more parking spaces available, that the market price for parking is lower than it would be otherwise, which means that downtown is a more attractive place for employers to do business. It is a virtuous cycle!
  .
  Success is borne out by results. A greater proportion of downtown commuters use their cars that live within five miles of downtown than use cars that live further than five miles away. This is not at all what you might expect!
  .
  Is it a transfer of wealth from suburb to central city? Maybe. It depends on how the proceeds from congestion pricing are used. They could be used to offset property tax collections! More realistically, though…the greatest transportation challenge that the region’s suburbs face at present hasn’t got anything to do with freeways. It is that major and secondary grade-level thoroughfares were never designed to accommodate as much traffic as there exists on them. There is a desperate need for grade separations at major intersections; even the people who carpool or vanpool or use Park & Ride services need these. Local bus services and emergency vehicles need these. These can also be tolled. They serve communities that by Houstonian standards are already mature and dense, albeit not necessarily located in an incorporated municipality. Traffic from these thoroughfares goes to both suburban and urban employment centers. This is what I suggest, is approaching the issue from the perspective of enhanced regional mobility. Serve the people, all the people, where they already live and work. Within the region, some areas may benefit more than others but it is a win-win proposition. If there is a transfer, it comes from people that are only peripherally attached to major cities. Exurbs and rural areas.
  .
  Realistically, this is the plan’s Achilles heel. Such a plan would require the political will of the Texas legislature, leadership by state agencies like TXDoT, and a new more regional charter for METRO. It is difficult to imagine the Republican Party of Texas making this a priority. Entrenched interests would oppose it too. It is easy to envision a scenario where the City of Houston and inner-city minority communities would fear giving up the influence they have traditionally had. It won’t happen.