New York’s plan to charge most vehicles $15 to enter downtown Manhattan would have eased traffic, reduced pollution and raised billions for mass transit. But Gov. Kathy Hochul — in an 11th-hour reversal — has put congestion pricing on hold indefinitely, leaving a $15 billion gap in the city’s transit upgrade plans. Hochul, a Democrat, cited a slow economic recovery from the pandemic and the burden the tolls would place on low-income residents, but sources say she also feared upset swing district voters who could decide key elections this fall.
Most people balk at the idea of paying more for anything, and congestion pricing plans are no exception. No more than about a quarter of New Yorkers favored the measure, according to one pollwith support falling among residents of outer districts like Staten Island. Yet widespread opposition, and the political unrest it can cause, is a feature, not a bug, of these efforts. In almost every city that has adopted congestion pricing, including London and Stockholmit was extremely unpopular at first.
“Obviously, if people didn’t have to pay a congestion charge before, nobody’s going to say, ‘Yes, I’d like to pay more’,” says Alina Tuerk, strategy and planning manager at Transport for London, the government agency. in charge of that city’s vast transportation system.
Yet surprisingly, public favor grew in almost all cities as people adapted to the policy and, more importantly, saw tangible improvements. For example, most Londoners vehemently opposed the idea before it was implemented in 2003. But as many as six in 10 people supported it within the first year, as they saw almost immediate benefits. Now most people don’t even think about it.
“Because it’s been in place for over 20 years, it’s almost become business as usual,” Tuerk said.
Transportation experts say shifting public attitudes requires the charges to reduce traffic, improve air quality and fund more climate-friendly modes of transportation. Proponents of New York’s congestion pricing plan, which would have gone into effect on June 30, argued it would ease traffic by 17 percent, reduce particulate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions downtown by more than 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively, generating as much as $1 billion annually for mass transit. (That money would have been tied up or invested to generate $15 billion to improve transit infrastructure.)
But that’s not always enough, because there’s something more at play: a bit of human psychology called status quo bias. People tend to prefer the status quo to a major change, regardless of any expected benefits it may bring. And that, more often than not, leads them to initially oppose congestion pricing, said Jonas Eliasson, director of transport access at the Swedish National Transport Administration.
Yet that tendency also goes both ways: Once a change occurs, people often learn to accept their new circumstances and ultimately view them more positively. In other words, they just get used to it. And once you do, the concept “isn’t so strange anymore,” Eliasson said.
According to s poll by Siena College in April, only 25 percent of New York state voters approved the proposed pricing plan, with 63 percent against it. Many opponents were concerned that the proposal would increase pollution in outer boroughs as vehicles avoided the city centre. Others expressed concern about the impact on low-income residents. Powerful interests ranging from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and the state’s trucking association sued to stop it.
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That backlash echoes eerily early opposition seen abroad. Before London’s policy came into effect in early 2003, only 40 percent of residents supported it and Mayor Ken Livingstone gave a “desperate bloody day” before its implementation. In Stockholm, two thirds of the inhabitants even resisted a six-month trial that was announced in 2002 and began in 2006. “I was actually surprised by not only the strength of the backlash, but also the longevity of the protest,” Eliasson said. “For all this time it was in the news almost every day.”
Opponents raised many of the same objections voiced by New Yorkers. So it was surprising when, shortly after congestion charges were introduced, public attitudes became overwhelmingly positive. In London, almost 60 percent of people supported congestion charges several months after the policy began, with as few as 25 percent of residents remaining opposed. Stockholm has an even more dramatic shift to about 70 percent support by 2011. (Voters congestion pricing made permanent by a referendum in 2007.)
Many of those skeptics were underwhelmed by the results. London has seen dramatic changes: downtown congestion dropped 30 percent than overall traffic fell 15 percent. The city also added 300 buses to the central London network on the same day the charge came into effect, promoting a shift from driving to mass transit.
“We’ve seen bus use increase by about a third, and another 10 percent of people have switched from driving to public transit, walking and biking,” Tuerk said. “It helped create positive attitudes towards the project because people could see what they were getting out of it.”
Stockholm has also seen impressive improvements. Traffic in the city center fell more than 22 percent and vehicle emissions fell by as much as 15 percent.
Both cities used the revenue to invest heavily in mass transit and other transportation infrastructure, including roads, bridges, sidewalks, and bike lanes. But one of the biggest benefits was a change in cultural norms around transportation and charging for a public good. “People have now accepted on a subconscious level that street space is something you can actually price, just like you can have traffic signs and speed limits and parking fees,” Eliasson said. “You can discuss whether they should be higher or lower, whether they should be adjusted – but the kind of moral question of whether streets can be priced, that’s not really an issue anymore.”
Benefits aside, researchers have found that status quo bias is one of the biggest reasons attitudes change over time. In one way, people accept the idea, and come to embrace it. One study in Germany found that drivers who believed a congestion charge was imminent more likely to see it positively, partly because people find it uncomfortable to reject their current reality. Another study in Gothenburg, Sweden, found this status quo bias played the biggest role in increasing support for that city’s congestion pricing plan upon its introduction. A similar phenomenon has played out in Stockholm and other cities around the world, Eliasson said.
“If you don’t have congestion pricing, you have the psychological tendency to say things are relatively good as they are; I don’t want to change things,” said Eliasson, co-author of the study in Gothenburg and others on the subject. But once the policy takes effect, people shift their thinking to, “Now we have congestion pricing, I like it the way we have it now, why do we have to change everything,” Eliasson said. Human nature to favor the status quo means that policymakers “will always face this resistance to change anything.”
This makes strong political leadership, and a willingness to endure inevitable short-term opposition, essential to the success of bold moves such as congestion pricing. Livingstone provided decisive support in London, while in Stockholm the proposal was supported by the Swedish Social Democratic Party and other centre-left political parties.
That level of support is lacking in the Empire State and the Big Apple. Hochul once wavered in her support, New York City Mayor Eric Adams support her decision and said the city will find other ways to fund now-delayed transit infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, some have 700,000 vehicles continue to crowd Manhattan every weekday.
