Drop traffic-fee plan
Dateline:
08/06/2008IN ITS LATEST PLAN to make life a bit more difficult, San Francisco is considering charging a rush-hour fee for motorists entering, and perhaps leaving, the city's downtown.
Drivers using a four-square-mile area that includes the Financial District, Civic Center and South of Market neighborhood would have to pay a fee of $1 to $4 during rush hours.
This so-called congestion pricing for use of pubic streets has been used in some European cities for some time to reduce traffic and raise revenues for transit projects.
San Francisco, however, has not figured out when to charge, how much to charge, who should be exempt or who should get discounts.
Even more problematic, the city has yet to devise a coherent plan on how to collect the fees. Backers of the fees say they could use FasTrak or photograph license plates and send the bills to motorists' homes.
The logistics of photographing every vehicle that enters and leaves the designated fee zone are daunting indeed.
It is likely that many, if not most, drivers could escape the fees much of the time, unless they had FasTrak, in which case it would be a disincentive to use the electronic toll system.
There already is plenty of incentive for commuters to avoid driving into downtown San Francisco. Frequent traffic jams, narrow streets, a lack of convenient and affordable parking, and poor freeway access are among the many good reasons not to drive into the heart of the city. Adding congestion fees to the list is not apt to make a significant difference in decreasing traffic.
Instead, the fees would amount to yet another tax by a city that would do better to find ways to spend money more efficiently than concoct schemes to collect money from people driving on downtown public streets.
Source:
Contra Costa Times - Login to post comments
Related stories:
