Congestion pricing has spread around the world to cities including London, Stockholm, and Singapore. But the idea was born in New York City in the 1950s.
William Vickrey, an economics professor at Columbia University who won the Nobel Prize in 1996, has been called the “father of congestion pricing.” He proposed the use of economic incentives to better manage crowded roads — as well as the packed subway system.
As early as 1952, Mr. Vickrey recommended charging higher fares on the New York City subway for the most crowded times and sections. “Just like hotels charge more during Christmas, and planes charge more for longer flights, he said the subways ought to do that,” said Samuel I. Schwartz, a former city traffic commissioner and a longtime proponent of congestion pricing.
But congestion pricing for the subway did not catch on. City leaders “considered it risky, and the technology was not ready,” according to a 1997 report in the Columbia University Record.
Mr. Vickrey later turned his attention to the city’s perpetual gridlock. He called for varying road tolls to reduce congestion during peak times and keep traffic flowing.
In the late 1970s, Mr. Vickrey used to show up at public meetings and push for congestion pricing, said Mr. Schwartz, who was an assistant city traffic commissioner back then. “He pestered me,” Mr. Schwartz said. “He kept saying a lot of our approach to traffic congestion wouldn’t work — and that we had to use pricing.”
Though Mr. Vickrey died in 1996, his idea has lived on. Mr. Schwartz and many others — including business, civic, and transportation and environmental advocates — have fought for decades to bring congestion pricing to New York’s streets.
In 2007, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed a congestion-pricing plan as part of his efforts to improve the environment. But the plan faltered the next year in Albany amid staunch opposition from state legislators.
A decade later, facing a breakdown in subway service, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resurrected congestion pricing to finance repairs to the aging subway system. “Congestion pricing is an idea whose time has come,” he said at that time. (Mr. Cuomo has since questioned whether it is the right time to start congestion pricing.)
It was another two years before congestion pricing was finally approved by the State Legislature in 2019 as part of the state budget.