The Bush administration is proposing to give $130 million in grants to cities that want to build electronic toll systems they can use to reduce congestion. Electronic tolling can help congestion by allowing road managers to charge more during busy periods and make sure the roads never get congestion.
Congestion pricing is an amazingly simple and low-cost solution to congestion. Everyone expects airline tickets to cost more at Christmas and Thanksgiving and hotel rooms to cost more in the summer (except in Florida where they cost more in the winter). So we are all used to the idea of congestion pricing.
Unfortunately, most of us are also used to the idea of driving on toll-free roads, so any proposal to turn an existing free road into a congestion-priced road is met with stiff resistance. The Wall Street Journal warns that some people are going to call such tolls a “tax” to build political opposition.
