Tim Drain, 31, of Koreatown said he generally supports the idea of congestion pricing in Los Angeles but would like to see an exemption for workers who use their cars to transport the tools and supplies they need on job sites.ĭrain works on home improvement projects for an interior design company, and ends up in the studied area about once a week, he said, with “too much stuff to take on transit.” “I’m very, very wary of a model that gives a 90% discount to a CEO of a billion-dollar company and gives only a 50% discount to the gardener who drives to maintain that person’s estate,” Bonin said. The fee for low-income commuters will likely be a friction point. The study assumed that residents would pay 40 cents - a 90% discount - and low-income commuters could qualify for half-price tolls. Vehicles driving in and out multiple times during the peak traffic period would be charged only once. The amount, she said, is “just enough of a nudge to see sizable benefits.” Researchers had considered a congestion fee of $6 to $8, Nam said, but they revised it downward to $4 after resistance from focus groups. Under the study’s parameters, the highest number of peak-hour commuters to the tolled zone would come from wealthy communities, including Brentwood, Bel Air and Westwood. Polling found that support for a congestion tax peaked at 40%, Nam said. “Absent a very different approach to this … I think it would be a very controversial idea.”Ī lack of public support, or outright opposition, could be the plan’s fatal flaw, researchers wrote in the study. “If you are going to pick an area of the city to do this, history suggests that people on the Westside have the means and the resources and the time to object to stuff they don’t like,” Bonin said. Toll zones would make sense sooner in downtown or around LAX once the train to the airport’s central terminal area is completed, Bonin said. On the Westside, he said, those alternatives are “not in place yet.”
Reducing traffic gridlock drivers#
To sell an ambitious idea like congestion pricing to the public, drivers would need to have access to high-quality alternatives to driving up and running before the fees were assessed, Bonin said. “As models go, this probably has as much chance of flying as a model airplane.” “This isn’t a proposal it’s a model,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin, who represents part of the studied area. SCAG had initially considered studying tolling in downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Warner Center and Los Angeles International Airport, but focused on the Westside because the traffic is worst there, so congestion pricing could have the greatest effect, Chidsey said.
Darin Chidsey, SCAG’s interim executive director, said it’s “very likely” that the first place Southern California could see a toll on surface streets would be on the traffic-choked Westside. But the findings are not a purely academic exercise.
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