Logic in tolls for Bay Area
Re “Entering the San Francisco Pay Area,” Dec. 30, 2008
Presuming that San Francisco’s congestion pricing plan is implemented in a logical way, it will work. Tolls will have to be collected electronically, of course, but the economic principles involved are not mere theories.
If travelers are forced to pay a toll that accounts for the costs their travel decisions inflict on others, they will not travel unless the benefits exceed the trip’s full and true cost.
Located on the tip of its peninsula, San Francisco is an ideal location to implement a London-style congestion-pricing zone. The merits of charging drivers to both enter and exit the zone elude me, but if the initiative was not a little bit quirky, it would not be a good fit for San Francisco.
James E. Moore
Los Angeles
The writer is the director of the transportation engineering program at USC.
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