Overcoming public aversion to congestion pricing

We have completed a survey of Southern California residents designed to exa mine whether the details of policy design can make congestion pricing more attractive to the motoring public. A congestion fee proposal is often regar ded as simply a tax increase; also, especially in the US, motorists apparen tly regard the use of congestion fees as coercive, in that they often have few if any practical alternatives to paying the fee. Unlike most opinion su rveys on congestion pricing, our survey was quite explicit about the fate o f the collected revenues. For example, we presented respondents with polici es that returned a substantial portion of the revenues to the public, eithe r in the form of cash (through reductions in sales taxes and vehicle regist ration fees or through income tax credits) or in the form of coupons to be used for vehicle emissions equipment repair, transit, and the like. In addi tion, we examined whether the typically intense opposition to congestion pr icing if applied only to a part of a roadway, leaving the motorist free to choose between free lanes and toll lanes. We iind that a promise to offset the imposition of congestion fees by other taxes can result in a 7% point i ncrease in support for congestion pricing policies, and the restriction of congestion pricing to a single lane on a freeway attracts from 9% to 17% po ints of additional support. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reser ved.