Recommended Reading: NYC Needs Better Traffic Tolls

Thursday, 03 May 2012 | by Pat's Picks

If you aren’t in New York City you’ll probably want to skip today’s blog post. But if you are in the city I think this is an important column.

Traffic consultant Sam Schwartz has been on a campaign for a few years to try to get New York City to adopt a more sensible plan for traffic tolls. In a guest column in the New York Daily News, he explains the problem in a way anybody can understand. He argues that the city’s vehicle tolls are “maddeningly illogical” because they steer drivers away from the routes that are most able to accommodate heavy traffic.

Schwartz writes: “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But when you start charging some people $13 in round-trip tolls, you get lots of zigging and zagging from drivers trying to avoid them.”

I’m not going to excerpt the whole column here—but he makes a compelling case for politicians to take a new look at traffic tolls.  It’s worthwhile reading.