The impact of tolling and pricing on people with low incomes must be compared with the impact of traditional transportation funding policies on people with low incomes, which is often regressive. For example, low income drivers pay just as much tax on a gallon of gas as high income drivers do even though this tax has a significantly more detrimental effect on the mobility of low income drivers. Another example of current transportation policies that have an adverse effect on people with low incomes are transit policies that are increasingly targeted at developing rail transit options for suburban, middle and upper class commuters. These rail systems may be built at the expense of bus services for lower income neighborhoods.
In addition, people with lower incomes often support tolling and pricing. A recent Federal Highway Administration primer on congestion pricing reports that while low income drivers do not use toll facilities every day, they support having the option to avoid traffic when they need to - for example, to avoid paying a penalty for being late to work, or for picking up a child late from a daycare facility.138 The primer indicates that on San Diego's I-15 HOT Lanes a high level of support (70 percent) comes from the lowest income users.
FHWA recently prepared a white paper on the equity issues of pricing as it relates to low-income drivers and reported, among other positive conclusions, the following:139
• In evaluations of the variably priced 91 Express Lanes in California, it has been stated that low-income drivers use the express lanes and are as likely to approve of the lanes as drivers with higher incomes. In fact, over half of commuters with household incomes under $25,000 a year approved of providing toll lanes.
• In a 2006 survey of users of the I-394 HOT Lanes in Minneapolis, Minnesota, usage was reported across all income levels, including by 79 percent of higher income respondents, 70 percent of middle income respondents, and 55 percent of lower-income respondents. Support for the lanes was also found to be high across income levels, including by 71 percent of higher income respondents, 61 percent of middle income respondents, and 64 percent of lower-income respondents.
• The research paper, "Lexus Lanes or Corolla Lanes? Spatial Use and Equity Patterns of the I-394 MnPASS Lanes," cited some specific equity benefits of managed lanes, including: (i) vehicle shifts away from the general-purpose lanes improving travel conditions on such lanes; (ii) a high quality transit alternative is generally part of a managed-lanes project; (iii) even unused transponders may be considered to provide high-value travel-time insurance to their owners; and (iv) when the social benefits are paid for by those choosing to drive, situational equity is generally improved.
Tolling and pricing is also supported by people with low incomes if portions of the revenue are used to pay for transit improvements. These types of subsidies can be targeted at relieving any unfair burden that the tolling or pricing creates. A significant portion of the revenue from the congestion pricing plan that was proposed for downtown New York City, for example, would have been used to pay for transit improvements.140 The FHWA white paper excerpts portions of New York City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito's blog posting on January 30, 2008:
"So it is with congestion pricing. For months, some suburban elected officials from wealthy areas, as well as a coalition backed primarily by the American Automobile Association and Manhattan garage owners, have tried their best to cloak themselves as guardians of New York's poor and middle-class residents…The truth is that just 5 percent of commuters in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx travel to Manhattan by private car. People who drive their cars to work also earn 30 percent more a year than those of us who use mass transit. It is our poor and middle-class families who would benefit from congestion pricing - as the fees charged to drivers would be used to improve the bus and subway system… Unlike those who falsely claim to speak for the best interests of my constituents, the commission ought to recognize it would be irresponsible not to pursue a policy that could provide immediate and measurable relief of traffic congestion while improving the air that all of my constituents breathe and the buses and subways that they ride daily."
Furthermore, technology makes it possible for tolling and pricing programs to include protections for low-income individuals. Where tolls are collected electronically, credits or discounts may be provided to low-income drivers through their transponder accounts. A monthly quota of toll credits could be deposited into these accounts or tolls charged to these accounts could be billed at a discounted rate. The New York City congestion pricing bill that was proposed for consideration in the state's legislature included tax credits for low-income individuals for any fees paid in excess of the round-trip fare for a transit trip.
There is also evidence that the net distributional effects of congestion pricing do not adversely affect low-income groups. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments recently evaluated the impact of congestion pricing on the amounts of jobs and/or households accessible to low-income groups (and others) from various traffic analysis zones in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. In each of the three pricing scenarios studied, the pattern of losses and gains were very similar, with no one population group receiving a large share of the benefit and no one population group shouldering a disproportionate share of the losses. The first scenario, which involved pricing of new lanes and all existing HOV lanes in the region, resulted in no losses in accessibility, so no population group experienced losses.141
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
138 Congestion Pricing, A Primer, Federal Highway Administration, Office of Transportation Management, December 2006 (http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/congestionpricing/index.htm (last visited July 7, 2008)).
139 The white paper is available at: http://www.upa.dot.gov/resources/lwincequityrpi/index.htm (last visited July 7, 2008)
140 Recommendation of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, January 31, 2008, which indicates that "[t]he vast majority of City residents of limited income will benefit from short and long-term transit improvements that revenues generated by the plan will make possible."
141 Evaluating Alternative Scenarios for a Network of Variably Priced Highway Lanes in the Metropolitan Washington Region, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Final Report, February 2008.