Winnie Hu

But don’t expect to see them traveling down Fifth Avenue anytime soon.

The cars have been corralled behind the gates of the sprawling Brooklyn Navy Yard — away from city streets teeming with cars, bikes and pedestrians.

The cars will begin shuttling people Wednesday around a loop that is just more than 1 mile at the yard, a 300-acre, privately operated manufacturing and technology hub.

They will run seven days a week to meet passengers going to and from a recently opened ferry landing. There is no charge for a ride and anyone can hop in.

Autonomous vehicles have been heralded as the next revolution in transportation, promising to move people and goods far more efficiently than cars dependent on drivers.

Advocates say the self-driving technology can be harnessed to increase the reliability and safety of taxis, Ubers and buses, as well as to make truck deliveries and to operate construction machinery. They also say it can reduce the need for personal cars and parking spaces in congested cities.

But some of this enthusiasm waned after a woman walking a bicycle on a street in Tempe, Arizona, was fatally struck last year by a self-driving car being tested by Uber. It was the first known pedestrian death involving a self-driving vehicle, though three Tesla drivers also have died in the past several years in crashes that happened after an autopilot driver-assistance system was activated.

And self-driving cars that rely on gas will still spew greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

Still, autonomous vehicles continue to be tested in more than a dozen communities around the country, according to Samuel I. Schwartz, a transportation consultant and author of “No One at the Wheel.” He added that almost all of these self-driving cars are confined to enclosed areas, though a few have operated on a limited basis on public roads.

“In 2017, autonomous vehicles were two years away from hitting the street,” Schwartz said. “In 2019, they are at least five years away. Just about everybody that promised autonomous vehicles by 2019 has retrenched. It’s far more complicated than they imagined.”

In New York City, autonomous vehicles are likely a long way from being allowed on public roads.

For now, they are relegated to a fleet of six electric Polaris vehicles at the Navy Yard that have been retrofitted with laser scanners, cameras and a sophisticated computer system. Just look for the shiny mini tram with the “self-driving” sign.

“I think it’s absolutely cool, but anything can happen,” said Frank Davis, a fire safety engineer who was visiting the yard and plans to take a ride though he remains concerned about the overall safety of self-driving cars. “For a shuttle, it’s fine, but on the road, no. People fail, so does technology.”

The cars at the Navy Yard are operated by Optimus Ride, a startup company founded in 2015 by five graduates and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Since then, the company has provided more than 20,000 autonomous vehicle rides, mostly around Boston’s Seaport neighborhood, where it is based, and also in a residential community in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb. The cars have supplemented local bus and train service by getting riders to stations.

Passengers on Optimus Ride vehicles are never onboard by themselves. A team of two people — a safety driver and a software operator — goes on every ride to take over the controls if needed, and to collect data to help develop a comprehensive driverless technology system.

The company has not had any accidents or injuries involving the driverless cars, said Ryan Chin, a co-founder of Optimus Ride and the chief executive.

“Most accidents are caused by human error,” said Chin, including people driving while texting or intoxicated, and falling asleep behind the wheel. “Those are all human characteristics we can actually program out of the vehicle. Our computers will never get tired as long as there’s power.”

Chin met David Ehrenberg, the president and chief executive of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., a nonprofit that manages the site, at a conference several years ago. The two started talking, and soon Chin was touring the yard where battleships like the Missouri were once built.

The yard has become a laboratory for urban technology, in part because fewer regulations and restrictions exist there than on public streets. It is a city within a city, with 400 companies and 10,000 workers. Citi Bike, the bike-share program, was first tried out at the yard before launching in Manhattan. Drones have also been used to inspect buildings.

“I said, ‘This is the perfect landing spot for an autonomous car in New York,’ ” Ehrenberg recalled telling Chin. “There is — we think — no better place than the Navy Yard to test and learn about new technologies.”

Ehrenberg’s organization contracted with Optimus for two years to provide shuttles for a recently launched city ferry landing — there have been 40,000 ferry trips since May — and to support local job development. It declined to disclose how much it paid, citing the confidentiality of the agreement. No public money was used.

Optimus opened an office at the yard and hired 18 local operations workers with salaries ranging from $20 to $65 an hour, including recent engineering graduates of the New York City College of Technology, which is part of the City University of New York. It is also working with a high school at the yard to create an internship program.

The driverless cars arrived in April for test runs and are impossible to miss.

“It’s a self-driving machine, I’ve never seen one before,” said Quinn Castillo, a security officer at the yard. “When is it going to start taking passengers?”

But Julia Janicelli, who works for a fashion company at the yard, said she did not find a driverless car all that appealing. Would she try it? “Maybe if I’m really bored at lunch one day but I wouldn’t seek it out,” she said.

Matt Cortright, an architectural designer who rides his bike to work (the cars have a bike rack), said that a driverless car is still a car. “My general perception is we have too many cars already and adding cars without drivers doesn’t solve the problem,” he said.

Plus, he added, “If I get hit by a car, I want to be able to sue the person driving it.”

On a test run recently, Greg Zborowski, a systems engineer for Optimus, slid behind the wheel and pressed a green button. The car started and then accelerated. It is programmed to go no faster than 15 mph and to obey all traffic rules.

At a stop sign, it came to a full stop. It inched forward to clear a blind spot, and made a left turn followed by a quick right. Later, it swerved around a driver opening his car door.

“No hands,” Zborowski said, holding up his arms. “At no point am I interacting with it.”

Ruijie He, the vice president of engineering for Optimus, sat beside him with a laptop that was connected to the dashboard. The screen showed the car’s real-time calculations as its sensors registered other cars, pedestrians and cyclists.

Not long ago, He hit the brakes when a man on his phone darted in front of the car. The car is programmed to stop on its own, but He said he did not want to take any chances.

This time, there was no excitement. The car rolled to a stop and the ride was over.

“Pretty uneventful, but that’s what we’re trying for,” He said. “It should be boring.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/nyregion/driverless-cars-new-york-city.html" id="0a2879ee-3620-3197-a382-04375488c5ae">The New York Times</a>.

Poised to Take the Wheel At the Navy Yard: No One

NEW YORK — Driverless cars have rolled into New York City, finally.

But they did. Two more cyclists were hit and killed Tuesday — one in Brooklyn and another on Staten Island — and another struck Wednesday morning in Queens was reportedly in critical condition.

The growing toll of 17 biking fatalities this year — seven more than all of last year — has provoked an outcry from cyclists and transportation advocates and ratcheted up pressure on Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat running for president, to better protect cyclists at a time when biking is booming across the city.

In response, de Blasio plans to unveil a $58.4 million bike safety plan this week that will try to make cycling safer by rapidly installing more protected bike lanes, redesigning intersections to make turns safer for cyclists and hiring 80 new city transportation workers dedicated to bike improvements.

De Blasio’s signature transportation policy, Vision Zero, has sought to make city streets safer.

“This year, we’ve seen a dangerous surge in cyclist fatalities,” de Blasio said. “No loss of life on our streets is acceptable. Last year was the safest year on record, and we have to keep pushing the envelope and increasing our efforts.”

Under the new plan, the city will increasingly focus on creating a citywide network of protected bike lanes; currently the city has 1,243 miles of bike lanes, of which 480 miles are protected, meaning barriers physically separate cyclists from vehicles.

The city will now add 30 miles of protected bike lanes a year, up from an average of 20 miles a year over the past three years.

In addition, city officials will also expand bike lanes — including protected lanes — in 10 designated “bike priority districts” in Brooklyn and Queens that have relatively few bike lanes but have had large numbers of serious injuries and fatalities involving cyclists.

These districts will cover neighborhoods including Corona, East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights in Queens; and Bay Ridge, Midwood, Sheepshead Bay and Brownsville in Brooklyn. This year, 12 of the 17 cycling fatalities happened in Brooklyn.

City transportation officials also plan to redesign 50 intersections to make cyclists more visible to turning motorists by using measures such as bike boxes, where cyclists wait in front of vehicles; and bike lanes painted green to provide more of a visual cue.

They will also expand a pilot program known as the “green wave” that adjusts the timing of green light signals so that all traffic — including cyclists — going about 15 mph can pass one green light after another in a corridor. It reduces the temptation of running a red light and also slows down traffic.

The bulk of the money for the bike safety program will be used to hire more city transportation workers to carry out the improvements, adding to the 110 workers the city currently employs.

Police officers will also step up enforcement of traffic rules at 100 high-crash intersections, specifically targeting trucks. This month, police had already discontinued a widely criticized practice of issuing tickets to cyclists breaking traffic rules at a site after a fatal crash.

“I think the things we are proposing here are things we know work,” said Polly Trottenberg, the city’s transportation commissioner. “Building out protected infrastructure, safer intersection designs and targeted enforcement of dangerous driving behaviors.”

The mayor’s plan drew cautious praise from some cycling advocates, who said the measure would help the city — and the mayor — focus their attention on bike safety.

“We think on paper it looks good — we need more protected bike lanes,” said Jon Orcutt, communication director for Bike New York, an education and advocacy group. “But the devil is in the implementation.”

To really safeguard cyclists, Orcutt said, the new bike lanes would have to connect to other protected bike lanes instead of ending and forcing cyclists into traffic lanes.

He said the barriers should also be placed close together and be sturdy enough to keep cars from crossing into the bike lanes. Cars have driven through or right over flexible plastic rods that currently run alongside some lanes.

Cycling has exploded in New York as Citi Bike, the bike-share program, has expanded and growing frustration with subway and bus delays have pushed more commuters to take to two wheels.

About 460,000 bike rides take place in the city every day, up from about 180,000 bike rides in 2006, according to the city.

At the same time, the city’s streets have become more congested than ever as Uber, Lyft and ride-app services have proliferated and truck traffic has surged from Amazon and online grocery deliveries.

“We have a toxic mix on the street with more cars, more trucks and more bikes,” Orcutt said. “I think that’s catching up with the city.”

Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who is chairman of the City Council’s transportation committee, said the mayor’s plan was a step in the right direction but far more needed to be done. He has called for the city to build 100 miles of protected bike lanes a year over the next six years.

“We have seen larger numbers of New Yorkers are using bikes as a mode of transportation,” he said. “We need to plan for that growth.”

Several cyclists said they welcomed more bike lanes as the city’s streets have become more congested and harder to navigate.

Nevada Griffin, 35, who lives in Brooklyn, said he has almost collided with cars and delivery trucks numerous times.

“Anything that moves the city toward a more pedestrian-friendly, bikeable city is a good thing,” he said.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/nyregion/nyc-bike-safety-deaths.html" id="661df5c4-ff14-3e0f-ab54-8c4796118b0e">The New York Times</a>.

More Bicyclists' Deaths Spur a New Safety Plan in New York

NEW YORK — Things could not get much worse in early July after three cyclists were killed in just more than a week on the streets of New York City.

But he does more than just count money and make change. He gives directions to lost drivers, offers hotel and restaurant tips and keeps watch for vehicles wanted by the state police. Regular commuters know him by name.

Soon he will lose his job, yet another casualty of advancing technology.

Flint will be replaced next year by a cashless tolling system that automatically charges vehicles equipped with an E-ZPass reader or snaps a license-plate photo to bill by mail.

The technology has meant the end of a way of life for more than 1,200 toll workers along the length of the New York State Thruway.

“As long as there have been toll roads, there have been toll collectors,” Flint, 60, said. “It’s a shame that the job is going away.”

Toll collectors were once the sentries of the country’s roads, but they are rapidly disappearing as New York and other states embrace technology that makes tollbooths obsolete. Nearly half of the nation’s 336 tolled highways, bridges and tunnels have only cashless tolling, according to the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, an industry group.

State officials and transportation experts say cashless tolling is more convenient for drivers, reduces traffic and pollution from idling vehicles, and improves safety because there is no need to slow or jockey across lanes to pay at a tollbooth.

It has also allowed highways to better manage traffic flow by using variable toll pricing that can change by the minute to charge higher rates for traveling at peak times.

New York City will rely on cashless tolling to help fine-tune its traffic management when it becomes the first U.S. city to use congestion pricing to charge drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan.

“There are a lot of good reasons to go to cashless tolling,” said Pat Jones, executive director of the bridge, tunnel and turnpike association.

But the technology has drawn criticism over privacy concerns that cashless tolling is another way to track people. Drivers have also complained about being charged in error, or being billed thousands of dollars in late fees and penalties that far exceed the actual tolls. In April, three drivers in western New York sued the Thruway Authority over billing issues after the Grand Island bridges switched to cashless tolling.

It has also increasingly displaced toll collectors, the largely unsung contributors to the transportation network. They squeeze into tight spaces, endure exhaust fumes and constant honking and, sometimes, fend off unwanted advances from drivers. Some even keep their own money handy to bail out drivers who don’t have enough.

“Toll collectors need their jobs,” said Linda Henderson, 62, a toll collector on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey since 2002. “And people are happy to see us out there. They need us.”

Thousands of toll collectors used to work across the New York region in the 1990s, but their ranks have shrunk over the years as E-ZPass lanes have proliferated.

Still, unlike store cashiers and other private-sector workers who have lost jobs to automation, many toll collectors are represented by labor unions that have often helped them move to other positions in the same agency.

By 2017, all nine tolled bridges and tunnels under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had switched to cashless tolling. The bridge and tunnel officers who used to collect the tolls as part of their duties now focus on other things, including ensuring safety and security, responding to emergencies and managing traffic.

There are still toll collectors on some of the region’s busiest crossings — the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels — but the agency that oversees them, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has also been moving to cashless tolling. It has already switched over two of its Staten Island bridges and plans to shift the third later this year.

There are 158 toll collectors working for the Port Authority, down from 450 in 1997. For many, toll collecting was a steppingstone to other opportunities. They moved up to become security guards, operations supervisors and managers.

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority has not announced plans to phase out toll collectors, but the numbers are shrinking. There are 884 toll collectors on the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, down from 1,680 in the 1990s.

Facing an uncertain future, some have already left the booth. Kevin Epps, 55, started as a toll collector on the Garden State Parkway in 1993 but moved to a highway maintenance job in 2002, as he saw more and more E-ZPass lanes. “I saw the change,” he said. “The security blanket was leaving. They — like everyone else — were going for the technology.”

Tolls, like taxes, were once thought to be constant, and the job of collecting them guaranteed for life. Though not physically demanding, the job can be hard mentally, toll workers say. They have to make change quickly while other drivers are waiting and honking. They memorize directions and exits to local airports and attractions. They learn to defuse confrontations with drivers who curse, yell and throw money at them.

Henderson said a man once got out of his car and stuck his head into her booth to complain that his E-ZPass was not working. “I jumped out of my seat,” she said. “Anybody can come up to you.”

Both women and men said they have faced unwanted advances. Theresa Braun, a toll collector on the Garden State Parkway, has found a way to deal with it. When drivers ask for her phone number, she writes on their receipt: 867-5309 from the hit 1981 song “867-5309/Jenny.”

Braun, 58, a mother of six, started as a toll collector in 1996. At first, her hours were 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. She eventually worked her way up to the morning shift. Her salary also improved, from about $9 an hour to more than $24 an hour, plus a pension when she retires in two years.

She is a fixture at the Barnegat toll plaza. She has seen children in car seats grow up and take the wheel themselves. She has called 911 when drivers turned up at her window with chest pains. Her regulars will wait at her tollbooth even when there is no line in the E-ZPass lanes. “They want the human connection,” she said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the move to systemwide cashless tolling on the New York State Thruway 19 months ago. By then, the number of full-time toll collectors had already shrunk to 170 from 789 at the peak in 1991, two years before E-ZPass was introduced in the state. There were also 1,153 part-time collectors.

The youngest toll collector is 18 years old, and the oldest is 82, according to the Thruway Authority. Just over half are women. The salaries range from $13.63 an hour for a part-time toll collector to $24.35 an hour for senior, full-time employees.

“The Thruway Authority’s toll collection workforce has been the backbone of our organization for more than five decades and will continue to be through the transition to systemwide cashless tolling by the end of 2020,” said Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for the agency.

The agency has offered outreach and training programs to help toll collectors find other jobs, including sessions on resume writing and interviewing, and tuition assistance to those returning to school. A total of 38 toll collectors, managers and administrators have moved to other jobs within the agency.

Jeanne Marie Litts, 56, who manages toll plazas in the Hudson Valley, said she delayed her own retirement to help toll workers through the transition.

Litts, who followed her mother into toll collecting in 1984, recalled that before electronic tolling, the lines to pay cash tolls at the old Tappan Zee Bridge — replaced today by the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge — used to back up for miles. She would sometimes sleep on a cot in a nearby employee locker room to make sure she was not late for her shift.

“That’s how bad that was before E-ZPass,” she said. “I think technology is the right thing to do here.”

Still, Joseph Decheine, 35, a toll collector in the Buffalo area, said the Thruway should keep some tollbooths — and toll collectors — to help drivers. “It’s like a checkpoint for people,” he said. “You know you get to that point and you can ask for directions or somewhere to eat.”

Flint started as a part-time toll collector near Albany, New York, in 1979, earning $4.73 an hour to help pay for college, where he studied accounting. But he graduated to a tight job market and decided to stay on. He never left.

Now as tollbooths are being closed, he doesn’t know what he will do next.

“This was a very stable job; you didn’t have to worry about things like that,” he said. “If you wanted to stay here, you could.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/nyregion/automated-toll-collectors.html" id="fd40882e-afad-3555-a707-370f7365b3ab">The New York Times</a>.

Gerry Flint has collected tolls for 40 years on a 570-mile highway that crosses New York state.

The Last Toll Collectors

But other than that, crucial details have yet to be worked out.

The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, which is part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, will decide how to enforce congestion pricing after hearing from a yet-to-be-formed panel that will consider public comments and the results of a traffic study.

Adding to the confusion, the plan was pushed through as part of the state budget — identified only as the “Central Business District Tolling Program” — and outlined in eye-glazing legalese that most people will never get through. (We read it for you. You’re welcome.)

It also differs from a version proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as well as from other plans floated over the years.

Remind me, how does congestion pricing work?

A congestion zone will be drawn around Manhattan from 60th Street south to the Battery. The fee will be charged electronically, most likely through an expansion of the E-ZPass system used for cashless tolling at bridges and tunnels.

Don’t use E-Z Pass? You’ll still pay — cameras will take photos of license plates.

Passenger vehicles will be charged only once a day, no matter how often they go in and out, but that might not apply to other vehicles, like delivery trucks.

You can avoid paying entirely if you’re simply passing through the zone by staying along the edges on Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive or the West Side Highway.

Will I get a discount?

The congestion pricing plan, as outlined in the budget, will apply to nearly everyone. So far, the only two exceptions are for emergency vehicles and vehicles carrying people with disabilities (how those will be identified has not been decided).

Still, it is possible that more exemptions or, at the very least, discounts will be added.

The fees will likely not be set until next year, but expect them to be $11 to $14 for cars and around $25 for trucks during prime business hours, and less at night and on weekends, according to traffic experts and state leaders.

The bridge and tunnel authority will decide who pays what, but the jockeying for price breaks is in full swing.

State officials have warned that granting too many discounts will only mean higher fees for everyone else, since the state is counting on congestion pricing to raise $15 billion for public transportation through 2024.

But do I have to pay if I … ?

Live inside the zone: Yes. Residents inside the zone will not be charged when they take their car out of the zone, but they will be charged when they return. It does not matter if they are commuting to work, visiting family or just going to dinner.

Cannot afford the toll: Yes. Drivers earning less than $60,000 annually who live inside the zone will get a tax credit. Anyone who lives elsewhere will not.

Drive only in the zone: There has been no talk of charging for driving in the zone from, say, Chelsea to the Financial District. But state officials said the legislation does make that a possibility.

Live in Manhattan, but not in the zone: No, as long as you stay out of the zone. But the fee kicks in whether you drive in from the Hamptons or 61st Street.

Go to a doctor’s appointment: Yes. There are no exceptions for medical treatment, though some congestion pricing supporters have called for that.

Drive on the FDR, but pull off: Yes. Getting off the FDR or the West Side Highway to drive on any street in the zone will cost you.

Wait, I heard there already are congestion fees?

In February, fees of $2.50 for yellow taxis, and $2.75 for Uber and other ride-hail services, were added to every ride that starts, ends or passes through Manhattan south of 96th Street. A 75-cent fee was added to shared car pools such as Via or UberPool.

Also called congestion fees, those per-ride charges were passed on to passengers (check your receipt), and they are separate from any new fees.

It has not been decided who would pay the new congestion tolls during hailed rides.

I pay at a bridge or tunnel. Will I be double tolled?

If you pay at tolled tunnels or bridges coming into Manhattan, you will have to pay again to enter the congestion zone.

But it is possible that you will receive credit toward the congestion fees, though that has not been decided.

The governor’s plan included such a credit when entering the congestion zone through tolled tunnels from New Jersey, Brooklyn and Queens, or when taking the Henry Hudson Bridge from the Bronx to Manhattan.

But that raised questions of why those crossings were chosen when other tolled crossings were not. So state lawmakers decided that the fair thing to do was to start with a blank slate.

The bridge and tunnel authority, with input from the expert panel, will come up with “a plan for credits, discounts, and/or exemptions” for drivers who pay bridge and tunnel tolls, and a similar plan for taxis and other for-hire vehicles, according to the legislation.

How soon will it start?

The fees are still more than a year away. Legally, the tolling program cannot begin before Dec. 31, 2020.

The six-member panel is expected to recommend fee amounts between Nov. 15, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020, or no later than 30 days before the tolling program starts. The bridge and tunnel authority will make the final decision.

Will my subway ride really get better?

About 80% of the revenue from congestion pricing fees will go toward city transit improvements, including new signals on subway lines, at least 150 miles of track work, and thousands of new subway cars and electric buses, according to the transportation authority.

An additional 10% will go to each of the two major suburban commuter trains operated by the authority, the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North. It is expected to pay for a significant expansion of the Long Island Rail Road, four new Metro-North stations in the Bronx, hundreds of new electric and diesel rail cars, and scores of locomotives, among other things.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/nyregion/what-is-congestion-pricing.html" id="a021f62c-765c-353b-a5f2-aa48b931465e">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — You’ve heard the news: New York will be the first U.S. city to impose congestion pricing to alleviate traffic and raise money to modernize its sputtering subway. Drivers will have to pay to enter the heart of Manhattan beginning in 2021.

Confused About Congestion Pricing? Here's What We Know

Major cities across the United States are facing increasingly clogged roads and have had frustratingly little success in dealing with them. But now that New York has adopted congestion pricing in Manhattan, the rest of the country is far more likely to seriously consider embracing such a policy — even though it was once considered politically toxic, according to municipal officials and transportation analysts.

“New York’s use of congestion pricing could be a game-changer,” said Travis Brouwer, an assistant transportation director in Oregon, which has considered congestion pricing for traffic-jammed Portland.

“If New York City can prove that congestion pricing can work and gain public acceptance, it could give cities like Portland a boost as we look to introduce pricing.”

Philadelphia is now considering congestion pricing for the first time, in part because of New York’s move, “to see how this can help improve equity, safety, sustainability, and mobility,” said Kelly Cofrancisco, a spokeswoman for Philadelphia’s mayor, Jim Kenney.

New York, the country’s largest city, will charge drivers to enter Manhattan’s most congested neighborhoods as a way to raise more money for public transit and to persuade people to abandon their cars.

Los Angeles and San Francisco are already conducting studies to lay the groundwork for congestion pricing, and Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, is leading efforts to have congestion pricing in place by the end of her first term in 2021.

“It really does help to be able to point to some peer city and say ‘They’re doing this and it’s working,’” said Michael Manville, an associate professor of urban planning at The University of California, Los Angeles, who has advised Los Angeles on congestion pricing. “At the very least, it changes the conversation in other cities.”

Not everyone is a fan. The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has long opposed congestion pricing because of concerns it could hurt local businesses, but it is re-examining that position as traffic has worsened. In a recent poll of 500 San Francisco voters, sponsored by the chamber, 65 percent said they opposed a $3 to $6 congestion fee to drive downtown.

A handful of cities in Europe and Asia already have congestion pricing in place; it has helped clear roads in London, Stockholm and Singapore. But it has also been assailed by drivers and critics as an unfair tax that hurts the poor.

Fueled by an economic boom, a revival of urban areas, a proliferation of Uber and Lyft cars and an explosive growth in package deliveries propelled by the rise of Amazon, the average speed in urban downtowns fell to 15 mph last year from 18 mph in 2015, according to INRIX, a transportation analytics company.

“I believe the time has finally arrived to explore congestion relief pricing in major cities,” said Phil Washington, the chief executive of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. “Here in Los Angeles, our congestion challenges are just as bad, if not worse, than Manhattan’s.”

He added, “We cannot sit idly by and watch it get worse.”

In New York, many details of a congestion pricing plan — including how much drivers will be charged — are still being worked out. The plan was the culmination of a campaign that started 18 months ago and drew transit groups as well as prominent business, civic and labor leaders, who saw no other way to tackle gridlock.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo staked his name on it and wielded his political power to push it forward, making it a centerpiece of the $175 billion state budget after past efforts had unraveled. Even Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had been lukewarm about congestion pricing and has had a frosty relationship with the governor, threw his support behind it. They had made the case that it was crucial for raising the money needed to modernize the city’s crumbling subway system.

And transit officials, facing a growing financial crisis, warned repeatedly that the alternative would be huge fare increases.

Congestion pricing’s moment follows decades of failed efforts to unclog roads around the country. Historically, cities responded to congestion by building more roads or widening existing ones — only to find that those, too, became jammed, said Matthew Turner, an economics professor at Brown University.

As a result, America’s roads are carrying more traffic than ever. The number of people driving to work climbed to about 130 million in 2017, up from 121 million in 2012, according to an analysis of census data by Social Explorer, a research company. Of those, more than 116 million drove alone, and only 14 million car-pooled. Just 8 million workers took public transportation.

The increasing traffic has been accompanied by concerns over health, safety and environmental implications. The number of pedestrians killed in traffic in the United States is approaching a three-decade high.

Traffic woes have emerged as the underside of booming cities that attract new residents, businesses and construction. More than two dozen major U.S. cities, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, have more congestion now than a decade ago, according to an annual global traffic scorecard by INRIX.

The most recent scorecard found that congestion left U.S. drivers sitting in traffic an average of 97 hours last year, up from 82 hours in 2015. That, in turn, cost the economy roughly $87 billion in lost productivity last year, up from $74 billion in 2015, according to INRIX.

“It only takes one car that doesn’t get through an intersection to block two lanes of traffic,” said Trevor Reed, an INRIX transportation analyst.

In Seattle, Amazon’s relentless rise has helped turn the city into a major tech hub. Now, major infrastructure and development projects are expected to lead to even more gridlock.

“As we build a city of the future, we must reduce our reliance on cars,” Durkan said. “My goal is to make our downtown core a healthier place for all with fewer cars, a more equitable transportation system and less climate pollution.”

Road pricing has been used on some U.S. highways since the 1990s, with tolled express lanes — or so-called Lexus lanes — built alongside regular lanes, offering a faster alternative to drivers who are willing to pay for it.

Cities are trying to figure out how to make it work on streets. “There’s a critical mass forming where people are saying, ‘enough is enough,’” said Stuart Cohen, the founding director of TransForm, a California-based group that released a recent report on congestion pricing. “They’ve tried everything else and nothing’s working.”

Still, Charles Komanoff, an economist, said the idea of “putting a price on driving” clashes with America’s car-loving culture in which driving wherever the road may lead is often seen as the ultimate freedom. He compared pushing congestion pricing to “shooting a rocket to the moon.” “There’s so much gravity — the forces opposing this are so powerful — it almost seems like defying nature,” he said.

Oregon looked at congestion pricing in 2005, but “our traffic wasn’t that bad, so people weren’t willing to pay a toll to escape it,” Brouwer said. But Portland has been gripped by congestion as Amazon and others have opened offices. State officials are seeking federal approval for what would be the state’s first highway tolls on a 7-mile stretch through Portland.

Congestion pricing has also been seen as a burden on poor drivers, many of whom have been displaced from downtown areas or cities by rising housing costs and now must drive to work because of minimal access to public transit.

“Social equity was the conversation stopper when it came to congestion pricing,” Cohen said. “In West Coast cities, equity is very high on the political agenda.”

But Cohen said gridlock also slows down the bus and transit services many poor people depend on. Congestion fees, he added, can be discounted or subsidized for poor drivers.

In Los Angeles, public buses traveled at an average of 11.8 mph last year, down from 12.2 mph in 2013, according to transit data. Washington said he wants to use the congestion fees to pay for transit improvements and to cover fares so that everyone can ride free.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles said he supports looking at congestion pricing “because it has the promise to dramatically reduce traffic and improve quality of life.”

Still, congestion pricing remains a tough sell. After a recent report released by Boston leaders and educators recommended charging $5 to drive in some neighborhoods, Boston’s mayor’s office said the city would not be implementing congestion pricing.

In New York, drivers would be charged for entering Manhattan below 60th Street, where the average speed for vehicles is down to 4.7 mph, from 6.9 mph in 1994.

John Corlett, a lobbyist for AAA in New York, said the new fees could cause gridlock to shift to other parts of the city if drivers drove around the central business district to avoid tolls. “To say this is going to reduce congestion may be a false hope,” he said.

But Sam Schwartz, one of the architects of congestion pricing in New York, said he had received calls from more than a dozen cities who have followed its progress. “If you can do it in New York, you can do it anywhere,” he said.

San Francisco is considering congestion pricing after trying other options to combat gridlock, including expanded bus and rail service, installing dedicated transit lanes and expanding bike routes, said Tilly Chang, executive director of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, which is leading the city’s congestion pricing effort.

“Everyone agrees there’s a problem,” Chang said. “There are multiple views of the solution. But frankly, we’ve tried a lot of them and they’re not enough.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/nyregion/new-york-congestion-pricing.html" id="15b0219b-e189-35d1-ad05-521b11cab5b8">The New York Times</a>.

Congestion Pricing: N.Y. Embraced It, But Will Other Clogged Cities Follow?

Los Angeles traffic is so bad that buses crawl at speeds of less than 12 mph. In San Francisco, car speeds have fallen to 10 mph. And Seattle’s streets are so choked it needs to find ways to have fewer cars altogether.

Now city officials are ratcheting up the fight against another traffic headache: parking scofflaws.

On Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to announce new measures aimed at municipal employees who abuse city-issued parking placards that are intended to help them carry out their official duties, but too often are abused and contribute to clogged streets.

Many employees brazenly display the placards while parked illegally — including in crosswalks, on sidewalks and blocking bus and bike lanes — or while using personal vehicles when not working.

Under the de Blasio administration, the number of city-issued placards has soared and critics have accused the mayor of doing little to tackle the problem.

Now, city officials are promising a more aggressive campaign. A new enforcement team of traffic agents will issue tickets and target placard abuse in neighborhoods that have become hot spots, such as Downtown Brooklyn and Chinatown. Any placard found to be misused three times will be revoked under a new “three strikes” policy; previously, it had been left to the discretion of the agencies that issued the placards.

In addition, the city will make the misuse or fraudulent use of a placard a separate violation on top of any parking violation. Placard abuse is treated as a parking violation and carries a $50 fine. City officials said they would push for changes to state law to establish a $250 fine for placard abuse.

The city also plans to test out stickers as a replacement for paper placards to make it harder to transfer placards to unauthorized vehicles. It will also develop a digital parking system by 2021 in which physical placards will be unnecessary because license plates will be linked to a database and parking violations will be automatically issued through a pay-by-plate system.

Still, none of the mayor’s measures will significantly reduce the total number of city-issued placards, which have nearly doubled to 125,500 in 2018 from 67,297 in 2008, according to city records. The largest chunk, 50,000, is issued by the Transportation Department for its own employees as well as those at other agencies. The Police Department issues another 44,000 to law enforcement officers, and the Education Department, 31,500 to teachers and school employees to park near their schools.

Transportation advocates say police fail to vigorously target scofflaws, in part, because some officers themselves abuse their placards.

Advocates also accuse city officials of doling out parking placards as political favors to the powerful teachers unions and others, including 50,000 new placards for teachers and school employees in 2017. They said the city has helped create the problem because more placards lead to more opportunities for abuse and the oversupply of placards has encouraged more people to drive to work, putting more cars on the road.

“The elephant in the room is whether they can reduce placard abuse to everyone’s satisfaction without a meaningful reduction in the sheer number of placards,” said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the Riders Alliance, a grassroots group of transit riders.

NEW YORK — The traffic choking New York City streets has brought new congestion fees on taxis and Ubers and rallied support around a broader congestion pricing plan to charge all cars and trucks entering the busiest neighborhoods.

Winnie Hu

Articles written by the author

Poised to Take the Wheel At the Navy Yard: No One

More Bicyclists' Deaths Spur a New Safety Plan in New York

The Last Toll Collectors

Confused About Congestion Pricing? Here's What We Know

Congestion Pricing: N.Y. Embraced It, But Will Other Clogged Cities Follow?

New York to Crack Down on City Workers Abusing Parking Privileges

The L Train Will Stay Open. So What Happens to All Those Plan B's?

In Brooklyn, Fighting to Keep the Promenade Open

The L Train Shutdown Was Averted, so Can the Brooklyn Promenade Stay Open, Too?

Crossing Guards for Grown-Ups? Yes, the Traffic Is That Bad

How Perilous Is New York City Traffic? Now There are Crossing Guards for Grown-Ups

How Perilous Is New York City Traffic? Now There are Crossing Guards for Grown-Ups

An Island Nesting Ground for New Technology

What Happens When 25,000 Amazon Workers Flush Toilets?

What Happens When 25,000 Amazon Workers Flush Toilets?

Central Park's castle gets a $12 million fairy-tale makeover

2,000 Cameras will be watching how you drive in New York City

New York had a plan to speed up buses. A judge just blocked it

City's quaintest bus route: Over a bridge and back again

A jewel underground: The city's elegant first subway station