From The Editor’s Desk: Bring Congestion Pricing to Chicago

To start the new year, New York City instituted a forward-thinking policy Jan. 5. Every personal vehicle entering Manhattan south of 60th Street is now required to pay a congestion pricing charge of $9, cutting traffic and raising millions in funding for public transportation. 

Thus far the measure — the first of its kind in the U.S. — has been a massive success, with the number of cars entering the congestion zone down 8%, roughly 43,000 cars per day, The Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, transit ridership on both the MTA’s subway and bus systems are up, and buses are moving faster along routes which travel through the congestion zone. 

Best of all, the policy is expected to generate $500 million in annual revenue, which will be put toward vital public transportation infrastructure and accessibility improvement projects. These include station elevator installations and the extension of the Second Avenue Subway into east Harlem, an area which historically has been a transit desert. 

Back here on the shores of Lake Michigan meanwhile, the average Chicagoan loses 96 hours a year sitting in traffic, and our city has been ranked the world’s fifth most congested city, according to Block Club Chicago. Worse yet, in 2023 Chicago was ranked the second worst major U.S. city for air quality, according to The Chicago Tribune.

All this combined with ongoing questions over an impending fiscal cliff our region’s transit agencies face once federal pandemic relief money runs out — in my view the city has a no-brainer decision to make. 

Implementing a congestion pricing plan similar to New York’s here in Chicago would raise millions for the improvement of essential Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace service and unclog our choked highways. 

This is of course not a situation where one size fits all, and as The Chicago Tribune editorial board pointed out in a Jan. 8 piece advocating against congestion pricing here in the second city, Chicago isn’t New York and Chicago traffic isn’t New York traffic. 

The Trib is right, Chicago doesn’t have the bounds of a dense, narrow island to orient a congestion zone around. But, their analysis is, in my view, too closed minded and shuts down any chance for Chicago-style creativity to flow. 

A congestion zone in Chicago could focus on trips into the city’s core and be used to lessen traffic on major thoroughways such as North DuSable Lake Shore Drive, the Kennedy Expressway south of O’Hare and the Eisenhower Expressway west of Oak Park. 

Our “hub and spoke” transit model is perfectly suited for offering a rail alternative to trips into and out of the Loop. Meanwhile, as Chicagoans enjoy cleaner air and quieter neighborhoods, we would be reinvesting the money raised into transit connections in long underserved communities. 

As local policy makers look for new revenue sources in coming years, my two cents is congestion pricing is a perfect place to begin.