Driving in S.F. could come at a price
Congestion fees back on agenda
Downtown San Francisco neared its breaking point.
Its streets were clogged mornings and afternoons with record levels of congestion. Public transit buses sat idly in gridlock too dense to overcome, even with the benefit of dedicated redpainted lanes meant to hasten passengers’ commutes. Ridehailing services such as Uber and Lyft brought more vehicles into the area, worsening the problem.
So in 2019, before the pandemic emptied out downtown, San Francisco once again revived a controversial, decadeslong debate about whether to charge drivers a fee to enter the city’s densest areas. And even though congestion isn’t the problem that it was prepandemic, this added cost is still being considered by the city.
Congestion pricing is still three to five years from potentially arriving in the city, according to a spokesperson for the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, which is leading the city’s study. But details on what a congestionpricing plan could
look like in San Francisco have emerged, and the effort will reach a critical point at the end of this year when the Board of Supervisors will decide whether to move forward on the issue.
If it does, here’s how congestion pricing could work in San Francisco, based on the latest details:
⏩ There would be a base fee of $6.50 to enter the congestion-pricing zone with eligible discounts based on income level. If you make more than $100,000 a year, you’d pay the full amount. Commuters who make less than $46,000 would not pay a fee.
⏩ The transportation authority is considering two pricing zones. One would encompass the immediate downtown area that includes the Financial District, Chinatown, Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. The second, larger zone would be expanded to include North Beach, Russian Hill and Fisherman’s Wharf to the north, and Mission Bay to the south.
⏩ Drivers would pay a fee for entering downtown on weekdays from 6 to 9 a.m. and 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. The transportation authority study is considering whether to recommend a daily cap on fees.
⏩ Ridehail vehicles such as Uber and Lyft would be charged for entering the zone per trip, and the fee is likely to be passed on to passengers.
⏩ The study is weighing additional discounts for drivers who are disabled, downtown commuters who already paid FasTrak tolls by crossing the Golden Gate or Bay bridges, and residents living in the pricing zones. Most prepandemic downtown commuters, though, came from within the city.
The city considered implementing congestion pricing as early as 2004, according to a 2010 transportation authority study that was commissioned after downtown congestion had reached thenrecord levels following the Great Recession.
Back then, it was viewed as a way to manage the gridlock that would come with a growing city and region and reduce pollution and greenhouse gases, according to the study.
Congestion only worsened after the report and reached a peak in 2019 as scores of private and ridehailing vehicles descended into downtown; the program aimed to reduce 2019 congestion levels by 15%.
Less congestion would also mean more reliable public transit that could realize the full potential of transitonly lanes, according to city studies, and help the city reach its increasingly elusive Vision Zero goals of reaching zero pedestrian fatalities.
The issue, though, raises questions about equity, and whether congestion pricing would mean effectively privatizing roads for privileged commuters who could afford the daily fees to enter downtown while pricing out lowerincome drivers.
“I believe that ultimately we will conclude, and should conclude, that congestion pricing does have a role in addressing congestion,” Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said at a County Transportation Authority meeting earlier this month.
Mandelman acknowledged congestion pricing “raises serious equity concerns,” but supported the practice as a possible way to address the “unpleasant” and “unacceptable” levels of congestion reached before the pandemic.
How congestion pricing is structured will affect the everyday lives of hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents. Extensive public outreach is one of the most important steps San Francisco should take in crafting its congestive pricing plan, said Alexandre Bayen, director of UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies.
“How do you engage with the right communities? How do you determine who gets impacted? If you displace people in suburban areas without good alternatives, they might be priced out,” Bayen said. “So I think the difficulty is to find the right questions to ask so that you have truly achieved an inclusive and equitable solution.”
Staff for the SFCTA say they’re doing just that. The latest details in the ongoing study have been informed by public outreach. Before it submits recommendations for the Board of Supervisors to consider, it plans to host virtual town halls, an online public opinion survey and several public committee meetings. The public can submit feedback via email at congestionpricing@sfcta.org.
Wendy Silvani, manager of the Mission Bay Transportation Management Association, told The Chronicle that many of the neighborhood’s residents “had no idea” that congestion pricing could be coming to San Francisco, “and we were part of the zone.”
Silvani, who recently helped organize a virtual information session for Mission Bay residents, said it “really is incumbent on this next round of outreach for the CTA to make sure they’re in all of those bluecollar neighborhoods and explaining this.”
From Seattle to Los Angeles, several of the nation’s largest cities are also weighing the merits of congestion pricing. New York will be the first in the nation to do it in 2023, joining Singapore, Stockholm and London, cities that have enforced congestion pricing for decades.
In Singapore, which Bayen said may have the most technologically advanced congestion-pricing program, vehicles are required to have a device installed that tracks when a vehicle enters the city’s pricing zone. San Francisco is years away from getting to that point.
If the Board of Supervisors approves the transportation authority study’s recommendations at the end of the year, it would trigger another round of studies on how, exactly, the city would enforce congestion pricing. The city would also need approval to do it from the state Legislature.
The possibility of congestion pricing comes at an uncertain time for downtown San Francisco.
Many downtown offices remain empty as employers mull whether to require workers to report in person after more than a year and a half of remote work. Some employers are allowing greater flexibility. Others have said their workers can work from home forever.
Congestion is returning to near prepandemic levels on some city corridors and highways, according to transportation authority data, and its staff said one of the reasons it’s moving forward with a study is because of the potential for congestion to return the way it did after the recession and in 2019.
Silvani said congestion pricing can’t happen without better public transit options. She said efforts should be focused on improving public transit instead of congestion pricing, given the uncertainty of downtown’s recovery.
“This is kind of the wrong time” to be considering congestion pricing, Silvani said. “The parameters are changing, and we don’t know yet how they’re changing. And it’s going to be a while before we do know.”