Critics of congestion pricing often end up endorsing it. Here's why.

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New York City’s plan to charge most vehicles $15 to enter downtown Manhattan would have eased traffic, reduced pollution and raised billions for public transit. But Gov. Kathy Hochul — in an 11th-hour turnaround — put congestion pricing on hold indefinitely, leaving a $15 billion gap in the city’s transit upgrade plans. Hochul, a Democrat, cited a slow economic recovery from the pandemic and the burden the tolls would place on low-income residents, but sources say she also feared upsetting swing district voters who could decide key elections this fall.

Most people hate the idea of paying more for anything, and top-up plans are no exception. No more than about a quarter of New Yorkers favored the measure, according to a pollwith support that falls among residents of outer districts like Staten Island. Yet widespread opposition, and the political unrest it can create, is a feature, not a bug, of these efforts. In almost every city that has adopted congestion pricing, including London and Stockholmit was extremely unpopular at first.

“Obviously, if people didn’t have to pay a congestion charge before, nobody’s going to say, ‘Yeah, I’d love to pay more,'” said Alina Tuerk, head of strategy and planning at Transport for London, the government agency responsible for the city’s sprawling transport system.

Yet surprisingly, public favor grew in almost all cities as people adapted to the policy and, more importantly, witnessed tangible improvements. Most Londoners, for example, vehemently opposed the idea before it was implemented in 2003. But as many as six in ten people supported it in the first year because they saw almost immediate benefits. Now most people don’t even think about it.

“Because it’s been around for over 20 years, it’s become almost business as usual,” Tuerk said.

Transportation experts say a change in public attitudes requires the fees to actually reduce traffic, improve air quality and fund more climate-friendly modes of transportation. Proponents of New York’s congestion pricing plan, which would have gone into effect on June 30, have claimed it would reduce traffic by 17 percent, reduce particle pollution and greenhouse gas emissions downtown by more than 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively, generating as much as $1 billion annually for public transit. (That money would have been tied up or invested to generate $15 billion to improve transit infrastructure.)

But that’s not always enough, because there’s something more at play: a pesky bit of human psychology called status quo bias. People tend to prefer the current state to a major change regardless of the expected benefits it may bring. And that more often than not leads to them initially opposing congestion pricing, said Jonas Eliasson, director of traffic access at the Swedish Transport Administration.

But that tendency also goes both ways: Once a change occurs, people often learn to accept their new circumstances and eventually view them more positively. In other words, they just get used to it. And once you do, the concept “isn’t so strange anymore,” Eliasson said.

According to a vote of Siena College in April, only 25 percent of New York state voters approved the proposed rate-setting plan, with 63 percent opposed. Many opponents were concerned that the proposal would increase pollution in the outer neighborhoods as vehicles avoided downtown. Others expressed concern about the impact on low-income residents. Powerful interests ranging from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and the state trucking association sued to stop it.

That push eerily echoes early resistance seen overseas. Before London’s policy came into force in early 2003, only 40 percent of residents supported it and Mayor Ken Livingstone predicted a “desperate bloody day” ahead of its implementation. In Stockholm, two-thirds of the population even resisted a six-month trial that was announced in 2002 and started in 2006. “I was actually surprised by not only the strength of the backlash, but also the length of the protest,” Eliasson said. “During this whole time, this was almost in the news every day.”

Opponents raised many of the same objections voiced by New Yorkers. So it was surprising when, shortly after congestion charges were introduced, public attitudes became overwhelmingly positive. In London, almost 60 percent of people supported congestion charges several months after the policy began, with as few as 25 percent of residents opposed. Stockholm saw an even more dramatic transition to around 70 percent in support no later than 2011. (Voters made congestion pricing permanent through a referendum in 2007.)

Many of these skeptics were swayed by the results. London saw dramatic changes: congestion in the center was reduced by 30 percent which Total traffic fell by 15 percent. The city also added 300 buses to the central London network on the day the charge came into force, increasing a shift from driving to public transport.

“We saw bus use increase by about a third, and another 10 percent of people switched from driving to using public transit, walking and biking,” Tuerk said. “It helped create positive attitudes towards the project, because people could see what they were getting out of it.”

Stockholm also saw impressive improvements. Traffic in the city center fell by more than 22 percent and vehicle emissions were reduced by as much as 15 percent.

Both cities used the proceeds to invest heavily in public transit and other transportation infrastructure, including roads, bridges, sidewalks, and bike lanes. But one of the biggest benefits has been a shift in cultural norms around transportation and charging for a public good. – People have now on a subconscious level accepted that street space is something that can actually be priced, just as you can have traffic signals and speed limits and parking fees, says Eliasson. “You can debate whether they should be higher or lower, whether they should be adjusted — but the sort of moral question of whether streets can be priced, that’s not really an issue anymore.”

Benefits aside, researchers have found that status quo bias is one of the biggest reasons attitudes change over time. In a way, people accept the idea and will embrace it. A study in Germany found that drivers who thought a congestion charge was imminent were more likely to see it positively, partly because people find it uncomfortable to reject their current reality. Another study in Gothenburg, Sweden, found that status quo bias played the biggest role to increase support for the city’s congestion pricing plan upon introduction. A similar phenomenon has played out in Stockholm and other cities around the world, Eliasson said.

“If you don’t have congestion pricing, you have the psychological tendency to say that things are relatively good as they are; I don’t want to change things,” says Eliasson, who co-authored the study in Gothenburg and others on the subject. But when once the policy goes into effect, people change their thinking to, “Now we have congestion pricing, I like it the way we have it now, why should we change everything,” Eliasson said. Human nature to favor the status quo means that politicians “will always face this resistance to changing anything.”

That makes strong political leadership and a willingness to endure inevitable short-term opposition critical to the success of bold moves like congestion pricing. Livingstone gave decisive support in London, while the proposal in Stockholm was supported by the Swedish Social Democratic Party and other centre-left political parties.

That level of support is missing in the Empire State and the Big Apple. Once, Hochul rumbled in her support, New York City Mayor Eric Adams supported her decision and said the city will find other ways to fund now-delayed transit infrastructure projects. In the meantime some 700,000 vehicles continue to crowd into Manhattan every weekday.

Critics of congestion pricing often end up endorsing it. Here’s why.

Critics of congestion pricing often end up endorsing it. Here’s why.