The Brian Lehrer Show

What London Can Teach NYC About Congestion Pricing

05.23.2019 - By WNYCPlay

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New York City will make history when it becomes the first city in the country to implement congestion pricing. Bobby Cuza, political reporter for NY1, and Tony Travers, visiting professor in the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Department of Government and Director of LSE London, talk about what New Yorkers can learn from London, a city where congestion pricing has been around since 2003. 

"In a city, you either ration by queuing or you ration by a price system," says Tony Travers from @LSEGovernment on congestion pricing. "We do most things in the market by pricing but we don’t do with road space, we tend to do it in a rather more Soviet way, by queuing."

— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) May 23, 2019

"People don’t like to be charged for something that they used to get for free, but people will adapt to the status quo," says @bcuza on what he learned from London about congestion pricing. "If it raises money and gets cars off the road, people will come to accept it."

— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) May 23, 2019

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