Yosef Sheffi, Professor of Engineering Systems and Director, Center for Transportation and Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
Paul Scapicchio, Boston City Councilor and Chairman of the Committee on Aviation and Transportation.
Yosef Sheffi: Urban transportation used to be my thing at the start of my career. But I have no interest in working in research when the answer is known.
When something is "free", it will be overused. I stopped working in the field because it is not a technological problem but a political problem. I was at Cambridge University in England just when they were starting congestion pricing, just because there will be fewer cards, but better traffic.
They are now charging $16 a day to drive to central London because they are using the revenue [for transportation]. Clearly, in the City of Boston, it is not going to reduce the national oil consumption, but it is a leadership position. It can show the way how our country consumes less oil.
I was amazed how much hate mail I got when I wrote the article in the Globe. It became very personal. There are fair criticisms. There was fear in London that business would go down. But it went up. But there must be an alternative [to provide access]. In London, there is a cordon around downtown; one is charged £4 if he passes it. They also have prepaid passes. There is also fear of privacy issues. According to the CEO of Sun Microsystems, "You have no privacy in today's age. Get over it." There is nowhere in London you can avoid getting photographed and recorded.
There are some problems that will take place, such as parking operators.
It is my guess there should be a $10 charge [in Boston]. It would change behavior.
Paul Scapicchio: Background of Boston Latin School, Harvard, Northeastern University and Tufts. He has worked at Brown, Rudnick [which sponsors this meeting].
Why would a city councilor care about this? My district goes from the Airport through the Big Dig to South Station. I thank the professor, since all that hate mail I was getting is [now] going to him. I had been looking at congestion planning. Someone sent me a report as to what London was doing. I submitted it to the City Council. The next morning the television news was all over on it. The City should look at this. I have always been a bit of a provocateur. The City should be a national leader.
We have held on because of the types of people who lived here. We were always a city thinking forward and taking advantage of our brain power. In the Deloitte and Touche study, it said it needs someone in government to initiate the question. In London, the mayoral candidate ran on the issue.
Eighty percent of the people who e-mail me were against it. Now it is more balanced. There are differences with London. David Luberoff of the Harvard Business School wants to discuss this. The Boston Transportation Dept. is taking this up.
Q (Dan Wilson, Move Mass.) How would we do this?
A (Scapicchio) Anything we do has to go through the state legislature. We are going to have to explore it.
Q (Alan MacDonald) What about a mandate for everyone to pay, rather than to pay for entry from certain roads?
A We haven't looked in that detail. We have to look at [the] alternative, public transportation.
What we propose is a small zone, maybe a square mile. But the media made it sound like there would be toll booths around the town.
Q (Bob Sturgis) Is congestion a good thing?
A Density is a good thing. We supersize our houses. Congestion meaning people living in pockets is good, but rather sprawl is not good.
Q What was the e-mail?
A Not polite. But an inquisitiveness downtown. Six of the state's worst intersections were downtown. People could see the advantage. In the City, there is 70% support. In Cambridge, unanimous support.
Q [What about a] "fare" Lexus Lane: Drivers would pay more, granting credits to slow right hand drivers?
A With technology, it is amazing what you can do.
Q Is there a way we can package this as a transportation PLAN?
A Absolutely. Show people that the revenues will go to public transportation. The problem is that the MBTA is one entity, the Mass. Turnpike Authority another entity. It is difficult.
Q (Curtis Davis) Have you seen examples of how it is developed comprehensively and with policies evening the costs of transportation? Rather than people being boxed in or constrained?
A That how you want to position us. In London, they didn't have a chance to do it. The just implemented it quickly. In one year. Do it; do it right away.
Q Can we use "global warming" or "global resiliency"?
A I am searching for this. Last week a study was released that Boston has the seventh most congested traffic in the country. But I can't bring this up as a Boston city councilor.
Q When you look at how the T runs out of the city, you see [gateways] at Alewife or Quincy. How do your approach this, using the T to spearhead this?
A Congestion is a tremendous problem at the T. They can't pay for it. How do we pay for it? It can't come from City Hall. We get a vituperative reply from the Governor.
Q (Vineet Gupta, Boston Transportation Dept.) Where would the boundary go?
Comment (Dan Wilson) This is a question for you.
Gupta: Thirty percent of daily trips are for Boston. In the spirit of this being a discussion, we have been talking on the supply side, i.e. more parking.
A But we have been doing this $29 parking; every inch of the City has a parking meter.
Q To build on this, we have a cap on PUBLIC parking garages, but as we build downtown, these facilities are providing their own parking. Perhaps we can do something with Zip Cars.
A (Gupta) But there are not new office buildings in Boston, rather residential parking.
Q What about the administrative costs of a camera-based system—Would this [be self-defeating]?
A (Sheffi) The technology now permits this. You can change the price over the course of the day automatically. The camera is used for enforcement exclusively.
Because of the technology, London wanted to do it right away.
(Scapicchio) Because of the technology, 28 people in total run Zip Car.
(Sheffi) It is amazingly inexpensive.
Q (Richard Garver) What is the problem we are addressing? It is in the suburbs, not here. You want to reduce sprawl. The businesses are building in the suburbs. What you might want to do is charge for driving out there.
What you need is a one-term Democratic governor.
A (Sheffi) It is tough to provide an alternative in the suburbs because of the spread. There is poor public transportation there.
(Schapicchio) Route 128 is a problem, a six-mile [?-ed.] belt around the City of Boston.
Q Terminology. We don't use the term congestion pricing any more. It sounds like a tax. We call it “value pricing”. You are getting some value out of this.
A (Schapicchio) You bring up an important point. In other cities, they build their own trolley line. People know that a tax would go directly to transportation.
Comment (from Somerville): [There could be] A $4 toll going in to Boston or a 10¢ gas tax. But people are paying for lattes.
Suggestion: (1) Make a survey of tolls around the country.
(2) You focus on the health costs; the EPA is studying this. Norfolk and Middlesex counties are suffering from premature deaths.
The benefit is great from getting this under control.
Comment: A year or two ago, a friend from Canada came in by plane and had to drive to Wilmington. Their first statement: "Why would anyone want to live here?"
Perhaps people would want to pay more to have a better life experience.
Q Other parts of the country are attracting people who care about quality of life and lack of pollution. Some companies send people around the country. But they don't send them to Portland, Oregon, because they stay there.
What are the key things about Boston? The quality of life.
Who will contribute to this? Everyone will suffer if people choose not to live here.
A (Schapicchio) People are moving out. They are making the same wages, but getting much more for it.
Q This is a great idea: To sell this is an economic answer. People who live outside the city and drive in are getting a free ride so to speak.
As an MBTA employee, it is a packaging problem: People who are sending you hate mail see no alternative. You impose a fee, but there is a long time to reflect in new transit terminals.
Q There is less and less transportation funding.
A Other cities expand outward, but if you look at a space photo, you see other cities sharing the same demographic[s]…
Q And those other cities have no developable area.
Q People are sheepish. The average person asks why should I pay for this when I already pay an excise tax. And now I am paying for this again. You have to re-tool peoples' minds.
Curtis Davis: We are a forum for dialogue. We have to know how to approach this. In London, they change their boundaries every fourteen or fifteen years. We cannot do this.
There is a transportation plan from the Governor on the table now.
The real question is not the politicians, rather we have to lead the leaders. We need political structures. We need regional governance, not regional governments. We won't have country again.