Hicks Tricks: Journalist Offers Congestion Pricing Compromise That Just Might Work, Komanoff Says

Veteran transportation reporter Nolan Hicks just threw Gov. Hochul a bone.

Writing in Curbed on Thursday, the former Post reporter (laid off for doing too good a job) tried to give the gridlock governor a way forward from her indefinite pause of congestion pricing — which she said was too expensive for working people,

Hicks’s plan? Keep the $15 toll peak hour toll, but scale it back to weekdays between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. instead of 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. In addition, Hicks would expand the credit that drivers would receive when they use the already-tolled Midtown or Battery tunnels so that they get a full credit instead of a partial one. And the plan would allow drivers to avoid being tolled if all they are doing is entering the tolling zone simply to loop around and exit it — such as drivers exiting the West Side Highway to get to the Lincoln Tunnel.

“Data show that this shorter peak-tolling period would still cover the bulk of the traffic south of 60th Street (407,000 of the 633,000 vehicles per day on average, down from 522,000) and the busiest traffic periods of the day (roughly noon to 2 p.m., though that varies from year to year),” Hicks wrote. “The change would still clearly send the signal that commuting to Manhattan by car during the day is a luxury good but, as in London, also acknowledges that transit may not suit people working an evening shift or with a long, late trip home after dinner and a show.”

But can it work? Can the Hicks Trick still raise enough money to fund $15 billion in MTA renovations and reduce traffic — the main goals of congestion pricing? Traffic modeling expert Charles Komanoff says it can.

“The bottom line is that net revenue from his scheme would be $1.16 billion,” said Komanoff, who ran the numbers through his famed Balanced Transportation Analyzer [Excel]. (Hicks did not say what his off-peak toll would be, but Komanoff modeled a weekend peak toll of $12. Off-peak tolls would remain at $3.75.)

In addition, Komanoff found that the improvement in average daytime travel speeds in the central business district — a measure of reduced congestion — would decline from the predicted 15.7 percent under the paused plan to 12.9 percent.

“That’s a drop of 18 percent from the MTA’s number, but 12.9 percent faster travel is still quite respectable,” Komanoff said.

In other words, there’s a way forward to “save” congestion pricing, yet let Hochul still claim a victory for “the working man and woman.”

“It’s not a perfect set of changes,” Hicks admitted. “But it might get Hochul to a yes, especially when the alternative is months of litigation and a broke MTA — and, Albany being Albany, the odds aren’t zero we end up financing the latter by putting a casino in every neighborhood. And I’m only mildly exaggerating on that last one.

“This isn’t about policy at this point. It’s about politics,” he concluded. “Politics is about winning — and more importantly, letting everyone involved plausibly claim to have won. … Advocates should make the offer. Hochul should take the deal.”