Edward Carpenter, The Examiner
SAN FRANCISCO - The success in Stockholm of a program to charge drivers fees for heading into the highly congested heart of the city could bode well for a similar proposal in San Francisco, according to officials. Since being implemented on Jan. 6, downtown traffic in Sweden’s capital has plunged 25 percent and transit usage has increased by about 40,000 riders per day, dramatically decreasing rush-hour travel times, data released today shows.
“It’s fabulous,” said San Francisco County Transportation Authority Executive Director Jose Luis Moscovich, who hopes a similar system might be implemented in The City. The transit authority in January won a $1 million federal grant and has contributed another $200,000 toward studying the feasibility of so-called congestion pricing over an 18-month period. While the financial benefits to Stockholm aren’t known yet, London — which began operating a flat-fee system in 2002 — takes in about $350 million a year using congestion pricing, $175 million of which goes directly into public transportation.
“The idea is to put [the money from the fees] right back into public transportation,” Moscovich said. “If we make it more expensive to take a car then we have to provide [people] other choices, or else we’re imposing a hardship and we don’t want to do that.”
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