Congestion Pricing: The Vision & The Implementation

2024 Kheel Lecture on Transportation Policy

Congestion Pricing: The Vision & The Implementation

Please join us for the Theodore Kheel Transportation Policy Lecture featuring an in-depth and timely discussion of congestion pricing. Marking the 110^th anniversary of Mr. Kheel’s birth, and convening top transportation policy experts from across the city, the panel will address the tolling plan’s expected benefits, potential downsides, and approaches to its implementation.

Scheduled to be enacted as early as June of this year, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s congestion pricing plan would charge most passenger cars $15 a day to enter any part of Manhattan below 60^th Street—with higher tolls for commercial vehicles still a possibility. Proponents of the plan maintain that it will alleviate traffic while providing the MTA a new income stream to fund needed improvements to the mass transit system. Meanwhile, opponents are skeptical of the plan’s efficacy, with New Jersey elected officials leading the charge to squash it. The U.S. District Court in Newark, NJ is set to rule on the fate of the plan by early June.

Participants include:

• David Jones, President and CEO, Community Services Society
• Juliette Michaelson, Deputy Chief, Policy & External Relations, MTA
• Cristyne Nicholas, Chair, Broadway Association & CEO, Nicholas & Lence Communications
• Betsy Plum, Executive Director, Riders Alliance
• Samuel Schwartz, 2024 Theodore Kheel Transportation Fellow & CEO of Samuel Schwartz Pedestrian Traffic Management Services Inc.

The panel discussion is a signature event of the Theodore Kheel Fellowship in Transportation Policy at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. The late Mr. Kheel was a major advocate for public transit and saw transportation as a civil rights issue.