Attentive readers may have noticed an interesting story in the news last week: The board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority now wants to develop plans for toll roads in Los Angeles County over the next three years.
The timing was curious. Earlier in June, an application from the MTA and other transit agencies in the county had honked out in the first round of a competition for hundreds of millions of federal dollars for toll roads.
The reason: the local proposal sought only to study toll roads, not actually implement them. But the failure in the competition earned the local transit lads some bad press, which may explain last week's sudden turnaround.
Of course, it's hard to blame the transit agencies, which answer to local pols, none of whom seemingly want to pull the trigger on a program that would take money from voters' pockets for using roads that have been free.
As Shakespeare once wrote, "crouch down in fear, and yield."
Things may be changing. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa voiced support last week for the toll plans. His peers in other cities have pushed tolls and congestion pricing -- under which tolls adjust upward at busy times to discourage traffic -- in recent years and the mayor doesn't like to be upstaged.
Is there any place in Los Angeles County where congestion pricing would be easy to implement?
What about Los Angeles International Airport?
We promised in this space last week to propose one place where a toll or congestion pricing might work. We're not saying we're right, but this is an idea that has been thrown around privately by politicians.
The idea is this: Because there is only one way in and out of the central terminal area at LAX, it would be possible to construct toll booths to charge private vehicles entering the main airport route that leads to the terminals.
Theoretically, the toll to enter the airport would be higher during LAX's busiest periods. If it worked, the toll might accomplish two goals: discourage people from driving to the airport and raise money for other airport transportation projects.
And it seemingly would be easier to build toll booths than to construct new lanes on freeways.
More than 25.6 million vehicles entered the central terminal area last year, according to LAX officials, although the data don't show how many of those were private passenger vehicles as opposed to buses, cabs, etc. If a toll were a minimum of $5, and 8 million of those cars were private -- a conservative estimate -- tolling theoretically could raise at least $40 million a year.
