Tim Wolfe lives in West Covina, in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley. As an electronics salesman, his territory is the distant San Fernando Valley, miles to the west.
By his own count, Wolfe spends about half of his workday in his car. The other half is spent with customers. Wolfe seemed the perfect candidate for this hypothetical question:
If the carpool lane on local freeways were converted to a toll lane that guaranteed him a zippier commute, would he pay -- especially if the money went to more mass transit to get cars off the freeway?
"I would use it, but not in every case," he said. "Because I can afford it and I can appreciate the time saved. But I don't believe for a second" -- because of past misuses of transit funds -- "that the money is going to be used for some grand purpose."
The official term for this scenario is congestion pricing. And it could be coming to Los Angeles County soon. Officials here are seeking federal money to put toll lanes initially on three freeways, including the 210 and 10 in the San Gabriel Valley and the 110 south of downtown. The 60 Freeway is next on the list.
The tolls would vary by time of day and be highest during rush hour. Single-occupant cars would probably pay the most to use the lanes.
The local effort got a boost last week when New York City probably forfeited $354 million in federal money after state pols refused to approve a plan to charge an $8 toll to cars entering lower Manhattan. The idea was to reduce air pollution from idling traffic and raise nearly $500 million for mass transit.
So that money is back into play. "It's no secret of our interest in Los Angeles," Tyler Duvall, an acting undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Transportation, told me recently. "L.A. is viewed as a really large example of other cities" -- and, he added, could be a proving ground for congestion pricing.
Why is congestion pricing so popular with transportation officials these days? Think of it this way: To board a bus, you must pay a fare. Many officials think the same should apply to roads, because current gasoline taxes are indirect fees that are insufficient to pay for road fixes. And, besides, gas tax money has been known to disappear into black holes when government runs short on cash.
As a result, many locales are turning to congestion pricing to finance -- key phrase here -- new toll lanes.
