Washington, D.C., officials have asked for federal funding to explore ways to reduce traffic in the capital city, including congestion-pricing tolls on city roads and bridges, reports Eric Weiss with the Washington Post.
The idea is very much in the conceptual stage — but it puts liberal Washington (John Kerry 90%, George Bush 9%) ahead of Virginia, where the only discussion of congestion pricing occurs deep in the bowels of the Virginia Department of Transportation and was an option studiously ignored by Virginia’s putatively market-oriented politicians throughout the extended transportation-funding debate.
Following in the footsteps of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who pointed to the examples of London and Stockholm as major cities using congestion pricing, Washington Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said last week that a London-style approach was a “good idea” that warranted a closer look.
