Bryson-endorser Robert Poole
AD73: Anna Bryson Right About Need for Congestion Pricing
By Ze’ev Wurman, Policy Adviser, Anna Bryson for State Assembly 2014
(This is the 15th in a series of blog posts “Setting the Record Straight on Anna Bryson”)
William Vickrey may have won a Nobel Prize in economics for studying congestion pricing. But that didn’t stopped blogger Aaron Park (4/24/14, 5/25/14) from attacking Anna’s advocacy of using congestion pricing on California roads
Anna has said: “The current ‘free’ travel on highways in California (and much of the rest of America) is just like the distribution of ‘free’ (but unavailable) bread in Communist Russia.“
During the campaign, Anna argued that “we need policies that spread traffic across the whole day and encourage people who don’t need to move at rush hour to travel at alternative times.”
She said she would “consider rush-hour pricing in historically congested areas.”
She favored considering adding toll lanes and new toll roads.
Book by Gabriel Roth, “Roads in a Market Society”
Anna wrote: “I recently set forth the policy of anti-congestion pricing at a candidate’s forum sponsored by the Orange County Taxpayers Association. My opponent [Bill Brough] was [a bit] dumbfounded. [Anna held up and cited the book “Roads in a Market Economy” by economist Gabriel Roth during her presentation at the forum.]
“Commuters cut 30 minutes off commute times with anti-congestion pricing. The middle-class uses such highway lanes – the five most frequent car models are Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Nissan Ultima, Toyota Corolla, and Honda Civic. Current HOV ‘diamond lanes’ in Orange County are too slow and too crowded at rush hour. Let’s open them up with anti-congestion pricing.”
Anna was endorsed for the State Assembly by Robert W. Poole of the free-market Reason Foundation, who is one of the nation’s leading analysts of toll roads and congestion pricing.
Clearly, candidate Bill Brough and supportive blogger Aaron Park do not know much about the economics of road transportation.
Some recent short articles on congestion pricing and related road transportation issues:
- http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lanes-613654-hot-toll.html
- http://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/
- http://reason.org/news/show/conservatives-toll-lanes-us-highway
Bio of Nobel Laureate William Vickrey that discusses his work on congestion pricing and toll roads: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Vickrey.html
Ze’ev Wurman is an executive with a Silicon Valley software company and was a senior adviser in the U.S. Department of Education during the George W. Bush administration. He is one of the nation’s leading opponents of the Common Core national curriculum-content standards.