How Congestion Pricing Could Help the Housing Crisis

Los Angeles is considering congestion pricing, and while the discussion is new and far from approval, Michael Manville of UCLA says that is could ultimately help easy development tension in Los Angeles between developers and the community. Congestion is one of the central arguments against new housing construction, and many residents argue that the city lacks the infrastructure to support more housing. Congestion pricing could be one way to ease traffic in some of the most traveled and densely populated areas of Los Angeles.

“The overarching picture that often escapes people is that the reason we have a housing problem is that we don’t build enough housing,” Manville, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs associate professor of urban planning, tells GlobeSt.com. “If you look at reason why we don’t build enough housing, one of the most common is that people worry about congestion, and they object to new development on the ground that it will make congestion worse.”

Congestion and housing have already been linked together in the housing debate, but Manville doesn’t believe that fighting housing is the best way to battle congestion. “Because we don’t fight congestion where it occurs, which is on the road, and we fight it on public land adjacent to the road, the congestion problem feeds the housing problem,” he says. “If you can demonstrate that you can manage congestion, you might kick one of the legs out of the anti-housing stool and you might make it easier to deliver housing to urban areas.”

Easing congestion and increasing access around the city might also make currently unattractive development sites more appealing. “Congestion is usually worse around the most valuable land, and that is a dis-amenity,” adds Manville. “It makes being there less desirable than it would otherwise be. Central areas of metropolitan regions, as a result, are artificially devalued by the fact that we leave our roads free. If you were to price those roads and make them work better, that dis-amenity would no longer be capitalized into the land value and it would become a little more valuable.”

Along with the initial announcement for congestion pricing, however, has come concern about how the cost would affect the already high cost of living in Los Angeles. “If on top of the high cost of living, you have to spend time in slow traffic that burns through a lot of gasoline and wastes valuable time, then the congestion pricing would be a net benefit,” says Manville. “If those factors were different, then having to drive might be an added cost.”