Feds endorse highway toll system
By Mark Ginocchio
Staff Writer
Published March 21 2007

WESTPORT - Federal Highway Administration officials yesterday urged state lawmakers to install highway tolls that charge motorists different rates based on peak and off-peak hours.

The tolling method, called congestion or value pricing, helps reduce traffic during rush hour while providing the state with cash for transportation improvements, said Patrick DeCorla-Souza, program manager for the administration's congestion pricing initiative.

Other cities worldwide use the method successfully, and other transportation systems, such as airlines and railroads, already charge varying rates based on peak hours, DeCorla-Souza said at a meeting at Westport Police Department headquarters organized by the South Western Regional Planning Agency.

"People understand that at certain times during the year, certain goods and services are more valuable," DeCorla-Souza said at the event, attended by about 30 municipal leaders and legislators from Fairfield County. "The idea now is to help them understand it in the transportation arena."

Congestion Pricing's Conditional Promise: Promotion of Accessibility or Mobility?
---Jonathan Levine

Concentrations
land use and environmental planning
physical planning and urban design
housing community and economic development
transportation planning
planning in developing countries

Abstract-
The derived nature of transportation demand implies that enhancement of mobility per se is not a reasonable goal for transportation policy; instead, improved mobility is desired to the extent that it furthers accessibility-a goal that can be achieved through a variety of measures. The paper uses the mobility-accessibility distinction to distinguish different implementations of congestion pricing. A mobility-based congestion pricing promises to alleviate congestion but threatens to deteriorate from overall regional accessibility as it accelerates metropolitan deconcentration. In contrast, accessibility-based congestion pricing avoids acceleration of sprawl by incorporating policies to ensure that drivers tolled off roads are replaced with residents and travelers arriving at previously congested areas by other means.