American cities are shaped by many small choices made over many years: building a park here, laying a sewer line there, rezoning this business district, redesigning that road.
But every once in a while, big decisions are made — like reversing the flow of the Chicago River, building the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, or moving highways underground in Boston’s Big Dig — that change what’s possible for years to come, altering urban growth, economic prospects, or the very nature of public space.
Supporters of congestion pricing say the policy could have been such a turning point in New York, promising not only new revenue for mass transit agencies but also a fundamentally new approach to curbing the costs of driving in America’s urban centers.
Gov. Kathy Hawkle’s decision to halt it may also be remembered as a turning point.
“Manhattan below 60th Street is essentially an invention for human prosperity,” said Tom Wright, CEO of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit that has pushed for congestion pricing. “It’s a jobs and creativity engine, it employs millions of people, and it’s growing.”
The number of jobs in Manhattan, most of which are in crowded areas, grew 20% in the decade before the pandemic (during which time the number of people living in Lower Manhattan also grew).
“This growth won’t continue without continued investment in our transportation system,” Wright said.
Polls show congestion pricing is unpopular, and some supporters have said they would revise the details, but canceling it wouldn’t change the fact that it’s impractical for workers who will create 500,000 new jobs to drive to Manhattan to develop ideas, earn money, and raise their families, even if many of them work from home a few days a week.
Congestion pricing marks a sea change in American cities’ century-old relationship with the car. Over the past two decades, many cities have tried to make alternatives to driving, like buses and bicycles, more attractive, but few have tried to make driving less attractive.
“If there’s any American city that’s the perfect testbed for congestion pricing, it’s New York,” says Margaret O’Mara, a historian at the University of Washington.
At least for now, the failure of that strategy where it was most viable will likely make other American cities less likely to try something similar.
Beyond New York, urban history is filled with pivotal moments that didn’t become clear until years later.
St. Louis city leaders saw the railroad approaching in the 1850s, choosing instead to continue steamboat commerce on the Mississippi River, a decision that led to Chicago soon overtaking St. Louis as the economic center of the Midwest. Chicago successfully reversed the river’s flow in 1900, protecting Lake Michigan’s drinking water (and the region’s future) from the city’s sewage and industrial waste.
In the 1930s, San Antonio began redesigning a flood-prone bend in its downtown river into a beautiful riverfront promenade, laying the foundations for what would become the city’s major tourist attraction decades later. After fierce competition, Dallas and Fort Worth agreed to build a joint airport, which opened in 1973, spurring growth in the region and solidifying its position as a hub of an increasingly global economy.
Boston went to an infamously time-consuming and expensive effort to bury a six-lane elevated highway across its downtown and cover it at street level with a now-beloved linear park, the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The project reconnected parts of the city that had been divided by the highway, boosted property values, and helped revive downtown; buildings that once faced away from the ugly highway now face the park.
“It was a total transformation,” said Anthony Flynt, a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy who covered the Big Dig as a longtime reporter for the Boston Globe. “We couldn’t have known exactly that in 1982, and there are still people who complain and are very skeptical of the whole thing, but the city is going to be very different going forward as a result of this decision.”
Flint points out that the Big Dig happened because of earlier decisions. do not have To build something else. In the 1950s and 1960s, Boston city planners, like many other American cities at the time, had lobbied to build another freeway zone within the city. Massachusetts Governor Francis Sargent balked at the plan, instead urging that federal highway funds be redirected to public transportation projects. A movement to rethink transportation priorities in the region then emerged, and the Big Dig was born.
Not all urban turning points have to do with traffic: damming or diverting rivers for drinking water has also influenced the fate of cities, as have decisions to preserve distinctive open spaces. Apart from physical infrastructure, some policies have also been turning points, such as California’s Proposition 13, passed in 1978, which limited property taxes that fund schools and shape the housing market.
But it is precisely because of its function of connecting or disconnecting people that transit once again becomes a powerful force in shaping cities—on a scale and with a radically different effect than building a new stadium or convention center, says Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University.
This is another way that congestion pricing might have made a difference beyond the new subway signals and station elevators that the revenue would have paid for. “I don’t think you can overstate the impact that mass transit has had on New York,” says historian Kenneth T. Jackson. “And that’s why this city is so exciting.”
Public transportation allows more people to get together to work, eat, visit museums, and more than if everyone were to drive.
Some historians have noted that it’s difficult to find historical parallels to the choice point New York is reaching now, especially given the potential impact of Hockle’s actions to end congestion pricing. Most of these other important decisions weren’t made by a single person alone (Chris Christie and the Hudson River Tunnel come to mind). Many had masterminds: Robert H.H. Hagman conceived the San Antonio Riverwalk, and Fred Salvucci believed the Big Dig was feasible. But history is often driven by the will of multiple people.
As time goes on, it becomes easier to say why the highway was so important. was Constructed rivers and was Robert Self, a historian at Brown University, said it’s hard to prove the impact of the rescinded policy. He believes Hokele’s decision was shortsighted and would have taken away benefits from the city. But he added that because the road hasn’t been built yet, it’s hard to know for sure. It was photographed.
