Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Traffic In Downtown Milan Drops As City Starts Charging To Get Cars Into Downtown Area

Say you worked in downtown Spokane but the City started charging about $5 per day just to get into the downtown area? What would you do? Start riding your bike? Walk? Ride the bus? Drive to a parking lot just outside of downtown then walk or ride the bus the rest of the way?

That's what's happening in Milan, Italy where officials are experimenting with 'congestion charging.' From 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. every weekday, you are required to pay about $7.50 just to get your car into the central city zone. And that doesn't include parking fees.

During the first week the new charges were implemented incoming traffic was reduced by 37% compared to the previous week, reducing harmful emissions and traffic congestion.

Here's what the money collected will go to, and other cities that are doing congestion charging.

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About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.