Drivers in and around D.C. individually spent 70 hours stuck in traffic last year. Fittingly enough, a report considering options of how to decrease congestion in D.C. had been stuck in its own seemingly interminable political traffic – until now.
Mayor Muriel Bowser unexpectedly released a report this week assessing whether D.C. should implement New York-style congestion pricing in the city’s downtown core. The publication was as sudden as it was surprising; it has been kept under lock and key since it was completed five years ago.
It’s often said that when a government doesn’t want to do something, it studies it to death. Here, Bowser didn’t want congestion pricing in D.C., but instead of merely studying it forever, she buried the study altogether. There appears to be a pretty simple reason why: The report painted a positive picture, from less traffic to more revenue for the city. But then why release it now?
In short: an election year and a lawsuit.
Back in 2019, the D.C. Council ordered the Department of Transportation to study the effects of charging drivers for coming downtown. A congestion charge had just been given its first approval in New York City (though it didn’t actually take effect until 2025), renewing attention on the practice. The report was finished two years later, but never saw the light of day.
It wasn’t for lack of trying by lawmakers. In 2023, the council legislated that if the report wasn’t made public, lawmakers would restrict the Department of Transportation’s ability to shift funding among capital projects. But that threat was ignored, and it remained buried – until this week.
The 101-page report contemplated a number of congestion pricing models, from charging a flat fee to enter downtown D.C. on weekdays (as the system works in New York City) to charging drivers for every minute they spend in the area. It also considered placing tolls on entry points to the city and increasing the prices of the area’s on-street parking.
Depending on the model, the analysis found the city would bring in anywhere from $122 million to $667 million in annual revenue, traffic volumes could decrease up to 11 percent, transit use would jump (by almost 25 percent in the most optimistic scenario), and people who still decided to drive would save up to 24 hours of time lost in traffic each year.
In a letter to the council, though, Bowser said the report suffered from “significant methodological flaws” and relied on pre-pandemic traffic data. She also called it the “wrong policy at the wrong time,” as D.C. suffers through cuts to the federal workforce and post-pandemic work-from-home habits remain hard to fully abandon.
“Downtown D.C. is an invaluable part of Washington’s identity and economic vibrancy, but it is not Midtown Manhattan,” she wrote. “While some may have an emotional appeal to using a congestion tax to raise revenue and financially penalize cars on our roadways, it is antithetical to downtown D.C.’s recovery and ignores the structural changes in how people work and visit Washington.”
As to the why of releasing the report now, Bowser said it had “taken on a certain mythology among some, which I wish to dispel” and that she was hoping to dissuade lawmakers from considering congestion pricing as a solution to the city’s ongoing budget challenges.
Both claims don’t really pass the smell test. First off, if there was ever any “mythology” around this report, it’s largely because it was hidden from public view for so long. And second, no one on the council has been discussing congestion pricing as a financial salve. But you know who has? The candidates looking to succeed Bowser.
In written answers to a Greater Greater Washington candidate questionnaire, mayoral contenders Kenyan McDuffie, Gary Goodweather, and Janeese Lewis George all said they would implement congestion pricing if given the opportunity.
By releasing the report now, Bowser had the chance to at least reclaim the narrative around whether a congestion price is a wise choice or not. And she had an impending deadline to do so: Last year, Greater Greater Washington sued the city for refusing to release the report to the public, and a court hearing was set for later this month. Bowser took control of something a judge probably would have ordered her to do.
Of course, the release of a five-year-old report and an impending change in power doesn’t mean congestion pricing is anywhere close.
“We are a long, long way away from it being in effect here,” wrote Greater Greater Washington’s executive director, Chelsea Allinger, deputy director Caitlin Rogger, and policy director, Alex Baca, this week. “Further study to determine the best possible scenario is badly needed. Legal approvals will take years. So will procuring the proper payment technology. All we’ve asked is for the District to begin this work today, not at an indeterminate ‘right’ time – and to share research with the residents whose tax dollars made it possible.”
That same sentiment was echoed by Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the council’s transportation committee, when I called him earlier this week. "If all our mayoral candidates are looking at it as an option, that says to me the conversation may happen in future budgets," he said. "Why has the mayor been so afraid to have this conversation over the last three years? It seems weird."
The D.C. Council is suing Bowser over budget documents
Speaking of information Bowser doesn’t want to turn over, a fight between her and the council over budget documents is headed to court.
Last month we told you about the brewing battle, which involves budget enhancement requests, documents that city agencies send the mayor’s office early in the budget season to detail how much money they think they need. The council has been asking for them for a while, and they say a D.C. law requires that the mayor turn them over. But she hasn’t, arguing that they are private internal deliberations.
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson is done with waiting and hoping. Last week, he quietly sued the mayor in D.C. Superior Court, asking that a judge require her to turn them over. The council argues that Bowser is “unduly burdening and impermissibly interfering with the Council’s core legislative function of enacting the annual budget for the District.”
Now, all of this is relatively wonky, but it also stands out because the council doesn’t often fight back like this.
Lawmakers frequently complain that Bowser simply doesn’t do things they mandate; see the congestion pricing report, for one, or when the mayor initially refused a council order that she spend additional money on food benefits for low-income residents in 2024. Earlier this year, some councilmembers were miffed at why Bowser wasn’t spending $52 million in additional money for specific programs they had set out in law; she basically told them that while she was required her to spend the money, it didn’t specify by when.
It’s also an interesting fight for Bowser to wage, because it really hasn’t gone her way before. In a related situation, in 2020 a public interest law firm sued to gain access to the same documents. She refused, the court fight dragged on over five years, and her office lost. They only agreed to comply earlier this year, when a D.C. judge held them in contempt for not initially doing so.
Martin is a longtime reporter and editor in D.C. He formerly worked for WAMU 88.5 and DCist.com, and has contributed to the Washington City Paper and other publications. He's been in D.C. for 25 years, and tries to ride his bike everywhere he can.
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