Will congestion charges work (in smaller cities)?

 -- "A Test for Congestion Charges in Smaller Cities" is a Bloomberg CityLab article.

The idea of congestion charges is to assess a daily fee on motor vehicles entering the highest in demand, "most congested" parts of a city, most typically its central business district.  The intent is to use the revenues generated to fund transit and other sustainable mobility improvements, as well as to encourage motor vehicle operators to shift to transit to avoid the fee.

For congestion charges to work in center cities, the business districts can't be susceptible to competition and poaching from neighboring jurisdictions.  

(Separately, some European cities have introduced a separate charge based on CO2 emissions.  See "London introduces Ultra Low Emissions Zone for vehicles with charges up to $130," ABC News.)

FWIW, I don't think congestion charges will work in smaller cities, at least in the US, because for the most part metropolitan areas are super de-concentrated.  And the quality of transit options tends to be sub-par.

The article is about Oxford, England, which is imposing a low emissions vehicle charge, not a congestion charge technically.  But Oxford is probably an exception to the general rule, because of the dominant university.  It's not like Oxford University will move out of Oxford to the suburbs. 

From "Does Polycentric Urban Spatial Development Lead to Less Commuting : A Perspective of Jobs-housing Balance" 

In short the issue has to do with monocentric versus polycentric development patterns.  Monocentric places will be able to impose congestion charges not worrying that it will induce and support business recruiting by alternative commercial districts.  It will be much harder to induce compliance in polycentric areas subject to inter-city competition.  

See Cities in Full for a more detailed discussion of monocentric versus polycentric development patterns wrt both center cities and transit systems.

AP photo, London.

Instead, there is intra-metropolitan competition and the polycentric pattern of business district development--e.g., in the DC area you have business centers in Crystal City (now called National Landing), Rosslyn and Ballston in Arlington County, Alexandria, not just in Potomac Yard/National Landing but elsewhere, multiple centers in Fairfax County but especially Tysons, Reston, and Fair Lakes, Bethesda and the I-270 Corridor in Montgomery County, with lesser centers in Rockville, Silver Spring, and Wheaton, to some extent in New Carrollton in Prince George's County, and independent centers in Loudoun County around Dulles Airport, Ashburn, etc.

Looking west on Lee Highway in Arlington, lines of cars split between taking Interstate 66 or staying on Lee Highway during rush hour on Dec. 4, 2017. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Any of these jurisdictions would be tempted to and would use congestion charges (tolling) in DC as a way to recruit DC-based businesses.  

For example, it is argued that one reason that Virginia has added tolling to I-66, a major route to DC, is to encourage firms to relocate to Northern Virginia from DC, as a way for their employees to be able to avoid driving into DC and paying a toll ("Did Va. Gov. McAuliffe and his transportation team mislead I-66 commuters on tolling? Not really, but his team could have been more clear," Washington Post).

New York City.  As it is, New York City approved a congestion charge, which with the delays as a result of the covid-induced migration from office buildings to working at home, is slated to take effect next year ("Congestion Pricing Is Coming to New York. Everyone Has an Opinion," New York Times).

I'm not sure that post-covid, a congestion charge will work in NYC, the one city heretofore in the U.S. that I thought it would work in.

But I think it should probably be pushed out later, because Manhattan's office districts have been pummeled by that outmigration.  A congestion charge will give non-transit users one more reason not to go back to the office.

And even Manhattan faces competition from other parts of New York City like Long Island City, the suburban office district in Westchester, New York north of the city, districts in Connecticut, and in New Jersey, especially Jersey City, which developed a strong positioning as "back office" support for New York City's financial services businesses (a role first played by Long Island City).

Even Manhattan isn't quite as comparable to London, Stockholm, or Singapore, which don't have the kind of polycentric activity center development pattern common to the US.

Suburban districts may have a better position for imposing congestion charges.  Ironically, it may be places like Tysons in Fairfax County, Virginia (versus DC), Greater Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay region ("Mapping the Polycentric Metropolis: journeys to work in the Bay Area," Under the Raedar) (versus San Francisco), even Bellevue in Suburban Washington (versus Seattle) or the Buckhead District in Atlanta, have a better position for imposing such charges compared to the central business districts (Downtown) in the center cities in those metropolitan areas.

Congestion zones are too small to have the desired effect?  A separate Bloomberg article ("What Comes After London’s Congestion Charge?") argues that the London congestion charge isn't doing enough to limit negative environmental effects, because the zone to which the charge applies is too small relative the London metropolitan area.  It recommends a broader "road journey" charge.