The Second Failure of Congestion Pricing

As the 2023-24 school year drew to a close, the Stuyvesant administration decided to confront one of the most pervasive problems plaguing the school: every time a period ended, the sixth floor halls would flood with an unbelievable number of people, more than the surrounding classrooms could possibly hold. For years, students have cursed sixth floor traffic. But why is it such a problem?

The sixth floor is located directly in the center of the Stuyvesant building, meaning that people are constantly passing through it in order to get to their classes. Not only that, the main staircase and escalator converge in one location, further contributing to overcrowding. The library, which is located on the sixth floor, is a very popular destination for the horde of students who inevitably forget to print their English assignments. There’s a large concentration of students waiting in lines outside their classrooms. Plus, the sophomore bar functions as a car accident as the underclassmen clog up the hallways and passing students stop to watch whatever travesties are being committed there. This confluence of factors has created a perpetual congestion hotspot on the sixth floor.

In order to deal with this issue, Stuyvesant decided to take a revolutionary approach: the administration would impose congestion pricing on the sixth floor. 

They got to work planning the specifics. Peak hours would be defined as any time between the beginning of third and the end of 10th period, while off-peak hours would be all other periods during the day. Students entering the central part of the hallway would have to pay a price proportional to their contribution to sixth floor traffic and their time of entry.

But then the administration ran into a conundrum. Stuyvesant desperately wanted students to pay money, but the DOE refused to allow it. Another ingenious solution was devised: they could charge their students in time, a practice well established by years of teachers giving arduous homework. Of course, they would ensure that that time went towards the good of the community—but how would they go about it?

Every Stuyvesant student knows that Perusall is a terrible website. People spend hours meticulously padding their responses with long, sophisticated filler words, only to be slapped in the face with a 1/3 that drags their average down to a 70. How could Perusall be made infinitely better? The students who enter the sixth floor could replace Perusall’s automatic grading system, ensuring that quality prevails over quantity.

Another universally known fact is that Talos runs using pedal power. How else could it be so slow? The students could pay their congestion pricing fares by pedaling the bicycles, thereby speeding Talos up significantly.

Finally, students could be required to help clean the cafeteria between periods. There would be no more mysterious liquids on the tables, leaving the cafeteria unnaturally immaculate. Even better, they could eat the leftover school lunches, eliminating food waste. And, to top it all off, if a student did not complete their time payment before the end of the year, they would not be able to move on to the next grade.

But how would the administration enforce such strict rules? How would they even know who entered the sixth floor at what time? Well, if you thought the robotics lab was expensive, think again. The administration’s enforcement plan required significant investment, but they were confident that it would be beneficial in the long run.

Cameras equipped with biometric recognition technology were installed throughout the sixth floor and linked to a database containing students’ data. While some students with Talos photos bearing no resemblance to them could slip past the surveillance, most would be tracked effectively. Multiple coders were hired to build a website that would use the cameras to track students’ presence on the sixth floor and notify them of the time they owed the school. Some students were hired and trained to act as traffic controllers in exchange for Celsius variety packs.

The week before school started, everything was in place. The program was all set to go. But then, disaster struck! The English Department revolted, insisting that if the program were implemented, no student would ever want to take an English class and the exigence of the department would be destroyed. As a result, congestion pricing was put on indefinite hold.

So every time you walk through the overcrowded sixth floor, log into Talos, or suffer through a Perusall assignment, just think of what could have been.