Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

> Evidence has mounted that the program so far is achieving its two main goals — reducing congestion

It's reducing congestion by removing the people who don't want to pay $9 to drive to town.

Paying to be there: what a lovely concept! It works wonders for reducing density, too. Fewer people live in a desirable area, and they are richer and more pleasant, what are the downsides?

Maybe it should not be linked to affordability; it should be a lottery, for fairness.

For instance, if your license plate ends with certain numbers or letters (changing daily, and known months in advance for any given day), you don't get to drive into town.

Knowing well in advance the days when your car is admissible into the city allows you to plan. E.g. reschedule certain appointments so they occur on an allowed day, or else make alternative transportation plans.

Imperfections in lottery systems:

- Not fair toward people who often have to drive to town for whatever reason: they drive everyday or many days out of the week or month. Still translates to an extra cost, like driving to some parking lot outside of the city core, paying for parking there, and then paying for transit into the city. This could be people who are not well off: they work some job in the city that is not well paid, and have to live far away. In America "have car" != "affluent".

- Unfair advantage enjoyed by people who own multiple vehicles; we have not entirely eliminated pay-to-drive-here.

Obviously we would like to have high quality public transportation that makes the city easily accessible to people of all economic classes. See European cities for examples.

Our infrastructure isn't there yet. We are doing poorly. This is a first step. Yes, it will favor the wealthy for now. But its longterm effects will be to favor everyone. Stop being shortsighted. I don't believe that the ends always justify the means, but this is not a particularly horrible short-term sacrifice to make.