In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

I'm curious how congestion pricing became a national issue. The strength of conviction people have about this policy–almost either way, but certainly among those against–seems to scale with distance from the city.

Nobody in Idaho gets uppity about New Jersey's tolls. But they have strong, knowledge-free, almost identity-defining opinions about congestion charges.

Is it because it's a policy that's worked in Europe and Asia and is thus seen as foreign? Or because it's New York doing it, so it's branded as a tax, versus market-rate access or whatever we'd be calling it if this were done in Miami?

Feels like this is the curse of modern US politics. I'm convinced the majority of people that "want high speed rail in CA" don't live in CA. Further away they live, the stronger they will argue for why we should have it.

You run in very different social circles than I do. The only complaint I have ever heard about California's high speed rail plan (as a life-long Bay Area resident) is how damn long it's taking because of the yokels claiming it'll annoy their cows and almonds.

My assertion is most people arguing online about this do not live near the impacted areas. Happy to be proven wrong on this. I just have a lot of sour taste to the whole thing with how many people constantly harp on public transit, but then want me to see their brand new car.

Two things can be true:

1) I wish we had better rail transit in the bay area and to the areas surrounding the bay

2) I have to own a car to get to places in Northern California

These don't seem like remotely contradictory positions.

Largely fair. Ish. If you are dreaming of Tokyo level public transit, though, you are dreaming of far fewer cars for the people that live there.