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?

It’s a national issue because as soon as one city tries it out and it turns out to be pretty good and none of the doom scenarios ensue, congestion-charge opponents all over America lose most of their talking points.

Best they can do now is, “Well, we’re not New York.”

> Best they can do now is, “Well, we’re not New York"

But that's a real argument. They're not a $1.3tn economy ($1tn of which is Manhattan alone) [1] with fewer than one car per household (0.26 in Manhattan) [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_New_York_City

[2] https://www.hunterurban.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Car-L...

Some cities are more like New York; they’ll go first. Eventually the argument will have to be, “We’re completely unlike everywhere else in America.”

I dunno, I think there's a hard stop at "having a functioning public transit system". I could imagine DC implementing a congestion charge. Nashville less so.

Sure, but that also drives the question of "why don't we have functioning public transit?" or "why aren't we building out our public transit?".

There will be a stop and balance struck everywhere, but this sort of thing really does make people that deal in the car industry nervous.

I'd gladly ditch my car tomorrow if I could catch a bus within walking distance.

I'm unfortunately 5 miles from the nearest bus stop.

> that also drives the question of "why don't we have functioning public transit?" or "why aren't we building out our public transit?"

The answer to which in many American cities being because there isn’t enough density.

Outside America’s 4 to six largest cities, ditching cars probably doesn’t work.