If I recall correctly, the main arguments is that it basically just turns into another tax and doesn't necessarily improve congestion. In theory, for congestion pricing to work, at least in the short run, you want people with flexible schedules or less "important" reasons to be on the road to reschedule or cancel their trips for everyone else. The problem is that the congestion taxes (so far) don't end up paying people for driving another time. And they don't necessarily pay for new and better infrastructure.
If it costs me a $20 congestion charge to commute to work, but a $10 train ticket or $4 bus ride, those cheaper alternatives become viable options even if they increase total travel time.
This would force employers to look at flexible hours, work from home, etc., to keep employees.
Ive often thought how strange it is that the marginal use of a road is free...which can cause waste, abuse of the commons, etc.
It's also strange to be on a high floor in SF, CHI, NYC, etc., And look down at the grid of streets that could be valuable real estate...yet something like 50% of all and (and the air space above) is dedicated to hundred-year-old technology!
People are no more rational about making small purchases than they are about providing the necessary funds through taxation.
I suspect most people intuitively grasp that having freely accessible public roadways is well worth the cost.
Costing employee commute time hasn't kindled such a change. Why would employee taxes do it?
A simple mechanism might be to start classifying commuting as a form of work for hire and require compensation (perhaps at half rate?) for the work.
However, it could be done such that residents are exempt and even strayers will only get charged after X trips.
The kind of thinking that concludes that it's somehow wrong to charge two people with differing incomes the same amount of money for the same good is the kind of thinking that taken to its logical conclusion leads us to forcible leveling of material wealth and central economic planning. The experience of the 20th century demonstrates that this approach does not work.
It's almost like some purchases function differently than others, and reasonable people might choose situationally varying models/incentives when considering social policy decisions.
What? We subsidize food all the time.
Edit: Funding road maintenance. Perhaps there should be another way to determine who pays for and funds new roads.
An 18-wheeler isn't on a sightseeing trip; it's transporting something of value somewhere that can't get from A to B otherwise.
Any given sedan on the other hand is typically transporting a single person that can either use different modes of transportation or simply opt not to go from A to B.
Why should the 18-wheeler be taxed progressively higher? It ultimately generates more tax revenue already than the sedan, and there are no realistic alternatives at this point in time.
Ultimately I like the idea of using weight. We have weigh-in-motion scales already, and the relationship between weight and road damage is well understood.
More broadly, trying to figure out a priori what is and is not useful for society is pointless. Moralizing economic decisions never works.
Just charge people for the costs they incur and the optimally beneficial configuration will emerge on its own.
And I'd add that I think the notion that society runs on incentives for performance is a very narrow view. How many people here picked software as a profession because it would maximize lifetime income, versus it being a thing that they really loved? It's always some of both, surely. And more.
2. Why do people always jump to thinking road pricing will be extremely expensive? Outside of rush hours, it would probably still be free almost everywhere, and it should offset other road financing costs motorist - rich and poor - currently pay.
[0] http://www.nascsp.org/data/files/csbg_publications/issue_bri...