Making something more expensive will actually lower costs? That only works sometimes if you make something prohibitively expensive that new methods have to be developed. For instance, if you banned horses in cities pre car, that may spur innovation of cars. Don't see how that applies here.

NYC is very mismanaged in terms of cars and parking. Double parking is the norm and the way the city deals with it is to use tickets as a form of rent. Every single delivery truck gets multiple tickets a day and I think they have some deal worked out that they prepay some amount of their tickets. So instead of solving the problem regarding delivery vehicles the city just lets them break the law and fines them.

None of this stuff is meant to be preventative . It's all about money.