I don’t personally see the congestion charge as dishonest. You can see it as a quasi-tax, certainly, but provisions like off peaking pricing and credit for using the tunnels means that it has positive side effects a straightforward tax wouldn’t.
In my book, negative externalities are worse than taxes. If we agree that a car driving in Lower Manhattan inflicts a non-trivial cost on everyone else, then not taxing it leads to socially inefficient outcomes.
Effectively, locals are paying a price either way - either by having their bus moving slower, inhaling fumes, etc, or by buying goods and services that reflect congestion pricing. The difference is that congestion pricing aligns incentives - for instance, delivery drivers may choose to travel to Manhattan during the off-peak hours whereas in the status quo they do not care at all about inconveniencing others.
Thought experiment: If we could somehow ban private residential use of all cars and only allow "work" vehicles, there would be no congestion and no tax.
It would also increase the incentive for people to play games like claiming their personal car as a "work vehicle", throwing a little advertising decal on the side, things like that.
By any data available that’s entirely backwards. Cars in the CBD are disproportionately driven by the affluent, transit is disproportionately taken by the poor.
Let's see that data then. Plenty of working class individuals are trying to commute through the CBD for their livelihoods. They aren't taking the bus or rail to fix someone's water heater.
(I love social medi... sorry HN oops how can I get this wrong, the quality of discussion is so high! :)
[1]: https://wellango.github.io/posts/2021/06/who-owns-cars-in-ny...
It is true, that some rich motorists will pay up congestion pricing, but they wont even notice these charges cause they are rich (so NO EFFECT whatsoever on actual congestion). In fact, that's exactly what MTA wants - they want congestion pricing Revenue, not reduction in congestion loss in revenue.
But the most impacted would be workers who rely on car to make a living: uber, lyft, doordash, blue collar contractors, food delivery trucks, etc. Everyone who has to drive to make a living will be taxed, while rich Manhattan residents will enjoy subsidies from the working class. and they cannot take public transit, so no reduction in actual congestion either.
it's all farce and show to steal money from honest working people and have over it to corrupted union bosses at MTA