Driving is expensive. Cars are complicated large machines and roads in the 4 seasons of the American north eastern seaboard require a lot to maintain. Real estate in New York is even more expensive, and it’s expensive to hire people who live in the area. The state can subsidize this only so much.

I think that's an important point: regressive taxes/fines shouldn't be used to control behavior as it disproportionately impacts the less affluent*

But a progessive scheme is more involved - it might require using the value of the car for example as a basis for the pricing. But I suspect it could be done.

I always thought congestion pricing was always mis-priced, and it should be tied to income/wealth.

The only way to do this is to let the poor apply and get free electronic tokens and get that missing 43k back.

fyi - my MD can easily manage a 10x the mid-town tolls

Cars loans, insurance , fuel and maintenance all costs money. There are lot of people who cannot afford to pay for any of it, we subsidize them too[1] to buy cars or invest in public transit instead ?

In a capitalist society , benefits are enjoyed by those with wealth, this what we signed up .

I am not saying it is a good or bad we have this, just that congestion pricing is hardly the issue to discuss changing economic systems

[1] absence of congestion pricing is a subsidy, costs of transport infrastructure is only partly paid by users of the infra at present .

With congestion pricing the poor (not to mention all of us) now get to enjoy more efficient and reliable bus travel. This is a net win for the working class.

To paraphrase Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others.