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.”

Attention economy, the algorithm, rage-bait, maximizing engagement, doomscrolling - pick your buzzword. Individual people care about all sorts of weird things, but on average, this and no other reason is why a person in Idaho suddenly finds themselves caring about Manhattan congestion pricing. It's easy to point a finger and laugh/marvel when it's something so obviously absurd to you, but of course you and I both have entirely different blind spots where our attention is marshalled and our opinion is formed by the rage-bait engine. Ours must seem preposterous to those on the outside looking in, too.

It's because everything is a culture war issue now, and anything remotely seen as helpful or benefitting society or taking even an inch from cars is "bad" for the people who live in places like Idaho (and Staten Island).

Probably very clear-cut, right? "No parking, no business" never made sense, but it makes even less sense in a city where cars are involved in less than a third of all trips

Especially considering that

* Congestion is an opportunity cost in itself already, which is paid in wasted time by all road users, impacting mostly those who spend a long time on the road, which is busses, taxis, professionals and delivery drivers, as they spend the most amount of time actually driving in congested roads

* Congestion pricing forces trips to self-select on cost/benefits in actual dollars, instead of time, so you optimize for wealthier trip takers, short stays or high value trips, where before you would favor long stays (which make looking for parking forever not so bad), and people who don't value their time very much

* Car use remains heavily subsidized, as motorists do not come close to paying the full costs associated with their road usage

> 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.

Writing this from mid-town Manhattan. There are a lot of strong feelings about congestion pricing. It was a common topic in the local media. The stronger voices tend to be those who drive and are affected by it. For Manhattan that is a relatively low percent of the population.

There are some people who are pro-congestion pricing, but as often has with these things the benefits are distributed whereas the costs are concentrated, leading to certain behavior.

There are reliable ways to transform American rhetoric to collectivist vs. individualist.

"We should toll roads". This will reliably produce "we should all contribute through tax to the maintenance of roads and they should be considered a public good".

"We should have land value taxes". This will reliably produce "we should not have to pay rent to the government for something that we own".

A simple self-interest model will capture all participants in this discussion. This is why economically optimal policies have such opposition. People don't want to pay the price for their actions. They're ideally hoping to have someone else pay it. It is just as common for a position like funding for SF's Muni.

Propositions J and K made it clear. One said "let's raise Muni spending". The other said "if we raise sales tax, that will go to Muni spending. If we don't, the Muni spending proposition dies". People voted for the first and against the second. Pretty straightforward position: "We should spend more money but from a place that is not me".

The way welfare is organized in the US also shows this. Welfare is the largest sector of the US federal budget, and the ideal is to tax all productive capacity to pay for the aged. This aligns with the increased vote share from the aged. The classic two wolves and a sheep at dinner.

Feels like this is the curse of modern US politics. I'm convinced the majority of people that "want high speed rail in CA" don't live in CA. Further away they live, the stronger they will argue for why we should have it.

You're curious how an issue where government listening to experts results in obvious good outcomes and no serious failures became a national culture war issue?

Cars are en extension of some Americans' identity and driving is something they feel utterly entitled to.

I've lived all over the world and in NYC for decades so it seems silly to me. Bust most Americans have never seen or ridden an effective form of public transport. So they view congestion pricing as an infringement on their rights and quality of life.

Fox news.

Because success would encourage it in other cities facing terrible traffic.

People say they hate socialism, but drivers love car-socialism.

It's because Trump made it one of his obsessions for a period of time, putting it on the MAGA radar.

New York has long been an influential city. It was the Robert Mosses deputies that spread all over the US to drive highways threw every city center. If New York can do something, it might be copied everywhere.

That and right-wing politics where anything that harms the car as a religious symbol is seen as a 'values' based attack.

I think it's because it disproportionately impacts the people who can least afford it. It allows the wealthy to continue to enjoy the convenience (relative to alternatives) of driving into the city while polluting and causing traffic at a price that has zero impact on their lives while it punishes those who already have much less and whose lives will be impacted by the fines and the often significant amounts of time they'll have to spend arranging and taking alternative modes of transportation.

That's a very hard sell when people all around the country are feeling continuous downward pressure on their lifestyle and financial security while billionaires are seen getting massive tax breaks and pillaging everything they want while escaping accountability for the harms they cause everyone else. Taking a basic task like driving into the city, something many people are forced to do for work, and punishing them for it while once again giving the wealthy a pass was certain to upset people. in fact, by forcing more of the peasant class off the roads it makes driving into the city much more pleasant for the people with enough money to not care about the extra expense. Taking from the poor to improve things for the wealthy resonates with a lot of people.

It also doesn't help that in other contexts, congestion pricing has already hit people's wallets and is seen as an exploitative business model designed to extract as much money from the public as possible. The last thing most people want is seeing congestion pricing and other price-fuckery infesting another aspect of their daily lives, which is why the pushback against wendy's implementing it was so swift and severe that the company had to backpedal even after spending a small fortune on the digital menu boards they needed to enable it.