> AFAICT there are attractive alternatives to driving in NYC ...
And yet: too many people drive into the city. That must mean they are stupid? Unable to see the attractiveness of it?
This is where you lose me: with your position (yes, I do believe you think that it's true) there's no choice but to price them into oblivion! Bad human! Thwack, here comes Big Momma Bloomberg who is gonna make you MIND by emptying your wallet. That will change your wicked mind! Heathen!
Feh.
Let's start over: Bloomberg says "Let's do congestion pricing because then we can upgrade the transit system with the profits!" ...
So: Bloomberg (at least, if not you, Doug, and Michael) agrees with me on this point: NYC needs more and better transit. Now we're down to paying for it. He says "Trust Me: we'll make $600M and transit can have all the net profits" ...well, in the real world it doesn't work that way: just like in Hollywood, there are no profits, just more costs. But once the simple notion of funding a transportation infrastructure that benefits everyone gets marginalized by this scheme, the normal money that would be used dries up.
Do you think it's okay to collect $600M for a ("projected!") $200M increase in infrastructure spending? The IRS is 99.5% efficient in collecting money for the Treasury; you're okay with NYC being 35% efficient?
This is one reason why we still have shitty public schools despite having lotteries: there's no profit except for the corrupt contractors who've been tasked with running the system.
Bloomberg was okay with the inefficiency because he was counting on the $150M Federal grant to make it more tasty; well hey, shouldn't that $150M go someplace better than to an EzPass contractor?
San Francisco seems to think that dipping into Federal dollars is "free" too!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/08/MN0N101ASH.DTL
/jordan