Congestion taxes can also shift road use to other times. Imagine many people on the roads are making relatively short trips (eg. a trip that takes 20 mins in traffic instead of 10 mins) that generate a lot of lane changes and contribute to congestion. A congestion tax could encourage them to drive in non-peak times, use the bus, or not make the trip.
The city is already built this way and people already made decisions on where to work and live based on facts on the ground. Unless congestion charges are levies only on newcomers, it has no legitimacy. Try these social experiments on a new city.
> The city is already built this way and people already made decisions on where to work and live based on facts on the ground.
This would indicate to me that they are already OK with the level of congestion they currently have. But that's not what they say. Some kind of disconnect.
You consent to public policy changes by living in society. In particular, you chose to live in a city with lawmaking bodies that are expected to enact policies to adapt to changing times. If you think the pros of some change outweigh the cons, make the argument, but don’t claim that public policy writ large is illegitimate.
