New York City launched its “congestion pricing” scheme January 5. It’s a charge for entering midtown Manhattan, ostensibly designed to reduce “congestion” in the Big Apple while channeling money to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the entity that runs New York’s subways. Besides funding the subways, the idea is to push people to take mass transit in lieu of driving.

The idea was originally planned for last summer but diverted at the last minute by New York governor Kathy Hochul. Governor Hokum insisted she wanted to modify the program; the real likelihood was that dropping a new charge just before elections might not have redounded well to blue hopes, even in indigo New York. With elections safely gone, the plan could be trotted out and was fast-track approved by the lame duck Biden Administration, which also spun “congestion pricing” as a way of reducing climate change by disincentivizing driving.

What’s stood out to my attention, however, has been an op-ed by Slate writer Henry Grabar in the January 5 New York Times. The piece has had various mutated headlines, though its primary name is “The Future of the Democratic Party is Rolling Down Broadway.” The top webpage of the Times tags it as “Early This Morning, New York City Proved What the Democratic Party is Capable of.”

The gist of Grabar’s piece is that we should make congestion pricing work because it will provide a message of “equity, quality of life, and the fight against climate change.” The author insists congestion pricing can be proof that “that nation’s biggest, bluest cities have [not] become dysfunctional.” He sketches........

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