Hey, Washington Post! You’re Wrong: Congestion Pricing Is Great.

Data from numerous cities suggest that even people who start out skeptical wind up supporting the traffic-reducing measure once they experience its benefits.

Congestion pricing inspires a lot of hatred. The concept is simple: charge drivers a toll to enter an area—usually downtown—in order to raise money for public transit, while reducing traffic and pollution. And it has worked now in several cities, reducing pollution and commute times, with numerous side benefits. Yet as Washington D.C.’s mayoral race heats up, the departing mayor Muriel Bowser has insisted that it is “the wrong policy for the wrong time.” The Washington Post editorial board agrees, calling it “self-destructive,” and claiming it would “cripple” downtown D.C.

Like so much else that emanates from the Washington Post these days, these words represent the ghoulish death rattle of a dying order. The right hates congestion pricing because they despise public goods and want to keep us alone and fuming angrily in our cars. Moderates fear controversy and too often accept right-wing narrative as a proxy for public opinion. But the two mayoral candidates to Bowser’s left—especially Janeese Lewis George, a socialist City Councilor—support the policy. Regardless of the outcome of its elections, Washington D.C. should go ahead and embrace congestion pricing, because it works.

We have seen what the car-dominated world brings us: long commutes and numerous traffic fatalities; extreme vulnerability to price shocks like the one resulting from Trump’s senseless war on Iran; pollution that exacerbates childhood asthma and other conditions; an........

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