In other ways, the government has heavily subsidised driving, or hidden the reality of who pays for it in places no one sees. Local laws require off-street parking from businesses and housing developers, who pass on the construction cost of it to tenants and customers who may not drive at all. 

Federal and state governments also fund roads with petrol taxes that feel far removed from a direct user fee (and that have come to operate like less and less of one in an era of fuel efficiency).

“They add up to a pretty giant system of subsidies,” said Michael Manville, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. “But they don’t look like what we often consider subsidies.” 

This system looks to us, instead, like an entitlement — driving is an American right, and so the infrastructure that enables it should be free. 

Congestion pricing is premised instead on the notion that public roads are a valuable and scarce resource. And we should pay in some places to use it not primarily to raise revenue, but to help manage access for everyone. 

“It’s a huge departure from how we’ve culturally thought about this over the years,” said Kari Watkins, a professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 

In reality, the government is a monopoly provider of road space, and the government has largely chosen to give it away. It’s no surprise, then, that the vast majority of American commuters drive to work alone, or that all those lonely commuters (plus taxis, Ubers, buses and delivery trucks) cause congestion. 

Take those expectations to their logical conclusion in a major city today, and you get 10-mile-per-hour road speeds, rampant double parking, clogged intersections and worsening commute times. 

And finally, for New York at least, you get the political will for congestion pricing.