Yonah responds:

Avent points out that congestion places a major cost burden on our society, but that this lost money could be retrieved as traffic diminishes because of tolling. The fact of the matter is that widespread road pricing would force a huge number of people off the roads — a good idea in the abstract — but one that would inevitably increase commute times — and decrease productivity — for a large segment of the population. Is it really better for low-income workers to sit twice as long in a bus than for them to cause some congestion on our roadways?

I really don’t get the logic here. For one thing, tolling doesn’t have to force a lot of people off roads to work. There is a point at which the addition of new cars to the road slows traffic and reduces a road’s carrying capacity which further slows cars and further reduces capacity, leading to congestion — a tipping point. Recent experience with reduced VMT from high gas prices suggests that in most cases, we’re pretty close to that tipping point; getting a small number of cars off the road pushes roads back across the no congestion threshold.

I have no idea why a congestion charge would increase commute times or decrease productivity. I have no idea why bus trips would take longer in the absence of congestion.

The political reality is that in areas without significant transit coverage, tolls will not be that high. Legislators simply aren’t in the business of imposing a lot of pain on constituents. And no widespread tolling program will be put into place without some form of refund delivered to lower income travelers. Just look at Waxman-Markey; prices will if anything be lower than they should be, and transition assistance higher.