(I like the feebate idea, too.)

But congestion pricing would be valuable even if the money all gets spent on hookers and blow, so I guess as long as it's not going towards road widening it's okay.

I agree and one approach I like is to make congestion pricing a feebate system. Basically anything collected could be returned in the form of a rebate check to every resident of NYC or perhaps given to the community boards to speand as they see fit. As long as you are not a heavy user you would win. That way a vast majority of people / communities in NYC would receive more than they pay into it.

Regardless, there are some people out there who believe that this is an elitist plan by wealthy Manhattanites to tax the working-class and middle-class outer-borough business people, and to generally make life difficult for them. They see it as a Brooklyn and Queens vs. Manhattan issue, and assume that everyone outside of Manhattan sees it this way.

People here know that congestion pricing would primarily benefit poor transit riders, that drivers will see a benefit from less-congested streets, that the outer-borough drivers are almost all middle- and upper-class "elites", and that the city shouldn't be subsidizing motorists with general tax revenue. We also know that the idea enjoys significant support from the outer boroughs.

The plan is doomed if they succeed in framing this as Manhattan vs. the outer boroughs, or wealthy vs. middle-class, the same way that opposition to Atlantic Yards was undermined by framing it as elitist white Park Slopers vs. working-class black Fort Greene residents. It needs some clear support from outer-borough residents and poorer New Yorkers to overcome it.

The rhetoric of taxes and burdens invokes a frame that puts congestion pricing in a bad light. We need to put forward an alternative frame involving things like fairness, eliminating subsidies and making the outer-borough elites pay their fair share. What other frames would work?

I think we need to start turning these negative arguments on their head and stating very clearly what they seem to actually be for. It's one thing to oppose an innovation, but we need to articulate better what the lack of innovation means for our communities.

Fidler: Pro-Oil Dependence, Pro-Traffic, Climate Change Denier....