Selling Congestion Pricing

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

CIS is thinking about how to message congestion pricing to road warriors. All the ideas he puts forward are intersting jujitsu moves — designed to use free-marketers own strengths against them.

Let me suggest another, that might be even simpler: congestion pricing is a use tax. Conservatives like use taxes. Many, for example, expect bus tickets to cover 100% of the cost of the bus (ignoring the fact that bus service has positive externalities that justify the taxpayer subsity). The common refrain I often hear is, “I’m never going to ride the bus, so why should I pay for it?”

Well, that argument cuts both ways. Congestion pricing simply lines up the supply and the demand to make you pay for what you use, as I’ve written before.