The Danger of Congestion Pricing

Daniel Gross, who writes good popular economics pieces for Slate, the New York Times, and sometimes New York, published a Times piece on Sunday that will cheer fans of congestion pricing, the practice of charging higher tolls when roads are busier:

“[T]he $2.9 trillion fiscal 2008 budget released by President Bush on Monday contained some excellent news: $130 million in grants to finance construction of so-called congestion pricing systems.”

The people developing these systems will probably proceed with a bit more caution in light of the fact that a letter bomb was recently sent to the London company that runs that city’s famous congestion-pricing system.