So John Cassidy endorses something like the Kheel-Komanoff plan:

The list of anti-congestion policies I support didn’t include congestion charges for access to Manhattan. In fact, I’d be perfectly willing to support them if they were confined to peak hours and had some equity conditions attached. The reason they weren’t on my list is: a) I don’t think they would be confined to peak hours, or not for long anyway; and b) I feel uncomfortable about charging working-class people from the boroughs for occasional car trips to the center of their city so that well-off blow-ins can stroll (or cycle) around in comfort. If there was a way of giving all New York drivers, say, one free trip a week, or of rebating drivers with incomes below a certain level, I’d vote for peak-hours congestion charges.

(a) The authority managing the congestion charge would have strong incentives to vary it across times of day, to maximize revenue and to control throughput.

(b) The number of working-class people from the boroughs who own personal automobiles is relatively small — I assume we’re defining “working-class” in relation to income levels in this instance rather than psychographic profile — and the number of working-class people who own personal automobiles and drive into Manhattan at peak hours often enough to make a congestion charge a question of distributive justice is considerably smaller. It is also true that Charles Komanoff, the leading advocate of a congestion charge for New York, actually has devised a subsidy scheme for these drivers, to effectively exempt them from the charge.

I will add this, though: why rebate drivers with incomes below a certain level rather than all New Yorkers with incomes below a certain level? Is there something particularly deserving about less-affluent people who chose to spend their disposable income on automobiles rather than, say, sending their children to parochial schools, or going to the opera (and riding the bus to get there)?

To address equity considerations, Komanoff also calls for a surtax on all taxi rides.

As far as I can tell, Cassidy’s objections to a congestion charge are based on a misapprehension of what its advocates would actually like to see.