Congestion pricing is a big failure if you look at its said objectives, but a sensible ploy to rob the public by interesting to the warfare on automobiles.

Despite the mutual back-patting from Gov. Kathy Hochul and her MTA minions, visitors is no quicker and the air is no cleaner since the metropolis began tolling automobiles and vehicles in much of Manhattan.

It has raised cash, yielding the MTA about $750 million this yr, nearly overlaying the lost income from bus and subway fare evasion.

So if choosing the pockets of working individuals is a win, then it’s going gangbusters.

But the warm-and-fuzzy crowd feels like the tolls are a win for the setting and so on, and emotions are what matter, proper?

Hence, too, the push to redesign the metropolis to make driving a automotive as costly and inconvenient as doable.

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Bicycles account for about 1% of all commuting, but romantics really feel they’ll become New Yorkers’ most common choice if we’re relentless enough in increasing mostly-empty bike lanes — and shield them from visitors, sacrificing still more parking and driving house on the sacred altar of two-wheeled self-propulsion.

Meanwhile, a new City Council proposal goals to engineer “low-traffic” zones all across city by putting in obstacles, velocity bumps and prolonged sidewalks to “divert” visitors.

This plan is a take a look at run of whole pedestrianization, the automotive haters’ dream: Banish vehicles solely and flip Gotham’s proud avenues into dreamy walkways lined with cafes and kids at play — as though we want 500 miles of pedestrian plazas.

The mayor also has grand plans for Park Avenue, with a two-way bike lane, an expanded median and the whole elimination of two lanes of parking.

Busways, prolonged corners and “calming” chicanery are all half of the marketing campaign against driving.

Yes, biking is a positive recreation, hooray for these wholesome souls who commute that manner; slower aspect streets are an necessary half of a wholesome metropolis; mass transit will always be key to making New York work — but automobiles empower particular person individuals to go precisely where they select to go.

And chasing romantic visions of a car-free America just makes you a sucker for cons like the congestion tolls.