Rather than charging everyone and giving some people waivers, increase the taxes with a progressive tax rate, where low-wage people pay less.
If you want to take them out and force everyone to use public transportation that's one thing - But if they exist they ought to be subsidized to ensure everyone can use them.
We need more economic equality, not less, particularly when to comes to such important things as basic infrastructure.
Given the cost of driving in NYC, using congestion pricing to pay for transit would almost certainly be a move that increases, not reduces, equality.
In a way it's analogous to any other resource allocation problem. There are lots of approaches other than "richest wins"
but that's basically what they are now, in as much as they are catering for the most expensive form of transport (aircraft and tanks notwithstanding).
Having the streets for everyone means having them be for walking, cycling, scooters, bikes, buses, etc. Hell, donkeys while we're at it.
Debating which tax policy is better is a perfectly fine thing to do. But it's not fine to begin that debate by mischaracterizing the status quo.
The new system might be wonderful, but that doesn't exist hyperbolic, inaccurate journalism.
I hate this argument so much. It comes up all of the time when chronically underfunded national and state parks say they need to raise prices. "buT muH taX doLLarS alReaDy PaY for MAH PARKS!!" Doubly true for places that add quotas and lotteries to curb overcrowding delicate areas.
This is the exact same situation: Your tax dollars paid for part of it, sure, but not close to enough to support what is needed. Therefore you either need to pay more to either increase capacity or reduce impact.