The trouble is that also means people are cherry picking results.

There was never any doubt that putting a heavy tax on something could deter use. The question is, at what cost? You now have middle income tradespeople who need a car because they have to transport their equipment paying the congestion pricing, or passing it on as higher prices to their middle income customers. It's a regressive tax.

It also deters people from commuting by car, as was the intention, but without supplying an alternative to it. So now it costs more to e.g. commute from New Jersey because you either have to pay the congestion pricing or use a less convenient means of commuting. Which in turn means it costs more to live in New Jersey relative to New York, driving up demand for New York real estate and exacerbating the high rents there.

Whereas if you would, for example, reduce car traffic in Manhattan by allowing taller buildings in the other burroughs from which Manhattan is conveniently accessible via subway line, you don't have a regressive tax and don't drive up overall rents, and maybe that's the better option to achieve the same goal.

And it comes off like throwing in the towel on making transit attractive enough to draw people away from driving, as if the only possible way to do so is to financially beat them into submission. I don't see that resulting in good public support for transit, stuffing it full of unwilling people who resent being herded there. On the other hand, if you make the transit good enough on its own merit, people will switch without a metaphorical cattle prod behind them. Carrot vs stick.