More relevantly though, it is a "Policy Miracle", i.e. the writer is saying it's a miracle that an effective policy was finally enacted. In the second sentence: "but Governor Hochul finally made the right decision". The writer also praises how effective it is, not just that it is effective.
I would have expected car usage to be inelastic and for this to basically just become a tax on commuters
These policies don’t affect me
That's the crazy thing. Driving into lower Manhattan costs society hundreds of dollars, but to an apparently huge fraction of drivers it wasn't even worth nine lousy dollars.
"The improvements lead us to believe that a large number of the cars in NYC were driving around with no particular reason"
Effectively, people were spending time in their cars that they DID NOT VALUE at $9.
From TFA:
“… congestion pricing is a policy unicorn - it accomplishes a key goal (reducing congestion) and raises money. This is in contrast with highway widenings which are the opposite: they cost money (often billions of dollars) and fail to accomplish the goal of reducing traffic due to induced demand.”