Welcome Mr. Leahy! Glad to have you on board!
I understand your concern for wasting money and diverting a new income stream to unworthy causes.
You did not comment on the observation in a past post that the real problem you noted in London is the need for Fundamental Change in governance structure. More on how you can help with that in a moment.
You also did not acknowledge the fact that throwing money into transport facilities, especially facilities to serve private vehicles is a waste.
With respect to London’s (or any) congestion pricing, the important metric is people and goods moved per hour and per day, not the congestion level among private vehicles.
Your source reports that congestion is down in spite of improvements to serve shared-vehicle systems. That sounds like a win / win.
Improvements to shared-vehicle systems are less of a waste and induce less new vehicular traffic than do improvements to private-vehicle systems. Perhaps improvements in the shared-vehicle system is where the money was supposed to go in the first place and it was not a diversion. Is that not a possibility?
There is a simple test of the Myth that putting money into new roadway improvements reduces congestion:
Name one New Urban Region in the First World where improvements in the roadway system have decreased REGIONAL vehicular congestion.
There is only two factors that strongly correlate with the speed of vehicle congestion growth. They are the size of the New Urban Region and the rate of population growth.
Over the period 1984 to 2004 (dates are from memory) there was no significant difference between the rate of congestion growth and the level of expenditure or the lane miles of roadway added. Houston is a good example of throwing good money after bad.
Now, the more important question for you on the issue of waste of revenue flow:
How can we get folks like you who are concerned with governments (and citizens) wasting money to focus on the fact that, especially the United States, an ever more dysfunctional settlement pattern is evolving. These patterns will continue to create higher and higher costs of goods and services (including the cost of mobility and access.)
It seems the real challenge for conservation, and conservatism in general, is to stop worrying about the nickels and dimes that are now wasted and start figuring out how to avoid future fiscal disaster.
It is clear that a democracy with a market economy cannot survive when the majority cannot afford the goods and services that they believe they deserve.
EMR