Wasn’t that the original point of the article, to tax vehicles on the road so as to reduce the amount of traffic.

Vehicles are already taxed 3-4 times when you purchase it (75-105% excise duty + 6%SST + stamp duty + CBU tax (if applicable)), once per annum for road tax (which scales up according to cc), introducing congestion charge is a bad idea and will only increase the cost of living for those that rely on it.

Also, it works perfectly fine in public-transit-centric cities in Europe, not sure why you think it can’t be done.

Also, have you considered that they have viable transport system with so many alternatives? I have travelled to Western Europe myself, the public transport there have already been fleshed out many decades ago. When I visited London and used their Tube, that system is more than 150 years old.... And these Penangites they want the government to emulate HK and Singapore, and again, their public transport is very complete which is why they could pull it off.

Introduce it when the public transport is complete, up and running so people have an option. At this point in time - it's just a bad policy.

The only city capable of pulling this off is KL, once the MRT3 is complete and running and they sort out kinks wrt last-mile solution. Penang? nah, wait for another 2 decades.