This newspaper has been advocating the use of congestion pricing for several years now. (See, e.g., “This HOT Idea Cound Resolve the Congestion Conundrum,“ July 23, 2002, about the use of high-occupancy toll—HOT—lanes.)

It’s nice to see the rest of the country is catching up.

As the USA Today story notes:

The average driver in the Los Angeles area spends the equivalent of more than two workweeks each year stuck in traffic. But one place where cars and trucks hum along at full speed is in the left lanes of a 10-mile stretch of State Road 91, an east-west highway in Orange County.

That’s because those lanes use a toll system known as “congestion pricing.“ Tolls on SR 91 vary depending on time of day, from $1.15 to $9.25, and are priced to keep traffic moving.

Road space is finite, and always will be. There are only two ways to ration finite goods: lines and prices. Take your pick.