It seems clear to me that something has to be done about energy usage for transportation. More than half of what we import goes to personal transportation. We can talk hybrids and ethanol all we want, but a major lifestyle change will be needed if we hit the wall on oil about 2012. I do not want to go to war for oil ever again.

CalG
Your figure of half for transportation may apply on average, but much more energy goes to heat, cool and otherwise power the buildings in NYC (as established by PlanNYC). It might be easier to address the energy consumption of transportation in NYC, but it will not address the lion's share of the problem.

NYC is not a country. Even though this article is about NYC, this fee would not even begin to solve the energy usage problem. Since this is an oil site and not a traffic congestion site, I think it is appropriate to address the larger issue. California uses more than 6 or the 20 million barrels of oil per day used by the U.S. Los Angeles could work on getting people to live closer to where they work. Commuting in California uses a LOT of gasoline and pollutes the air.