According to INRIX, London is more congested than ever and it's so unpopular that 66% of residents voted against expanding the program and that very proposal is what sunk the Labour party in last year's by-elections.

Also London's public transit infrastructure is lightyears better than NYC's and way better managed. This whole pricing scheme is just to shore up the MTA which is massively wasteful with money and never gets any of its projects done on time (by decades).

a) You are confusing a congestion charge zone (CCZ) with an emissions charge zone (ULEZ) which specifically targets vehicles that do not comply with the latest emissions standards. These are two separate schemes, with different objectives. It is the later that was linked with Labour's by-election failures, in the very outer boroughs that have fairly poor public transport.

b) The INRIX scorecard is citywide. Assuming that they went with the conventional definition of "London", ie. whatever lies inside M25, this is an area of 1579 km2. The Congestion charge zone has an area of 21 km2, which is about 1.3% of the total.