I’ll defer to locals but afaik if you’re south of the Park - or indeed anywhere south of the north end of Central Park - you can take the Lincoln or Holland tunnel to get to NJ. The only other option to avoid the toll is to drive way up to Washington Heights to take the bridge but that drops you off way north (or vice versa if you’re coming from NJ to NY) and probably adds a lot of commute time on both sides of the Hudson. So yeah seems an unfair tax on commuters from the other states.
Except for the GW bridge, all the access points from Manhattan to NJ goes into the congestion zone.
Even if you take the FDR drive (which is supposed to be free) and then the West Side Highway, all free, you still have to drive on Canal Street to get to the Holland Tunnel. Just that 5 block drive to the tunnel entrance from the West Side Highway has the driver paying the congestion toll.
This is a money-grab, plain and simple.
Try being a gig worker who relies on Instacart, DoorDash, Shipt, uber or spark for a paycheck. Those companies DO NOT add on extra funds for those tolls. A big slice right out of your pocket and makes one less likely to accept a run on those platforms. Which means less people using the services because they become unreliable. Big huge domino effect