New York City’s congestion pricing program has been in place for one month, implementing tolls on drivers who enter certain, often gridlocked, areas of Manhattan:
And so far, the results are “undeniably positive,” transit officials say, with measurably reduced traffic and more commuters choosing public transit.
The traffic mitigation plan covers a “congestion relief zone” that spans almost all of Manhattan below 60th street and includes major routes like the Lincoln, Holland, and Hugh L. Carey Tunnels and bridges that go into both Brooklyn and Queens. Since its launch on January 5, one million fewer vehicles have entered that zone than they would have without the toll, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
Passenger cars with an E-ZPass that travel through that zone face a $9 toll during peak hours, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends, and a $2.25 toll overnight. Tolls are more expensive for commercial traffic, and vehicles without E-ZPass face a 50% premium.
Those charges are meant to reduce traffic in the city and also raise funds for $15 billion worth of transit repairs to the MTA. By cutting traffic and ushering more commuters onto public transit, the program will also reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s the first such plan in the United States, though congestion pricing has been successfully used in London, Stockholm, Singapore, and other cities. In Stockholm, traffic levels dropped about 25%, and the city saw less pollution and more investment in local infrastructure. And though business owners and residents there criticized the program before its pilot began — much like they did in New York — a majority of voters ended up making that toll permanent.
New Yorkers are already seeing an impact one month in. Along with fewer drivers in general, the vehicles that still travel through the area are dealing with less traffic. Those crossing through the Holland Tunnel see the most time savings, with average trip times down 48% during peak morning hours. The Williamsburg and Queensboro Bridges are both seeing an average of 30% faster travel times. During afternoon peak hours, drivers in the entire zone are seeing travel times drop up to 59%.
More commuters are opting for buses to cross Manhattan, and those buses are now traveling more quickly, too. Weekday bus ridership has grown 6%, while weekend ridership is up 21%, compared to January 2024. (Subway ridership has also grown by 7.3% on weekdays and 12% on weekends, part of a larger trend in ridership growth happening since the fall, per the MTA. Anecdotally, some subway riders have said they’ve seen more packed trains on their morning commutes.) Buses entering Manhattan from Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx are saving up to 10 minutes on their route times, which also makes their arrivals more reliable.
Sounds reasonable. Now let me test understanding of the neo-Laputian procedures.
Once this thing is in place and mostly debugged, mission creep will go on, until all references to “congestion” are stretched to breaking. Then it will be renamed, while the shearing business will continue to expand.
Until it hits hard enough that even the professors and State Department types feel it. At which point gasps will be emitted as it will be found to have gone too far.
Perhaps the matchboxes EV will have discount, seeing how ManBearPig is already mentioned. At some point the journalists (at least, those approved by MiniTru) will get free passes.
Citizens: “We want more and better roads so we can go about our lawful affairs.”
NYC: “Best we can do is tolls and mass transit.”
To make any real change, the municipal corporation pretending to the government of New York City would need to be able to (a) competently and non-corruptly organize infrastructural development and (b) modify, or credibly threaten to unilaterally modify, real (land) titles. This is impossible in a land of lawyers, which is why the first Americans made it illegal to practice law in America.