New York City’s congestion pricing tolls went into effect a year ago, and much of the controversy over the program has all but disappeared since it launched.
Commuting into Manhattan via mass transit has increased, while air pollution and gridlock in the city have decreased. And the once incessant calls for Gov. Kathy Hochul to kill the tolls — which charge drivers a $9 base fee to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street — have grown less frequent.
“This is what we expected more or less,” said Swedish transportation official Jonas Eliasson, who oversaw the launch of Stockholm’s congestion pricing program in 2006. Like in New York City, the launch of the Scandinavian city’s tolling program was initially met with disdain.
Polls showed two-thirds of Stockholm residents opposed the congestion fees when they first launched as a six-month pilot program. But after the pilot expired, voters held a referendum on whether to retain the tolls. Two-thirds cast ballots in favor of congestion pricing.
Transportation experts said the tolls are also growing on New Yorkers now that people are starting to see the effects of the program, which allocates funding toward the city’s mass transit networks.
The camera system used to collect Stockholm's congestion pricing tolls.
“ I think people got the logic of it, they understand the benefit of it, they've seen the benefit,” said transportation analyst Bruce Schaller. “The benefit shows up in the statistics, and even if you don't like paying a toll, which I'm sure you don't like, there's something in it for you from a driver's standpoint.”
The number of vehicles entering the congestion zone has fallen roughly 10% since the tolls were implemented. That adds up to 2 million fewer vehicles entering the busiest parts of the city most months of the year.
Hochul initially delayed the launch of the tolls in 2024 until after the presidential election, but now celebrates them as a political win.
A report from the governor’s office six months after congestion pricing launched found foot traffic was up in Manhattan by 8.4%, traffic injuries were down 15%, and honking complaints dropped 45%. Hochul attributed all those benefits to congestion pricing.
The report also found bus speeds in the zone improved 3.2%, with some routes moving 25% faster during certain times of the day.
Trump’s failed bid to kill the program
When congestion pricing launched last January, there was hardly a guarantee it would live for more than a couple months — much less an entire year. President Donald Trump vowed to “terminate” the program during his campaign, and directed the U.S. Department of Transportation to revoke federal approval for the tolls just a month after returning to the White House.
The MTA sued to halt the order, and has so far been victorious. While a federal judge has not thrown out the lawsuit, he has blocked the feds from retaliating against the New York state over collecting tolls.
Trump said the tolls would hurt working-class New Yorkers. And despite the improvements in traffic, many people who drive into Manhattan still agree with the president.
A year after congestion pricing launched, gridlock has returned to Varick Street during the evening rush.
On a recent Thursday evening rush hour, a long line of New Jersey-bound cars were bumper to bumper on Varick Street as they crawled toward the Holland Tunnel. Drivers leaned on their horns as crossing guards tried to keep traffic moving.
“ I don't see much of a difference at all, honestly,” said Tre Ortiz, 55, from Bayonne, who transports furniture and art in a small van. “It's still gridlock and I don't see too much of a difference. The only difference is the bill.”
Newark driver Michael Hagag, 60, who runs a delivery business, said he noticed a dramatic drop in gridlock the first two months after congestion pricing launched. But he said he’s witnessed traffic slowly return as more drivers were willing to pay the tolls. He noted the MTA has a plan to increase the base toll to $15 in 2031.
”Now it's more congested, so maybe they're gonna raise the price again for $15 instead of $9? I don't think it helped at all,” he said. ”Traffic is a nightmare. The same waste of money."
Londoners urge patience
London launched its own congestion pricing program in 2003, and the tolls have since grown in price and scope. The city has created some “ultra-low-emissions zones,” where vehicles like diesel trucks and older cars that emit high levels of carbon are banned. The city has continued to raise and adjust its fees over the years to address shifting traffic patterns.
Craig Morton, a transport planning lecturer at Loughborough University, said both London and New York City would be far different places without congestion pricing.
“ But you don't know how bad it would've been if congestion pricing hadn't been in introduced,” said Morton. “It could be the case at the traffic volume at that moment in time when you're doing that kind of retrospective analysis would've been even worse.”
Critics of congestion pricing often point out that congestion has increased in some areas of London since the tolls launched.
But Morton said that criticism doesn’t take into account how the system has expanded to add the ultra-low-emission zones. But he noted that while that policy has helped clean London’s air, it has also enraged drivers who drive older vehicles.
Gov. Kathy Hochul delayed the launch of congestion pricing, but now finds it to be politically popular.
“Individuals who feel disenfranchised by the policy, mainly because they're operating older vehicles, which are coming into the purview of the charge, they've been quite vocal in their opposition toward it,” said Morton. “It's actually sparked quite a lot of militant action.”
Experts like Schaller said New York City should look to Singapore, which began charging drivers a fee to enter its business district in 1975, for a better example of congestion pricing. The city uses dynamic tolling, which changes the rates drivers pay in real-time based on traffic data.
“ The model is really Singapore in terms of how to manage the system and to track it very closely and then do regular adjustments to the toll to maintain the benefit,” Schaller said. “Doing that in New York will be interlaced with gubernatorial election cycles so I wouldn't expect anything in the next 11 months.”
While the noise in New York might have died down, other U.S. cities could go through their own cycle of outrage in order to get a congestion pricing program off the ground.
Kathy Wylde, the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York who helped rally the city’s business community to support the tolls, said she’s taken calls from officials in other cities like Los Angeles who are looking to launch their own congestion pricing programs.
They want her advice on handling the blowback, she said.
