Doubling down on congestion pricing to free New York from gridlock
How bold congestion pricing moves could help New York capture even greater wins and make our streets thrive
In brief:
Six months after New York launched America’s first congestion charge, we’re seeing huge positive impacts: reduced travel times, faster buses, fewer car crashes, and less street noise.
To reap even greater benefits, we should raise the fees for driving in Manhattan’s core and create additional congestion pricing zones across the city. Now is the time to start this important work.
Manhattan’s congestion pricing program has been an enormous success, as reported across many news outlets (NYT, Bloomberg, AMNY, Curbed, Streetsblog, The Economist).
Charging a $9 toll to drive in Manhattan below 60th Street has had a big impact. Since tolling started in January of this year, we’ve seen:
Fewer cars and less congestion: Roughly 76,000 fewer vehicles are entering the Manhattan toll zone each day, which is about a 12% drop in traffic volume.1 The time wasted in traffic jams in Manhattan each week has reduced by 25%. Congestion has reduced 9% across the whole NYC region, including a 10% reduction in traffic delays in the Bronx and a 14% reduction in New Jersey's Bergen County.2
Faster buses: Bus routes that traverse rivers are moving much faster, with buses crossing the Holland Tunnel 48% faster, the Lincoln Tunnel 17% faster, and the Williamsburg Bridge 34% faster. Within the toll zone, local buses are rolling 3% quicker.3
Better quality of life: Car crashes and injuries are down 14% in the toll zone, and down 9% citywide. Honking complaints are down 45%, and double-parking violations are down 4%. In the toll zone, 33% fewer school buses are reaching their destinations late (while elsewhere in the city, school bus punctuality is unchanged).4
More funding for transit: The toll is on-track to raise $500 million this year for transit upgrades, including subway station elevators/escalators, new signals for faster and more reliable trips, and extending the Second Avenue subway to 125th Street.
No signs of economic harm: Broadway theater bookings are unchanged, and restaurant reservations on OpenTable are up 7%. Retail sales appear to be up, and the number of people working from an office in the toll zone on an average weekday increased by 6.6%.5 Of course, it’s hard to know what would have happened if congestion pricing hadn’t happened, but the data we’re seeing is positive.
Now is the time for New York to go even bolder with congestion pricing. The three big levers I see to supercharge the toll’s impact are to:
Raise the overall toll price to further motivate drivers to switch to transit and discourage low-value trips
Increase tolls on taxis, Ubers, and Lyfts, to fix the surprisingly low per-trip tolls that we currently charge on this large share of Manhattan’s vehicles
Create additional toll zones, to expand congestion pricing’s effects to Upper Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn
I’ll walk through these ideas, and explain the political and procedural mechanics of how we can implement these bold steps to build a more thriving city.
Raising Manhattan’s toll
Charging drivers higher toll prices would further provide even more incentive for drivers to switch to transit and avoid unessential drives into Manhattan. In turn, this would compound the benefits we’ve already been seeing.
The current toll for a standard car that enters Manhattan below 60th Street is $9 per day, with lower rates for motorbikes and higher charges for trucks. Overnight, tolls get reduced to 25% of their daytime rate.
These tolls are set to automatically increase by $3 in 2028, and by a further $3 in 2031, for a total car toll of $15 per day. These pre-planned increases will bolster the positive impacts of the $9 toll.6
These planned increases are great, but we should go further, faster. To get even speedier buses, less congested streets, and a more livable Manhattan, a bold government could accelerate these planned increases and continue to push the toll higher. The original environmental assessment for congestion pricing considered prices as high as $23 per car per day, and one academic at SUNY Stony Brook even suggests that $50-$80 per day would be the sweet spot.
How to raise the congestion pricing toll
Procedurally, adjusting toll rates is straightforward. The law allows the MTA board to change toll rates at any time, up to the $23 limit considered in the environmental review (and so long as the MTA collects enough money to support $15 billion in bonds for transit projects).
Politically, getting the MTA to increase the congestion pricing fee essentially requires the support of the governor and the mayor, who appoint a majority of the MTA board’s members.7 As time goes on, public opinion about congestion pricing appears to be improving, with support strongest among Manhattanites and transit riders.
Make ride-hails & taxis pay their fair share
Taxis and app-based for-hire vehicles (like Uber and Lyft) dominate Manhattan’s streets — on a typical weekday they account for between 35% and 50% of vehicles on the road.8 Yet the congestion charge that applies to these vehicles is a rounding error on most rides, and currently not enough to meaningfully shift rider behavior.
Currently, all rides that begin, end, or pass through Manhattan’s congestion zone are tolled $0.75 for taxis and $1.50 for Ubers/Lyfts. These vehicles are charged a per-trip fee that’s added to the rider’s fare, unlike the daily toll for private vehicles.9
These fees are too small. For many taxi and Uber trips, the congestion fee is smaller than the normal fluctuations of a trip’s price, on average amounting to just 3.4% of a taxi fare and 4.3% of an Uber/Lyft ride.10 Taxis already add $0.70 per minute the car is stopped or rolling slower than 12mph; so a single long red light can swing the fare by more than the congestion surcharge.11 Thanks to congestion pricing, cabs are moving faster, so total fares may even be lower now than before congestion pricing kicked in.
To further clear up Manhattan’s congestion, New York’s government should raise the congestion fee for taxis and ride-hailing services to a level that truly incentivizes riders to switch to alternative ways of getting around.
Why should a taxi rider pay a congestion charge of only $0.75 for a trip that a driver of a private vehicle would pay $9 for? It’s a question of fairness, and a question actually making a dent in Manhattan’s ride-hail and taxi gridlock.
How to raise the taxi toll
Fortunately, the process to increase the congestion price for taxis and for-hire vehicles is just the same as for private vehicles, discussed above. All that’s required is for the MTA board to agree to increase the charge, which can then immediately go into effect.
Creating additional congestion pricing zones
Tolling Manhattan’s core has shown that congestion pricing works, but this isn’t the only area that suffers from dense traffic. Let’s bring the relief uptown and across the river by establishing new congestion pricing zones in Upper Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn.
It’s important that we create new congestion pricing zones, rather than just expand the current zone. Private vehicles are only charged when they enter the zone, so if we just expanded the current boundaries we’d then miss out on tolling the trips that stay within the zone’s borders.
Upper Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn are obvious candidates for new zones: they have a high density of residential/commercial activity, plentiful transit, and streets clogged with vehicles. The Upper Manhattan zone would stretch from the current zone’s 60th Street boundary up to either 125th Street, or all the way to the top of Manhattan. I’m less familiar with Downtown Brooklyn, but I imagine the area enclosed by the BQE, Atlantic Ave, and Ashland Place would be a good place to start.
We’d set the toll for these new zones lower than the rate for the Manhattan core, but still enough to deter some driving and raise millions for transit upgrades.
A hard path to launching new congestion zones
The process to create new toll zones is long and complicated, which is all the more reason why now is the time to get started. Lawmakers in Albany will need to pass a law defining the new zones’ boundaries, the governor will need to approve it, and then there’ll be a multi-year environmental review, plus sign-off from the federal government.
Related: Even projects that are obviously good for the environment get stuck with years of costly environmental reviews. It doesn’t have to be this way.
The Trump administration has sought to kill the existing congestion pricing zone, so it’s unlikely that additional toll zones will receive federal approval during the current presidential term.
However, given the multi-year legislative and review process at the state level, now is the perfect time to get started. That way whenever a more amenable administration controls the White House, New York will already be prepared to ask Washington for the green light.
Ask and you shall receive
If you want to double-down on congestion pricing, now is the time to let your elected officials know. Congestion pricing has many vocal critics, but few people speak up when they feel the status quo is working well. Elected officials value input from their constituents.
I’ve called the offices of my state assembly member and state senator to let them know I support congestion pricing, and wish we would charge higher rates and launch additional toll zones. Just find your representatives’ details, and give them a 30 second call. You can email them, too.
This is a chance to embrace what’s already working well, and take congestion pricing to the next level — for faster buses, more livable streets, and a city that thrives.
Regional Plan Association, “Congestion Pricing: Faster All Around”
Regional Plan Association, “Congestion Pricing: Faster All Around”
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Central Business District Toll Schedule
See Public Authorities Law § 1263: Of the MTA board’s voting members, the governor appoints 43%, the mayor appoints 29%, and the remainder are appointed by the local governments of the suburban counties surrounding NYC.
MTA and Gotham Gazette
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Central Business District Toll Schedule
My analysis of March 2025 data from the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission. Fares include all surcharges, extras, taxes, and non-cash tips.
Great article! I love your choice of zones and would throw two more things out there:
1. LIC would be the only other zone I would consider. An upper Manhattan toll could accomplish the same thing with easier politics though, so agree probably not.
2. Putting a very small toll (50 cents? 1 dollar?) on the BQE, WSH, and FDR makes sense to me.
I do not drive to Manhattan, because it’s just a tax for Queens residents. I take the Express Bus QM15 which is ridiculously cheep… just $7 😊👍. Good luck MTA