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Fewer cars but more pedestrians: How NYC’s congestion pricing program is faring so far

New York City's congestion price program, the first in the United States, is showing strong early results. Gary Hershorn/Corbis News/Getty Images

New York City's congestion price program, the first in the United States, is showing strong early results. Gary Hershorn/Corbis News/Getty Images

 
 
New York (CNN) — President Donald Trump wants to end New York City’s landmark congestion pricing policy — but the tolling program is off to a strong start.

Some drivers’ commutes are getting faster. More people are walking around shopping districts in lower Manhattan. And legal experts say Trump doesn’t have the power to end congestion pricing anyway: New York passed congestion pricing into law, the federal government closely scrutinized and approved it, and courts have upheld it.

Congestion pricing is “really horrible” and “destructive to New York,” Trump said in an interview with the New York Post published Saturday. “Traffic is way down because people can’t come into Manhattan and it’s only going to get worse.”

 

Trump said that if he decides to end congestion pricing, he will be able to “kill it off in Washington through the Department of Transportation.” The White House did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Previously, during the 2024 campaign, Trump called congestion pricing a “massive business killer” and said he would end the program in his first week in office.

However, early results show the program is reaping benefits, including less bumper-to-bumper traffic in central Manhattan, increased public transit use and more pedestrian activity in business districts — a potential boost to stores and restaurants.

“I think there are a lot of people out there whose minds have changed since the program went live,” Juliette Michaelson, the deputy policy chief at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, told CNN. “Trump is a New Yorker and I think he understands how challenging traffic has been. This is a local solution to a local problem.”

Fewer cars but more pedestrians

Congestion pricing debuted January 5 in New York City after years of debate, government reviews and delays. The program charges drivers $9 a day during peak hours and $2.25 overnight to enter Manhattan below 60th Street, known as the congestion relief zone, with discounts for lower-income drivers and exemptions for others.

The toll is designed to ease gridlock within the most congested district in the United States and encourage public transit use. The money is intended to fund billions of dollars in badly needed transit improvements, reduce air pollution and improve street safety.

Charging drivers who enter lower Manhattan to fund mass transit is controversial, even though public transit is the main way New Yorkers get around. Public transit accounts for 75% of all trips to that part of New York and 85% of commuter trips to the zone.

 

Cars enter the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge on the first day of New York City’s congestion pricing program last month.
Cars enter the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge on the first day of New York City’s congestion pricing program last month.  Adam Gray/Reuters
 

Around 1.2 million fewer vehicles entered the zone in January, a 7.5% drop from January 2024, according to the MTA, which operates the tolling program. It took up to 30% less time during rush hour to get across bridges and through tunnels into lower Manhattan that month. Drive times across 34th Street — a major thoroughfare — got cut nearly in half.

Despite the dropoff in cars, more people visited lower Manhattan business areas.

Last month, around 36 million people visited business districts in the zone, about 1.5 million people higher than January of 2024. Attendance to Broadway shows also rose 17% in January annually, despite predictions that congestion pricing would hurt Broadway.

In early surveys after the program went into effect, New York voters said congestion pricing led to faster commutes and less traffic. A plurality of voters in New York state opposes congestion pricing. But the people who support it the most appear to be drivers who frequently commute into the zone, according to a Morning Consult survey released last week.

Sixty-six percent of people who drive into lower Manhattan a few times per week or more support congestion pricing, according to the survey.

“The impact of the congestion relief zone in the city has been immediate and positive,” Kathryn Wylde, the CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group, said in a statement to CNN. “Congestion pricing is a market driven, user fee that allows people who opt to drive into the city to gain immediate benefits.”

But Salil Mehta, who owns three Southeast Asian-focused restaurants in the zone, told CNN that congestion pricing is hurting small businesses and discouraging people from visiting and spending money during the week.

“It couldn’t have come at a worse time” because of higher costs for food and restaurant operations, Mehta said. Still, he said, his commute has been cut from an hour to 30 minutes. “That part of it is great.”

Path to congestion pricing

New York City’s congestion pricing program is the first in the United States, but similar models have been implemented in cities across the globe for decades, including in London since 2003 and Stockholm since 2007.

In 2019, after years of calls for congestion pricing in New York City, New York state passed a law ordering the MTA to implement a tolling program. The program will generate $15 billion in investments to modernize New York City’s 100-year-old public transit system.

In 2023, after a lengthy review, the Federal Highway Administration said that congestion pricing would have no significant environmental impact, clearing the way for the program.

Congestion pricing was set to go into effect last spring with a $15 daily toll for drivers, but New York Governor Kathy Hochul suspended the plan indefinitely before the 2024 election. Hochul denied the decision was politically motivated and said the $15 charge was too pricey, though she had been a vocal supporter of the program before halting it.

 

Cars and pedestrians move along Madison Avenue this month.
Cars and pedestrians move along Madison Avenue this month.  Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 
Shortly after the November election, Hochul rebooted congestion pricing, but at the lower $9 toll. It went into effect weeks before Trump took office.

Trump and Hochul have spoken twice in recent weeks, and Hochul has advocated to keep congestion pricing in place, according to a source familiar with their conversations.

Congestion pricing has survived several lawsuits seeking to block the program, including a last-ditch effort from New Jersey. The United Federation of Teachers and the Trucking Association of New York have filed lawsuits against the MTA, saying the program could hurt commuters who drive into Manhattan.

It’s harder to end congestion pricing now that it’s underway and a lengthy federal review found no significant environmental impact, said Michael Gerrand, the director of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

“I don’t think that the administration has the authority to stop congestion pricing at this point,” he said.

Trump has publicly suggested that he could “kill” congestion pricing by withholding federal funding to the MTA, but he does not have the legal authority to do that without Congress, Gerrand said. The administration could also send a letter to the MTA directing it to shut down congestion pricing, but that would quickly be contested in court, he said.

“The courts have affirmed that the MTA has the legal obligation to operate congestion pricing,” he said.

CNN’s John Towfighi contributed to this article.

Author: Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN

Source: CNN:::

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