Congestion Pricing is a Policy Miracle
Which is exactly why Trump wants to get rid of it
On January 5th 2025, Congestion Pricing went into effect in New York City. It was a long and winding road (as I detailed here last summer), but Governor Hochul finally made the right decision and allowed the policy to go into effect (albeit at a $9 price point vs. the initial $15). While I was a bit concerned at first that this lower price would reduce the effectiveness of the congestion relief zone, it has still been a resounding success over the past two months.
Despite this, Trump has issued an order demanding the MTA shut down the program tomorrow, March 21st. Thankfully, Trump’s legal authority here is questionable at best and the MTA is making the decision to keep the program running absent any court order forcing their hand.
With so much debate over the impacts of congestion pricing, let’s take a look at the hard data and see exactly what’s happening:
Traffic is down!
First and foremost, congestion pricing has been stunningly effective at reducing traffic in Manhattan and the bridges/tunnels entering the city.
In the first month of congestion pricing, the MTA reported over 1 million fewer vehicle entries into the toll zone than would be expected without the program, driving the significant traffic reduction seen above. It’s also worth noting that the above chart shows reduction in travel times rather than congestion—in many cases, congestion has completely disappeared, and the new travel times represent a congestion-free trip. This reduction reverses a years-long trend of rising traffic into Manhattan - congestion pricing took a worsening gridlock problem and solved a significant portion of it overnight. Additionally, while there were fears that congestion pricing would just re-route traffic to other boroughs, the data from the first months of congestion pricing suggests that traffic has not increased elsewhere in the city.
Public transit is up!
Transit ridership has seen a notable spike since the implementation of congestion pricing as travelers into Manhattan are switching from driving to transit.
The MTA as a whole is averaging 448K more public transit riders per day this year. To put this into perspective, the second-highest ridership subway in the US is the DC Metro, which averaged 304K riders per day in January this year. The MTA ridership growth since congestion pricing went into effect is almost 50% larger than the total ridership of America’s next-largest subway system.
Unsurprisingly, bus ridership has seen the greatest relative growth, likely due to the fact that it most immediately benefits from congestion pricing thanks to faster travel times.
As you can see in the above chart, median trip times are down significantly, meaning that buses can go faster. However, the most interesting aspect of the above chart is the “P90” savings: P90 is the 90th percentile trip (basically the bus rides from hell that get caught in horrible traffic). These trip times are down even more drastically, reflecting the increased reliability of bus rides and shaving off the long tail of major delays. And it’s not just the MTA - buses in New Jersey are seeing significantly faster travel times, here’s quote from the CEO of Boxcar, a private bus company in New Jersey.
“There’s been no need for subtle data analysis,” said Joe Colangelo, 39, Boxcar’s founder and chief executive, who has heard from customers who say they can’t believe how fast their rides are. “The buses are just flying.”
Boxcar has already added six more trips a week to and from Manhattan in response to a surge in ridership and is considering adding more, Mr. Colangelo said.
The city is safer!
One of the loudest criticisms of congestion pricing is that it “forces people to take the unsafe subway.” Putting aside the fact that the subway is already far safer than driving, increased transit ridership has driven down subway crime as more “eyes on the train” reduce the appeal of crime and make the system more safe. In January of 2025, subway crimes were down 37% vs. 2024. This is on an absolute basis, and when adjusting for ridership, the rate of crime went from one crime per 397K riders to one crime per 672K riders. To put that number into perspective, if someone rode the train twice per day, every day, for the next fifty years, that’s ~36,500 rides, and that rider would have only a ~5% chance of ever being a victim of a crime over the course of their lifetime. The risk of being a crime victim on the subway was already slim, but it’s exceedingly so now that congestion pricing has raised ridership and made the trains safer. On top of that, congestion pricing will likely be used to help fund improved fare gates that will further increase safety in the system.
But it’s not just the trains that are safer. The streets are much safer as well - congestion pricing has been extremely effective at discouraging reckless motorists from driving into Manhattan, as car crashes and associated injuries have fell more than 50% in January 2025 vs. 2024. Given the scale of America’s traffic violence epidemic, congestion pricing is an extremely effective way to make progress at cut down on the <40,000 traffic deaths we face annually. Additionally, honking complaints have decreased by 69% in the congestion relief zone, marking a significant improvement in quality of life. This reduction will also greatly benefit public health, as noise pollution—primarily from cars—is one of the (not-so) silent killers in big cities, a topic I have previously written about here.
Business is booming!
Another one of the loudest complaints about congestion pricing is that it would hurt businesses. Even though only 11% of commuters to the congestion relief zone drive in the first place, some people were worried that fewer visitors would come to Manhattan, hurting the economy.
Unsurprisingly, this has not been the case. Rather, we have seen the opposite - there’s been increased foot traffic, retail sales, restaurant reservations, and Broadway attendance since congestion pricing went into effect. Here are some specific stats compiled by the MTA at a recent board meeting comparing Jan/Feb of 2025 vs. the same weeks of 2024:
Broadway attendance is up 21%
Restaurant reservations are up 7%
Pedestrian traffic is up by 4%
Retail sales are up $900M and retail occupancy is up .5%
Commercial leasing is up 61%
Additionally, a recent study found that congestion pricing will boost NYC’s economy by up to $1.3 billion and that scrapping congestion pricing would cost the state 100k jobs.
What’s Next
Unsurprisingly, congestion pricing is getting significantly more popular, with a recent poll showing that 60% of New Yorkers oppose Trump’s attempt to scrap the program. Nonetheless, Trump has ordered his DOT Secretary, former reality TV star Sean Duffy to scrap the program, declaring himself a king in the process. While congestion pricing has traditionally been supported by center-right economists (the Bush administration strongly supported congestion pricing), Trump is an avatar of the modern Republican party’s hostility towards cities and urban living in general.
Thankfully, Trump’s legal argument attempt to scrap congestion pricing is riddled with factual errors (including misspelling the full name of the MTA), and it looks like his legal case to overrule a state program is quite weak. Accordingly, the MTA has said they will continue to run the congestion pricing program, despite Trump’s declaration, and a new lawsuit landed with Judge Liman who has ruled in favor of congestion pricing before. Despite Trump’s bluster, I am optimistic that congestion pricing will remain in effect, continue working, and become even more popular as more and more residents experience its benefits, which is exactly what happened in Stockholm.
The last thing that I think is important to note is that congestion pricing is a policy unicorn - it accomplishes a key goal (reducing congestion) and raises money. This is in contrast with highway widenings which are the opposite: they cost money (often billions of dollars) and fail to accomplish the goal of reducing traffic due to induced demand. New York’s approach of congestion pricing and funding transit is a stark contrast from New Jersey’s approach of spending billions on unsuccessful highway widenings (and suing New York to stop congestion pricing). It has been extremely upsetting to see Gov. Phil Murphy praise Trump for his decision, and New Jersey deserves a better governor with a serious transportation plan. On that note, I’d recommend supporting Steve Fulop in the upcoming New Jersey governor primary, who has far and away the best transportation plan for New Jersey. Additionally, other cities across the country, from Chicago to Los Angeles should be examining congestion pricing as a 1-2 punch to reduce traffic and improve transportation rather than continuing a flawed, expensive strategy of highway widenings that are doomed to fail.
I can’t wait to toll the Kennedy, Ike, and Dan Ryan in Chicago!
incredible post, thank you!