NYC NOW - Congestion Pricing One Year Later: Was It as Bad as Everyone Said?

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

A year after congestion pricing took effect in Manhattan, the political uproar has largely faded even as the tolls remain in place. Traffic is down, transit use is up, and the dire warnings that once surrounded the program have quieted. WNYC transportation reporter Stephen Nessen looks back at how New Yorkers have adjusted, why backlash softened over time, and how the city’s experience fits into a global pattern seen in places like Stockholm and London.

We are rolling and I just want to make a toast to the state of New York, the MTA, and all who have just hit the one-year anniversary of congestion pricing. Cheers. Cheers. Happy one-year anniversary. Everyone pass me nine bucks if you see me. Anytime you pass by me, give me $9. So you can drive into Manhattan? No.

so I can drive up my savings account. What are you talking about? From WNYC, this is NYC now. Where we look beyond the news headlines and into the why. I'm Jene Pierre. A year ago, congestion pricing landed in New York and set off a political and cultural firestorm. The program charges drivers nine bucks

to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street, with the goal of reducing traffic and funding public transit. When this first came out, drivers were angry. Lawsuits were even filed. And some elected officials warned the tolls would be disastrous for the city. For months, the tolls dominated conversations about life in New York City. Even drawing ire from President Trump, who said congestion pricing would hurt the city's economy.

But a year later, Manhattan, it's still standing. The bridges didn't crumble. And I can confirm that civilization has not collapsed, but some people are paying a lot of money. Still in all, congestion pricing is still here, guys. So today, we're looking back at what it's actually been like to live with it for a year. To walk us through how it played out in New York, we're joined by WNYC's transportation reporter, Stephen Nesson. Stephen reviewed data from a variety of sources, including the MTA's 108-page report recapping the first. year. What's up, Stephen?

Hello, Jene. I can't believe it's been a year since the new tolls have been in place. What's it been like? Well, you probably remember, like, when this first launched, right outside of our building on Verick Street, for me, that's where it hit, like, the hardest. Because prior to congestion pricing, it was even start maybe like two o'clock in the afternoon sometimes, especially, like, Thursday, Friday, even like Wednesday, the cars would start to back up. The honking would begin. It was like clockwork. You could just be like, oh, yeah, it's two o'clock. Now, it's when the cars start to back up, the honking starts, the shouting, you know, those traffic guards out front who are

just like screaming their lungs out. Yeah. Like back up, back up. Or back the fuck. Yeah. No, the cursing is crazy. Seriously. Plenty of it. Plenty of it from drivers and the, uh, the traffic agents. Yeah, yeah. But as soon as congestion pricing hit, it was like a switch was flipped and the traffic disappeared. It was like that movie Vanilla Sky where you like look around and the streets are empty. It was like almost like the pandemic even. Whereas like suddenly all the cars are gone. Yeah, it was kind of quiet. That's what it was like. At least all of January was like that. February was like that. And then sort of later as the months crept on, we sort of got a little bit used to it and the car started to come back. And it doesn't seem quite as dramatic anymore as like

those first couple months. But, you know, we're getting stats. right now that show, like, as a matter of fact, traffic really dropped dramatically. Yeah. Something like 27 million fewer vehicles entered Manhattan last year as a result of congestion pricing. That's crazy numbers, right? And let's be honest, though, Stephen, you know, congestion pricing isn't something that's unique only to New York City. This is happening in other cities and other countries, right?

Actually, I should say, congestion pricing did come from New York. What? The person that came up with it was a Columbia University. professor who won a Nobel Prize way back when. Word. But that said, Singapore really kick things off in the late 70s with congestion pricing. It was like obviously much more primitive. Now they use easy pass and digital technology does all this stuff.

But other cities around the world followed suit. Sweden really was a big example for us to follow. And so before New York launched congestion pricing, I was looking at what was going on in Sweden. How did it go there? and it was super interesting just like New York everybody was against congestion pricing

like three quarters of the population are like doomsday like we can never have this it'll you know cripple us it'll destroy the city Stockholm can't handle it so the government was maybe slightly less heavy handed than New York

who was just like congestion pricing it's here deal with it they've made it a referendum they allowed people to vote on it so but they were like let's try it first so two thirds of the public

were against it then they're like, all right, we'll do a trial period. Three months, see how you like it, and then you vote on it. And of course, just like New York, the traffic dropped dramatically. People could walk around more freely. And they held a vote. And sure enough, two-thirds of the public voted to keep congestion pricing. And you know, Stephen, the one thing that we haven't really talked about quite yet is the fact that congestion pricing has positively impacted the air quality.

Right. So Cornell University did the first big study looking at the impact. on the air quality from congestion pricing. And they found in Manhattan, like in the toll zone below 60th Street, the fine particle pollution. They say it dropped 22% in the zone during this past year. And even outside the zone, as far away as parts of New Jersey and Brooklyn and Queens, it also dropped like around 1%. But I also talked to experts who are like, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

You can't just do like one year of looking at something because a lot of things impact the air quality. It could be the weather. It could be, you know, wildfires. A slew of other things can impact it. Even the MTA says it's too soon to comment on the air quality. But the signs are promising. And that many fewer vehicles entering Manhattan is definitely going to help the air quality. And especially the trucks, that was a big thing. Because trucks pay a lot more than $9. They pay well over $22, depending on the size of the truck. Okay. So a lot of companies are sort of changing their schedule so they're not dropping things off during peak. charge time. It's a lower charge in the overnight hours. So they're switching times. So that also helps with air pollution because they're not idling in traffic all day. Yeah. Let's talk a bit more about perception versus reality, right? Because that was one of the concerns that would mess up the air quality. Traffic would be all over the place because people will be taking these shortcuts. Can you put some of that to rest for us? Yeah. I think we can definitely put that to rest. Especially, like,

there were two main groups that were really concerned about that. One of them was folks in the Bronx who already suffer from high rates of asthma, a lot of traffic on the cross Bronx expressway. So there was like major concern that traffic was going to spill over and take these shortcuts to avoid Manhattan. But the Bronx is always going to be one that gets like the worst impact of this. And that hasn't come to pass. There's been no discernible increase in truck traffic over there. New Jersey is the other side that was really concerned about this. And likewise, they just haven't seen those negative impacts.

It hasn't come to pass. The experts that you talked to in London, what have they said about what's happening here in New York? I spoke with Craig Morton from London. He's a transportation planner. He's a lecturer. He said people always complain that traffic is still bad. It happens in London. But the reality is we don't really know how much worse it might be if we didn't do congestion pricing.

But you don't know how bad it would have been if congestion pricing hadn't been introduced. It could be the key to the traffic volume at that moment. when you're doing that kind of retrospective analysis, would have been even worse. So it's one of those things. It's difficult to figure out alternative futures. And I will add, you know, a lot of folks complain about London because they have seen their traffic get worse in recent years,

but that's also due to a bunch of other policies, like, you know, adding a lot more bike lanes and closing the streets to certain types of vehicles. They have so-called low-emission zones where big trucks can't even go to the center of the city. So they really are messing with. with their traffic system by trying to tamp down on the most polluting vehicles. Welcome back. I'm here talking with WMYC's transportation reporter, Stephen Nesson, about congestion pricing,

which has now been in place in New York City for one year. So 365 days means that we have some data that we can go through. What does the data tell us, Stephen? Well, we know that there were 27 million, fewer vehicles that entered Manhattan below 60th Street. Pretty much that means every month they're at least 10% fewer vehicles than there were last year at the same time before the tolls went into effect. And one of the biggest things I think that we were promised is that bus speeds will increase as a result of this. And they increased a little bit. I'm about to say, don't lie about it because I was on that bus. I don't think you're going to feel a 2.3% increase in speed. But it's there. There you go. It's up. I guess the idea is it will increasingly get better and better.

But car speeds went up 4.6%. Again, it's not a massive jump, but it's something. It's a sign, you know, we're taking steps in the right direction. Bus ridership actually increased during this time by 8% and subway ridership by 9%. But again, like someone like me who's somewhat skeptical is looking at the numbers, like that could also be attributed to a bunch of things. Like more people are being forced to go back to work in person. So subway ridership is going to go up. And the, you know, Subway ridership really dropped during the pandemic and it's only slowly been creeping up and up and up. So is it because of congestion pricing or is it just more people are coming back to Manhattan? It's hard to say. But one thing that the data does show that is super interesting, and this is like the biggest jump I think you'll see, like yeah, two to three percent increase in speed. All right, nobody can feel that. But the speeds to get in and out of Manhattan have really, really changed.

The Holland Tunnel, on average, is. is 51% faster than it was before congestion pricing. Except on Thanksgiving Day. The Lincoln Tunnel, 25%, Queensboro, 29%. So, you know, we are seeing some changes there. Yeah. You know, traffic patterns are changing as a result of this, which is totally expected. That's like what happens when you start charging people.

Yeah. And speaking of charging people, let's talk about the numbers with dollar signs. How is the state and the MTA? Right. Benefini. You know, like the cartoon where like the money go into the eyes. Donald Duck or what's his name? Scrooge dives into the pool of coins.

The dollar signs. You roll your eyes. That's the MTA. That's the MTA right now. They're rolling in it. They got roughly close to $500 million this year from the tolls. And, you know, before everyone's like complaining like, like, wait a minute. And they just raise the subway fare to $3 and they're making all this money.

Like, what's going on? Like the MTA is such a vast operation, and they have two pools of money. One is for day-to-day expenses, mostly like labor for subways, bus drivers, subway operators, things like that. That's the operating budget. And then they have their capital budget, which is all the big projects like new train cars, new signals, improving the quality of your station, such as it is. Occasionally you will notice new lighting and you'll notice new fair gates coming soon, things like that. the money that pays for that is coming from congestion pricing.

Now, I know you mentioned that New York City didn't start congestion pricing, but we know that a lot of cities in this country look to New York City for what they should be doing next. So, you know, I'm wondering, can we see congestion pricing in other cities? Totally. The MTA says they've already been in discussions with folks in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, who are all looking at New York and being like, oh, yeah, I guess it does work. Maybe we should try that. I haven't heard of any city yet that is taking the plunge to seriously begin a congestion pricing program, but they're definitely in discussion with the MTA.

And I guess one of the interesting things that I've learned over the past year, like, you know, like in New York, everybody was freaking out about congestion pricing. I myself was on call for like a year, basically, just waiting for any congestion pricing news to drop. And there was a lot of it. I can't tell you how many times, Janay, I've been woken up at like 5.30 in the morning by a producer at this station who's like, oh my God, did you see the new lawsuit just dropped or the governor just said this. A lot of back and forth. Yeah. Can you come on the radio in half an hour and talk about it? I was like, sure, okay.

Like I became like the go-to, like, congestion pricing guru to like know, like, what's the latest? What's happening? I even checked Wikipedia. Just curious to see how many articles of ours were cited in the congestion pricing. entry and there's at least 35 citations, which is pretty good. Wow. Legacy for you. Which is to say it was such a big deal for congestion pricing to come to New York.

Yeah. But now it's sort of like, oh, yeah, we got congestion pricing. It almost feels like it's old news. And around the world, like I talked to some experts. I was like, what do you guys think about this? They're like, yeah, it's pretty much going exactly as we thought it would. No big surprise there. Yeah, yeah.

You make money, traffic decreases, and life goes on. You may remember President Trump, the president of the United States, used his platform to say congestion pricing is going to kill New York City, which is just like ludicrous because it's just the complete opposite. It's like it's fine. And this past year actually has been pretty good. Foot traffic increased. Business leases are going up like no market negative impact to the city. Now, I know that you spoke to some. drivers for this story, what are some of the things that you heard from them? Well, yeah, I guess that is the one thing. The one negative is a lot of drivers are paying a lot more to drive into the city. Everyone isn't happy. So nobody wants to pay more to do the thing they used to do for free. That's a guarantee. But I did speak with some drivers. I spoke with right outside of our building, in fact. I ran into 55-year-old Tray Ortiz. He owns a delivery company called Secure Transport. He's from Bayonne, New Jersey, and he delivers art and furniture, things like that. I don't see much of a difference at all, honestly. That's just what I'm saying. But I, you know, one year, it's still gridlock and I don't see too much of a difference. The only difference is the bill. That's it. Can I ask, has it hurt you financially? Oh, yes, definitely. Definitely has hurt me. Like how so? I mean, I'm coming into the city every day and just coming into the city and it doesn't pick up my easy path. and it's just been a number of problems. You know, I get stuff over the mail

and, like, I'm behind in payments because of that and so on and so on. Wow, wow. How much do you think it's cost you this year? Oh, this is... Walpark. I mean, it's costing me a good extra $600 a month about. Yeah.

And that hurts. It hurts. In this economy. You know, one thing that stuck out to me when you talk to Mr. Ortiz, he's paying an extra $600 a month for congestion pricing. And I can't help but think back to when congestion pricing was actually going to be $15, right? Right. Are there any talks to increase congestion pricing right now?

Oh, yeah. So, like, congestion pricing was actually supposed to launch in June of 2024, not January, 2025. So when it was supposed to launch, Governor Hockel swooped into the last minute and was like, hold on, New York's not ready for this yet, which is also feeds into that perception that like this was going to hurt New York so badly. She didn't do anything for the reputation of congestion pricing, I think, with that move. Congestion pricing now is $9. But when Governor Hockel paused it, she sort of created this new fee planning structure. So it's going to be $9 for now, but in 2028, it's going to go up to $12. And then in 2031, which feels like forever right now.

It's around the corner. It'll come soon enough. Then it'll be $15, the full rate. And who knows? I assume it will also continue to go up. It's not going to go down. You know, before congestion pricing even started, there were a bunch of lawsuits. You mentioned them.

But there were also those lawsuits out of New Jersey, right? I'm wondering, where do those stand right now? To the best of my knowledge, my understanding is that the early lawsuits, like the ones from the New Jersey, even Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey sued to stop this program, which now seems crazy. But those have all been put to rest. Judges have thrown them out on all kinds of merits. I even covered this one from this woman, Elizabeth Chan, aka the Queen of Christmas. She's written more Christmas songs than anyone else and even sued Mariah Carey and one because she believes she is the true queen of Christmas. I'm going to say it and come from me. Mariah Carey is the queen of Christmas.

Well, not according to Elizabeth Chan's lawsuit, which prevailed, and she is officially the queen of Christmas. Whatevs? That said, her lawsuit against the MTA was thrown out. She was worried that there would be increased traffic, and she would have a hard time getting her child to the hospital if there was an emergency. She lives in Battery Park. To the best of my knowledge, as well, her worst fears have not come to pass. And that lawsuit was thrown out. That said, we're talking lawsuits.

There is still one more lawsuit lingering. and that is one from the MTA against the Trump administration. Because President Trump, as you know, is against congestion pricing. And he wanted to cut transportation funding to New York because of congestion pricing. Basically, he threatened the MTA, kill your congestion pricing program, or I will not send you any more funding for your transportation projects in the whole state, not just New York City. Okay. And so they're currently in court. That case has not been decided.

There is a hearing later this month, so we'll find out more about it. But I will say I went to one of the early hearings, and the MTA just has such a rock-solid legal team. They have more than half a dozen lawyers that show up. The table is full of binders. These guys are just, like, so well-prepared. And the Trump administration's transportation department's lawyer showed up. It was one guy, and he was like almost inaudible when he was speaking to the judge. Everyone's leaning forward trying to hear what is he saying?

What are his arguments? And his arguments just fell so flat. The judge even asked him, how did you get here today? And he's like, well, I took the train because it's inconvenient to drive. And the judge is like, yeah, exactly. Wow, wow. So their case doesn't look very strong. But we'll see what happens.

That's WMYC's Steven Ness. And Stephen, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you. Hey, what are your thoughts on congestion pricing? Let me know. Hit us up at NYC now at WNYC.org. Thanks for listening to NYC Now. I'm JeneiPierre.

See you soon.