New York's congestion charge cuts traffic 13% and raises $540m as other US cities take notes
Twenty-one months after the $9 toll began, buses are faster, crashes are down and the predicted exodus of shoppers has not materialised
The number of vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th Street has fallen by 13% since the United States' first congestion charge began in January 2025, and the toll has raised $540m in its first 21 months, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said on Tuesday.
Cars pay $9 to enter the zone during the day and $2.25 at night; lorries pay up to $21.60. The MTA's report found that about 78,000 fewer vehicles now enter the zone each weekday, that average bus speeds on the crosstown routes have risen 11% and that collisions causing injury inside the zone have fallen by 15%. Traffic noise complaints to the city's helpline are down by a third.
The money, which by law must go to public transport, has been committed to new signalling on the A and C subway lines, 265 electric buses and lifts at 23 stations. The authority said it had already sold $2bn in bonds against the future revenue.
The charge survived two years of legal challenges from New Jersey, a petition from lorry operators and a threat of federal intervention. Its opponents predicted that shoppers and diners would abandon Manhattan; the report found that pedestrian counts in the zone are up 4% and that retail sales tax receipts rose in line with the rest of the city.
“I was dead against it. Every one of my customers drives, I thought,” said Sal Petrocelli, who has run a delicatessen on Second Avenue for 24 years. “Turns out most of them walk. The guy who drives in from Jersey, I lost him. The delivery truck gets here on time now. I will take the trade.”
Not everyone has adjusted. Devon Ashworth, who has driven a yellow cab for 19 years, said the per-trip surcharge of 75 cents was tolerable but the quieter streets had not translated into more fares. “Less traffic is nice for me as a driver. As a business, it is the same,” he said.
Dr Rebecca Chao, a transport economist at New York University who has tracked the scheme, said the results closely matched what London and Stockholm saw in their first years. “The lesson from every city that has done this is that the politics are terrible for two years and then nobody wants to go back,” she said. “What is different here is the money. London's charge pays for itself and a bit. This one is paying for a subway.”
Officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston have visited the MTA this year to study the scheme, and San Francisco's transport authority has commissioned a design study for a charge on its downtown. None has yet set a date.
The MTA said the toll would rise to $12 in 2028 and $15 in 2031, as set out in the original plan.
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