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NYC Congestion Pricing Starts Without Hiccups: Live Updates - The New York Times
Live Updates: New York’s Congestion Pricing Program Starts Without Hiccups
"The tolling program, the first of its kind in the country, will face its first big test with rush hour traffic on Monday morning. The new fees are intended to push more people to use trains and buses, and raise billions of dollars to improve mass transit.
Congestion pricing has finally arrived in New York City after decades of delays and challenges, including a failed, last-ditch effort by the State of New Jersey to end a program that will charge most drivers $9 to cross into the heart of Manhattan.
E-ZPass readers and cameras set up along the new tolling zone from 60th Street to the southern tip of Manhattan — some of the most traffic-saturated roads in the world — are intended to persuade more motorists to take mass transit instead. Officials say the tolls will also raise billions of dollars to finance crucial repairs and improvements to New York City’s aging subway system, buses, and two commuter rail lines.
Jan. 5, 2025, 1:15 p.m. ET
Jake Moate is visiting New York City from North London. Ever since he has been able to drive, congestion pricing has been in place in his home city. “In all honesty, you just get used to it,” Moate, 29, said as he exited the Clark Street subway station in Brooklyn. He sometimes drives to the edge of the zone to park in order to avoid the toll. Ultimately, he said, he has not observed a “massive difference in the amount of traffic we have in London.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:58 p.m. ET
Traffic already appeared to be lighter on Sunday morning in the congestion zone. The average travel speed was 15.1 miles per hour at 8 a.m., or about 3 percent faster than the 14.6 miles per hour recorded at the same time on the first Sunday in January 2024, according to real-time data from INRIX, a transportation analytics firm.
Jan. 5, 2025, 1:05 p.m. ET
This could be felt while driving through the streets just now. Traffic is often backed up on Delancey Street leading to the Williamsburg Bridge, a major throughway into Brooklyn. Today, there was no traffic and cars were sailing into the borough.
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:53 p.m. ET
Janno Lieber, the chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, says New York is uniquely poised to carry out congestion pricing, which intends to reduce the region’s dependence on cars. “Other localities in the United States are struggling with traffic,” he says. “They’re struggling with the consequences of traffic. They don’t have the great mass transit system that we have.”
Graham Dickie/The New York Times
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:47 p.m. ET
Rachel Drehmann, 43, of Brooklyn, works in the orchestra of the Broadway musical “Moulin Rouge.” She supports congestion pricing, but is not hopeful that it will restore reliable train service. Waiting on the platform for a Manhattan-bound No. 2 train, she expressed irritation with the infrequent train service on weekends and weeknights. “Broadway workers are really frustrated,” she said. Sometimes Drehmann rides a Citi Bike home after her show ends around 10 p.m. — a more reliable option at night than taking the train, she said.
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:42 p.m. ET
Based on the roughly 12 hours since the congestion pricing tolls took effect, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority does not intend to make any adjustments to the program, Janno Lieber, the agency’s chief executive, says at a news conference. “I cannot tell you what unforeseen conditions we will be reacting to,” he says. “We haven’t seen them yet.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:50 p.m. ET
President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised to stop congestion pricing once he takes office. But Lieber just expressed optimism that Trump, a New Yorker, will recognize the program’s benefits. “I think he understands, being on Fifth Avenue — living on Fifth Avenue, 59th Street — what traffic is doing to our city,” Lieber said, apparently referring to the approximate location of Trump Tower in Manhattan.
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:36 p.m. ET
Olivia Bensimon
Reporting from New Jersey
Congestion pricing is a bold move, but it will ultimately pay off when voters understand its larger implications, said Tim Phillips, 65, who lives with his wife, Mary, 70, in Greenwich Village. The couple occasionally drives in Manhattan, keeping their car at a home they have in Connecticut. “I think that for that privilege, I should pay a premium, because when I go around the city and I’m in an Uber and I witness 15 single-occupancy cars? That’s not necessary,” he said. “I don’t think that should be the way in New York City.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:28 p.m. ET
Janno Lieber, the chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, was asked during the news conference to respond to complaints about slow service and crime in the subway. “We have the best subway service on the numbers that we’ve had in over a decade,” Lieber says.
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:31 p.m. ET
Asked whether the tolls have affected traffic, Lieber says real-time data shows that vehicles appear to be moving as usual today.
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:23 p.m. ET
New York and New Jersey are inextricably tied, both economically and culturally, and New Jersey drivers are expected to shoulder a heavy portion of the toll burden. Congestion pricing felt like a “slap in the face” to Roger Corrado, 62, who lives in North Bergen. “I really feel slighted,” he said at a gas station near the Lincoln Tunnel, adding: “Think about a guy like myself, for 40 years commuting into Manhattan, paying the tolls, contributing to all the businesses in Manhattan. Now we feel like, where’s the loyalty? Like, this is how you treat us?”
Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:16 p.m. ET
Janno Lieber, the chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is speaking at a news conference. “This is a toll system that has never been tried before in terms of complexity,” he says.
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:17 p.m. ET
Lieber adds: “We’re only 12 hours in. So as I said, it’s hard to give an accurate measure of the program’s success, because we don’t really know until the end of the day.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:26 p.m. ET
Lieber said that the rollout so far has been smooth, and that officials “don’t expect New Yorkers to overnight change their behavior. Everybody’s going to have to adjust to this.”
Yellow cabs and services like Uber will pass along new fees linked to congestion pricing to passengers.Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Many of the vehicles that crowd the tolling zone are taxis and cars for ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft.
The new tolls will not fall on the drivers of those vehicles, who are oftenstruggling to make ends meet. Instead, passengers will be charged an additional amount for each trip into, out of and within the zone. (Even before the new pricing began, passengers already paidcongestion-related fees of up to $2.75.)
Jan. 5, 2025, 11:46 a.m. ET
Anusha Bayya
Reporting from Queens
Carlos Dallorso, 65, owns Spokesman Cycles, a bicycle sale and rental shop in Hunters Point. He has been in the industry for decades and can chart peaks and valleys of bike ridership in conjunction with increasing gas prices, transit strikes and, now, perhaps congestion pricing. “It helps the business for sure, because more people are going to be grabbing bikes now,” he said, standing in a dim store packed to the brim with bicycles. The question, he said, is whether Citi Bike will reap the rewards at the expense of local shops like his.
Jan. 5, 2025, 11:38 a.m. ET
Bruce Griffin, 63, waited for the B38 bus in the biting cold by the Korean War Veterans Plaza in Brooklyn. Griffin, a Brooklyn Heights resident who is retired, initially thought congestion pricing was an unnecessary hardship. But he eventually stopped driving into Manhattan because of the traffic, and came around to the tolling program. “If it can stop people from driving into Manhattan for frivolous reasons, I think it is a good thing,” he said.
Jan. 5, 2025, 12:00 p.m. ET
But Griffin also has his doubts about how the city spends money. For one, he believes public transit should be free, and he is suspicious of how the M.T.A. prioritizes its expenses.
Jan. 5, 2025, 11:26 a.m. ET
I am reporting from the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge at the corner of Tillary Street and Adams Street.
Jan. 5, 2025, 11:26 a.m. ET
“Nine dollars is just the price of going into the city now,” German Bosquez, 68, said while walking with his partner this morning. Bosquez, who is retired, lives by the Brooklyn Bridge and uses his car only on the weekends. “If we were going into the city every day we would think differently,” he said, adding that he hoped congestion pricing “does everything it is supposed to.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 11:22 a.m. ET
Olivia Bensimon
Reporting from New Jersey
Stefan Philips, 25, lives in Hudson County, N.J., and commutes all over New York City for work as a construction engineer. It’s easier for him to use public transportation, but he acknowledges that’s not the case for everyone: There are regular train delays, there’s no easy way to bike into the city, and sometimes driving seems to be the easiest option.
Jan. 5, 2025, 11:24 a.m. ET
Olivia Bensimon
Reporting from New Jersey
“I think that that their anger is misdirected,” he said of his fellow New Jerseyans who oppose congestion pricing. “It’s like a child mad about having to take their medicine. Yeah, this is just one part of it, and it’s too bad that the medicine is only treating the symptoms right now, but eventually we have to work towards fighting the disease, which is car-centric infrastructure and not building for the people.”
Congestion pricing began on Sunday.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Each year, scofflaw drivers in New York Citycheat their way out of paying tolls, costing the region’s mass transit system millions in lost revenue. And already, some drivers are thinking about ways to avoid the new congestion pricing tolls that will apply to those who enter the busiest part of Manhattan.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the city’s subways and buses as well as two commuter rail lines, depends on tolls to fund its operating budget. They are paid at nine bridges and tunnels — some of which connect to the new tolling zone — andadd up to about $2.4 billion each year, or about 13 percent of the M.T.A.’s budget. In 2022, the M.T.A. estimated that it had lost $46 million in revenue to scofflaws at its bridges and tunnels, about 2 percent of its toll earnings.
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:57 a.m. ET
City officials hope that the tolls will encourage drivers to take public transit. Manoj Bhandari, 54, who lives in New Jersey, normally drives to his Midtown office at least twice a week. Now, he says, he will exclusively take the train. “They are increasing the toll, so we are going to be looking for local transportation options now,” said Bhandari, who was parked outside the Lincoln Tunnel. “We won’t be using our car anymore.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 11:03 a.m. ET
But Bhandari worries about the effect it will have on businesses in the city. “I’ll have to think about coming into the city now. I’m rethinking dinners, visiting friends in the city; when friends come in from out of town, we have to think if we are going to take them into the city. It’s affecting our own pockets now.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:56 a.m. ET
It will be interesting to see how commuters might try to get around the toll in the coming months and how law enforcement will crack down. Something as simple as a bent license plate can throw off toll readers. New York Staterecently increased fines for obstructed license platesfrom a minimum of $100 to a maximum of $500.
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:53 a.m. ET
Sebastiano Tronchetti, 43, who lives in Queens and works as an event producer, has past experience with congestion pricing. “I’m Italian and from Milan, where we had the same thing,” he said. Though the plan was initially unpopular in Milan, he said, “we managed. And I think this is what will happen here.” He added: “Hopefully — I don’t drive, but I use the subway system a lot — the money will be used wisely to improve the public transportation system. And if that’s the case, I think it’s very fair and very useful.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:48 a.m. ET
Joann Ariola, who represents a Queens district in the City Council, opposes congestion pricing, which she said was “causing a great divide between the haves and the have-nots.” She also lamented having to pay the toll herself: “I’m not comfortable taking the subway, so I will be driving in and paying the price.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:45 a.m. ET
Anusha Bayya
Reporting from Queens
Kevin Chau, an avid Citi Bike user, is eagerly anticipating a greater sense of safety when cycling through the crowded streets of Manhattan now that congestion pricing is in effect. Chau, 27, lives in Queens and works as a software engineer in Manhattan, where he often finds himself on the verge of being clipped by the side mirror of a passing car. “Less cars on the road means it’s less dangerous for sure,” he said.
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:45 a.m. ET
In a statement, Philip Miatkowski, interim executive director of the nonprofit Transportation Alternatives, a proponent of congestion pricing, celebrated the toll’s debut. He also called on the city to set the conditions he said were necessary for the plan’s success. “Congestion pricing won’t work on its own,” he said. “As the program shifts trips out of cars, the city must expand and improve alternatives — and it should start today by building new car-free bus lanes and busways, carving out pedestrian space, daylighting intersections, and installing new protected bike lanes where traffic used to be.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:41 a.m. ET
Sarah Kaufman is the director of the New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation. Earlier this morning, she traveled from her apartment in East Harlem to the corner of 60th Street and Lexington Avenue to observe the tolling program in action. “It is largely uneventful,” she said as she stood on the corner. “I think because it is an E-ZPass system, there isn’t much to see.”
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:39 a.m. ET
Olivia Bensimon
Reporting from New Jersey
Art DiVittis, 66, doesn’t believe the toll will relieve congestion in New York’s Central Business District. “This is going to sound trite, but I think it’s a money grab,” DiVittis said at a Home Depot in Jersey City on Sunday morning. He thinks people might not want to drive into the city for the first few months of the new toll, but eventually they won’t have a choice if they need to drive in for work, and the bottlenecks in the city will persist.
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:40 a.m. ET
Olivia Bensimon
Reporting from New Jersey
“They’re sugarcoating,” DiVittis said of transit agencies’ congestion reduction estimates. And while the hope is that more people will use public transportation instead, DiVittis thinks limited service improvements and ongoing safety concerns will hinder that.
Congestion pricing will charge most motorists up to $9 a day to enter Manhattan below 60th Street, but delivery vehicles will pay more.Karsten Moran for The New York Times
With New York City’s congestion pricing underway, some of the plan’s biggest detractors are doubling down on a pocketbook argument: If logistics companies have to pay more to deliver everything from food and drinks to hospital equipment, then consumers will also suffer.
It is unclear how the price of goods will be affected by the plan, which is expected to reduce traffic, improve air quality and fund critical improvements to public transportation.
Jan. 5, 2025, 10:23 a.m. ET
Google Maps included warnings about congestion pricing on Sunday while displaying directions into Midtown Manhattan south of 60th Street.
Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Congestion pricing scanners near East 60th Street in Midtown Manhattan on Sunday morning.Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Congestion pricing has been discussed in New York City for decades, and late last night at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 60th Street in Manhattan, a crowd of supporters and opponents gathered to mark the start of the tolling program.
The two camps antagonized each other throughout the evening. Just before midnight, supporters of congestion pricing chanted “pay that toll,” while one critic tried to drown them out by banging a cowbell.
Congestion pricing was first proposed in the 1950s to manage crowded roads and subways.Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Congestion pricing has spread around the world to cities includingLondon, Stockholm, and Singapore. But the idea was born in New York City in the 1950s.
William Vickrey, an economics professor at Columbia University who won the Nobel Prize in 1996, has been called the “father of congestion pricing.” He proposed the use of economic incentives to better manage crowded roads — as well as the packed subway system."
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