New York also gets its own congestion charge: the traffic toll comes into force
Mobility — di Valentina Neri
$9 a day to drive through Manhattan: that's what the new traffic toll that has come into force in New York entails.
New York also gets its own congestion charge: the traffic toll comes into force
$9 a day to drive through Manhattan: that's what the new traffic toll that has come into force in New York entails.
- New York's traffic toll comes into force: motorists pay $9 a day to drive through Manhattan.
- The highly contested measure came into force on 5 January after several attempts to block it through legal channels.
Who knows how many times Noel Hidalgo, a forty-five-year-old Brooklyn resident, had already driven through the streets of his own city. Sunday, 5 January 2025, however, he was greeted by the applause of a group of supporters stationed on the pavement. At the same time, Emila Decaudin and her friends were imitating wedding customs, cheering from their car with "just tolled" written on the rear window and cans tied with a rope to the bumper to make more noise. They are among the very first people to pay the new traffic toll that has come into force in the city of New York, in the United States. A measure that has made its debut amid fierce controversy.
Me and my friends were the first people to drive through the new congestion pricing zone :)
How New York's traffic toll works
From 5 January, then, cars and vans pay $9 a day to enter the so-called Congestion relief zone, which covers Manhattan from 60th Street southward. The standard rate applies from 5:00am to 9:00pm on weekdays and from 9:00am to 9:00pm at weekends. Outside these time slots the charge is $2.25. The price is lower for motorcycles ($4.40, $1.05 outside peak hours) and higher for buses and heavy vehicles. Discounts are available for people on low incomes. School buses, government vehicles, ambulances, fire engines and other vehicles performing a public service are exempt.
The toll will rise to $12 a day by 2028 and to $15 by 2031, with an estimated annual revenue of around $500 million in the first three years, $700 million after the first increase, and close to one billion when the full rate is reached. New York's administration will use these future revenues as collateral to issue bonds worth a total of $15 billion, to be reinvested in modernising the bus, subway and rail network. At the same time, the hope is to ease congestion on the city's streets.
New York becomes the first major city in the US to implement congestion pricing plan as it joins cities like Stockholm and London in charging drivers a fee to enter high-traffic areas.
The complicated gestation of New York's congestion charge
Similar measures already exist elsewhere in the world. In London, the Congestion charge has been in place for more than twenty years, specifically since 2003: the toll is £15 a day for vehicles passing through the city's central districts from 7:00am to 6:00pm on weekdays and from 12:00pm to 6:00pm on public holidays. In Milan, area C, the successor to Ecopass, has been active since 2012. It applies to all cars, including those of residents (who nonetheless benefit from certain concessions): only electric or hybrid vehicles are exempt, as are motorcycles and mopeds. Major cities such as Singapore and Stockholm have also introduced tolls to discourage traffic.
In the United States, however, no city has ever introduced anything similar until now. In San Francisco and Washington the idea has been discussed in the past, but without reaching an agreement. The gestation of New York's new traffic toll itself was extremely convoluted; around ten lawsuits attempted to block it. In June it seemed on the verge of collapse, only to be revived — but only following a drastic cut to the daily rate (from $15 to $9). The New York Times notes that on Sunday 5 January, the day the toll came into force, neither the city's mayor Eric Adams nor the state governor Kathy Hochul chose to make any public comment. Presumably because of the strong opposition that emerges from opinion polls.
A disincentive to driving in the world's most congested city
According to the latest edition of the ranking compiled by Inrix, New York is second only to the Turkish city of Istanbul among the most congested cities. On average, each resident spends 102 hours a year in traffic, compared to 71 in Rome (the highest-ranked Italian city). In terms of lost productivity and time, the cost is estimated at $1,800 a year. On New York's streets, the average speed amounts to less than 21 kilometres per hour. According to data released by the city's administration, more than 700,000 vehicles enter Manhattan every day. With all that entails in terms of air pollution and quality of life.
Despite all these justifications, the new traffic toll introduced in New York is far from popular. A period of adjustment will undoubtedly be needed before any objective assessment of the results can be made, but for now a great many commuters are complaining about having to endure longer and less convenient journeys. And Donald Trump, just elected for his second term as President of the United States, has not missed the opportunity to declare his opposition and threaten to abolish it. A goal that will not, however, be so easy to achieve now that the measure is already in force.