Congestion pricing in New York City
in New York City, also known as the Central Business District Tolling Program or CBDTP, began on January 5, 2025. It applies to most motor vehicular traffic using the central business district area of Manhattan south of 61st Street, known as the Congestion Relief Zone, in an effort to encourage commuters to use public transportation instead. This Pigovian tax, intended to cut down on traffic congestion and pollution, was first proposed in 2007 and was included in the 2019 New York State government budget by the New York State Legislature. Tolls are collected electronically and vary depending on the time of day, type of vehicle, and whether a vehicle has an E-ZPass toll transponder. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority estimates $15 billion in available capital will be generated by bonding revenues from the tolls, which will be available to fund repairs and improvements to the subway, bus, and commuter rail systems.
As of 2024, New York City led the world in urban automobile traffic congestion, despite having a 24/7 rapid transit system. Since the early 20th century, several proposals have been floated for traffic congestion fees or limits for vehicles traveling into or within the Manhattan central business district. A recurring proposal was adding tolls to all crossings of the East River, which separates the borough of Manhattan from the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.
In response to the 2017 New York City transit crisis of the MTA, Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed taking advantage of open road tolling technology and providing a revenue stream for the agency. In 2019, following negotiations, Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to implement congestion pricing to stem the ongoing transit crisis. Federal officials gave final approval to the plan in June 2023, but due to various delays, the rollout was postponed several times. Governor Kathy Hochul indefinitely postponed the plan in June 2024, just before it was planned to go into effect; as a result, the MTA had to postpone capital projects. In November 2024, Hochul revived the congestion toll proposal at a lower price point. Shortly after the toll was implemented, the administration of President Donald Trump revoked federal approval, though tolls remain in effect pending a judicial ruling.
The implementation of congestion pricing led to immediate decreases in private vehicle traffic, and a decrease in transit times for both public and private vehicles. Pedestrian traffic increased, pedestrian fatalities decreased, and air quality may have improved.
Tolling program
The congestion pricing zone includes almost all of Manhattan south of 61st Street. Drivers do not pay a toll if they stay on FDR Drive or the West Side Highway. Drivers on the Brooklyn Bridge and Queensboro Bridge are exempted if they used certain ramps that connected with these highways or outside of the congestion zones. Tolls are not charged for vehicles that use or travel across the excluded roadways for trips beginning and ending in the CBD.Toll rates and exemptions
The Traffic Mobility Review Board, which was in charge of suggesting tolls for the congestion zone, recommended in November 2023 that the base toll for passenger vehicles be set at $15, which would be capped at once per day. Under the plan, other classes of vehicles would pay up to $36 once per day, while taxis and for-hire vehicles would pay a fee for each trip into the congestion zone, regardless of how many trips they made. Vehicles using the Holland, Lincoln, Hugh L. Carey, and Queens–Midtown tunnels could receive credits, or discounts, on the congestion toll. No credits would be provided for vehicles using bridges; for example, drivers using the George Washington Bridge would have to pay both the full bridge toll and the full congestion toll. In November 2024, the proposed base toll for passenger vehicles was reduced to $9, capped at once per day.These toll rates apply during the daytime from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends; tolls are reduced by 75% during nighttime hours, and no credits are provided during that time. On "gridlock alert" days, the MTA had the right to increase base tolls by up to 25%, but as of 2024, Hochul directed the MTA not to raise tolls on gridlock alert days. The MTA also reserved the right to change the base tolls by as much as 10% for up to a year. All drivers with E-ZPass transponders linked to their license plate will pay the E-ZPass rate regardless of which state issued their E-ZPass. The rates for drivers without E-ZPasses are 50% more than the E-ZPass rates.
Low-income residents receive a 50% discount on daytime tolls after their first 10 trips into the congestion zone in a calendar month; the discounts reset at the beginning of each month. Toll exemptions are limited to a small number of vehicles, including commuter buses, emergency vehicles, specialized government vehicles, and vehicles transporting disabled riders. Another toll exemption, for people with disabilities and for vehicles transporting disabled passengers, was announced in February 2024. Following discussions in early 2024, the MTA also proposed exemptions for a larger group of government vehicles, as well as school buses and intercity buses. If a vehicle makes multiple trips into the congestion pricing zone in one day, only the first trip into the zone is charged.
Equipment
License plate scanners are placed along each street leading to the congestion zone. The scanners, installed by TransCore, are placed on traffic-light poles and on horizontal arms that hang above the streets. There are also scanners above northbound avenues leading away from the congestion zone, but they are to be used only for tracking vehicles, not for charging tolls. Scanners are mounted above FDR Drive and the West Side Highway to determine whether a vehicle has stayed on these highways without entering the congestion zone. Vehicles are charged a toll if successive scanners on these highways no longer detect these vehicles after a certain time period, and if they have not been detected as having exited the zone. Vehicles already in the congestion zone are not tolled, not even if they cross the West Side Highway, unless they exit and re-enter the zone. At the 110 detection points, there are over 1,400 scanners. One third of the scanners are on existing pedestrian walkways, overpasses, and street poles, with the remainder on newly installed gantries.For each vehicle, the scanners look for an E-ZPass device and capture infrared photographs of license plates; the scanners can automatically determine the vehicle type. Infrared scanners were used in place of flash cameras to prevent light pollution in the surrounding neighborhood. Plates not easily readable by the scanners are subjected to manual image review. The system also uses machine learning to classify vehicles into tolling categories.
Early plans
The Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Queensboro Bridge across the East River, which separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan, originally had tolls that were removed before the Great Depression. Proposals to toll the bridges again were brought up in 1933, 1952, 1966, 1968, and 1971. In the 1970s, Mayor John Lindsay proposed limiting cars in Lower Manhattan and tolling all crossings of the East River, but Lindsay's successor Abraham Beame subsequently opposed the tolling scheme. Beame's successor Ed Koch attempted to restore limits on vehicles entering Manhattan.During the late 20th and early 21st centuries, congestion pricing in New York City was proposed several times, without success. A congestion pricing plan was proposed in 2007 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a component of PlaNYC, his strategic plan for the city. However, the proposal stalled in the New York State Assembly. Another proposal to implement congestion pricing was suggested by traffic commissioner Sam Schwartz in 2015, but legislation to allow this never passed.
Approval and implementation efforts
2017 proposal
As complaints about the city subway's delays and disrepair reached a peak in mid-2017, Governor Andrew Cuomo drafted a congestion pricing proposal with lessons from Bloomberg's handling of the State Legislature. Despite having earlier doubted such a plan's viability, Cuomo described congestion pricing as "an idea whose time has come". London and Stockholm had implemented the concept successfully. Cuomo's plan is expected to differ significantly from Bloomberg's proposal. Its primary intent is to raise funds for city transit and reduce street gridlock, while balancing suburban commuter considerations. The New York Times reflected that Bloomberg's 2008 proposal, which would have raised $500 million annually, could have rectified infrastructure issues and emergency repair schedule affecting the subway in 2017. Cuomo's announcement came after Mayor de Blasio had proposed a millionaire's tax to raise funding for the subway. The plan could be implemented through open road tolling, which records E-ZPass transponders and license plates without forcing the vehicles to slow down significantly. This was in contrast to the circumstances during Bloomberg's tenure, when open road tolling was not widely used yet. At the time, New York City had the third worst traffic congestion of any major city worldwide, behind Moscow and Los Angeles. Shortly after the Governor's announcement, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he did not believe in congestion pricing, and that his plan would be more successful in Albany than the Governor's plan.In October 2017, the New York State Government created a task force, Fix NYC, to find solutions for fixing mass transit and lowering congestion. The task force was assigned to study traffic on New York City's roadways and report its findings to Cuomo by December. Fix NYC included congestion pricing advocates such as Sam Schwartz, Charles Komanoff, and Alex Matthiessen, who had supported the congestion pricing proposal even after Bloomberg's plan had been defeated. On October 22, 2017, Mayor de Blasio announced a five-point plan to address congestion, including banning rush hour deliveries on specific corridors, implementing new traffic management plans, and deploying emergency vehicles along certain highways to quickly respond to crashes.