The New York City Congestion Pricing Plan: A Potential Precedent for the Future of City Transportation Policy in the United States
A map of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan for congestion pricing of Manhattan (New York Post).
By Madeline Cannon ‘27
New York City’s Congestion Pricing Plan
On February 6, 2024, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) lawyer Mark Churtok provided a timeline for New York City’s new congestion pricing plan, stating that toll prices are supposed to be increased by mid-June. Initially, the agency hoped to start congestion pricing in the spring, but lawsuits stalled this plan.
Congestion pricing is “a policy that charges drivers a fee for entering certain designated zones within a city, typically during stated or peak hours.” The goals of congestion pricing are typically to simultaneously reduce traffic congestion and promote the use of public transportation. In New York City’s new plan, the toll zone is designated in Manhattan’s central business district (all area below 60th Street), and the rush-hour rates will be applied from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. The breakdown for charges is as follows: $15 for passenger vehicles, $24 for small trucks, $36 for large trucks, $7.50 for motorcycles, $1.25 per ride for taxi drivers, and $2.50 per ride for Uber drivers. These prices are a significant increase from the current prices, in which E-ZPass pricing only costs a driver from $2.60 to $6.84 on the various bridges in New York City. Currently, the sole exemptions are for authorized emergency vehicles (e.g., ambulances, fire trucks, etc.), government vehicles in public works (e.g, garbage trucks), transit buses, and qualifying vehicles that transport passengers with disabilities.
Concerns on Congestion Pricing Exacerbating Economic Inequalities
The new toll’s current goal is to bring in $1 billion a year that can be used to raise the MTA’s goal of $15 billion for public transportation upgrades and improvements, such as “subway signal upgrades, new electric buses, and a Second Avenue subway extension into Harlem.” Additionally, the plan aims to reduce the number of vehicles entering Lower Manhattan by 17%. This plan would be the first congestion pricing plan of its magnitude in the United States, following the adoption of such programs in London, Singapore, and Stockholm—all of which have reportedly successfully dropped traffic and congestion.
As argued by talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg on “The View,” the opposing sentiment argues that this congestion pricing plan seemed to be approved without the full consultation of New Yorkers, whom it directly impacts. Goldberg emphasized, “This is a huge deal because I can afford it, don’t get me wrong, I can afford it, but a lot of my friends who drive in every day, who left here because they couldn’t afford to live here anymore, can’t.”
Later in the same “The View” segment, New York Governor Kathy Hochul defended the plan, stating, “The city is immovable. We’re at a crisis. I could walk backwards in heels faster than most trucks can get down the streets right now. The city is paralyzed.”
This question of whether congestion pricing negatively impacts outer-borough New Yorkers in poverty has been answered in an updated analysis completed by the Community Service Society. In their report, they find that only 4% of outer-borough residents (of all incomes) would regularly have to pay the congestion fee, further highlighting that 2% of the city’s outer-borough working residents in poverty (about 5,000 residents) will also be asked to pay this fee. The analysis also concluded that there are 128,000 outer-borough residents who rely on vehicles for their commute to work into Manhattan, 15,500 of whom are low-income essential workers. Comparatively, there are 2,217,000 New York City residents who rely on mass transit to get to work, including 350,000 low-income essential workers and 257,000 working poor.
The Riders Alliance, a grassroots movement for public transit in New York, advocates for ambitious agendas that can improve public transportation. Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for Riders Alliance, asserted that the group is in support of congestion pricing because the tolls will also pay for much-needed upgrades to the subway system, benefiting millions of riders. As stated on the organization’s website:
“When implemented, New York’s congestion pricing program will be the single largest funding source to modernize the subway—projected to deliver about $1 billion annually to fund signal upgrades, accessibility improvements, and other capital projects. Congestion pricing will be a win-win-win for transit, traffic congestion, and reducing New York’s carbon footprint at a critical moment for all three of these issues.”
Additionally, in a 2008 report from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, it was concluded that congestion pricing will help low-income commuters who frequently rely on public transit because it will raise funds for transit-service improvements. Thus, “toll revenues can be used to compensate those who might otherwise consider themselves ‘losers’ as a result of congestion pricing.”
However, there is an ongoing lawsuit in which the Staten Island borough president Vito Fossella and the United Federation of Teachers are suing the city in hopes of halting the congestion plan. The lawsuit promulgates its view that “teachers, firefighters, police officers, EMS workers, sanitation workers, and other public sector workers who are essential to the fabric of New York City would be forced to shoulder the burden of the MTA’s latest fundraising gambit.” Currently, the plan is also receiving significant backlash from these public workers, who argue that they should also be given exemptions to the toll increase.
Evidently, the implications of congestion pricing on worsening or improving economic inequality are dependent on weighing pros and cons. While congestion pricing will work to improve public transportation, it will still inevitably burden thousands of low-income essential workers living in outer-boroughs. The impacts of congestion pricing on economic inequality will ultimately depend on the long-term monitoring of the plan’s consequences.
Congestion Pricing as Climate Policy
As New Jersey considers ongoing lawsuits against the MTA in hopes of halting the congestion pricing plan, MTA lawyer Elizabeth Knauer posits that this case should set a precedent. Knauer argues that congestion pricing in New York City could act “as a national model to help fight climate change.” While “other American cities have introduced related concepts by establishing toll roads or closing streets to traffic, the plan in New York is unmatched in ambition and scale.” The projected influence of New York City’s congestion pricing is to set a foundation for other U.S. cities to follow as a means of climate policy.
In alignment with previously cited benefits, improving public transportation will also help combat and mitigate the effects of climate change, given that U.S. public transportation saves an annual 37 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. This equates to the electricity emissions generated by approximately 4.9 million households in the United States
However, in total, there are six lawsuits that have been brought by various officials and residents in New York City, which have cited “the cost of tolls and the potential environmental effects from shifting traffic and pollution to other areas as drivers avoid the tolls.”
One of the more serious legal challenges is the lawsuit in which New Jersey officials are challenging the New York congestion pricing program in federal court—a case that could postpone the tolls from being started in mid-June as anticipated. Lawyer Randy Mastro argued in his opening remarks that New York will receive all the benefits of this program and that changing traffic patterns will burden New Jersey communities with environmental detriments.
In response to these allegations that the MTA neglected to research the detrimental effects of congestion pricing on New Jersey, the MTA stated in court papers that their assessment “found no significant impacts” and “that mitigations can and will be applied where appropriate.”
Therefore, the question of whether congestion pricing will be successful as a climate policy—similar to its potential economic impacts—is up to the monitored long-term effects of the policy’s implementation. While there are statements claiming that increasing public transportation will assist in combating climate change, there are also opponents who maintain that the environmental impacts will only be pushed to other boroughs or states.
The Future of Congestion Pricing in the United States
As argued in an opinion piece written by DJ Gribbin and published by the Brookings Institute, a typical office worker in a metropolitan area “[takes the] Metro to get to the office on time, order[s] lunch to be delivered from the busy restaurant down the street, purchase[s] tickets to a weekend matinee film, and call[s] a Lyft home as hockey fans swarm the Metro. Finally, they end the night streaming a show on high-speech internet.” This piece suggests that congestion pricing is already a prominent part of many American’s lives and questions the taboo of congestion pricing on transportation.
Gribbin declares that “what is so maddening is that we know how to fix the problem [of unwanted traffic]: Simply price use of the roads based on demand like any other good.” Gribbin goes on to explain that this current New York City plan will be the first in the United States to adopt a cordon pricing system, which may act as the precedent for later policies throughout the United States if it proves successful. Though the future of this policy is currently unclear, what is evident is that the future of all congestion pricing plans in the United States heavily depends on the outcome of this New York City plan.