New York City’s Congestion Pricing Is Not Its Saving Grace

Congestion pricing cameras located on West 34th Street in Manhattan. Photo courtesy of Bruce Schaff.

New York City’s latest transit project truly encapsulated the saying, “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” The Central Business District (CBD) Tolling Program, commonly known as congestion pricing, was scheduled to launch this summer and predicted to generate $1 billion annually in tolls. With this much anticipated revenue, the city planned to revamp and revive the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), Metro-North Railroad, and Long Island Railroad, all of which have faced significant infrastructure challenges in recent years. At first glance, congestion pricing appeared to address important city objectives such as  reducing carbon emissions and improving the public transit system. Upon closer inspection, however, significant concerns arose regarding the financial and environmental ethics of the model, which do not benefit all New Yorkers equally. 

New York City is recognized for its extensive public transportation system that transports five million riders daily, a figure which made the city a strong candidate for a congestion pricing model similar to those already implemented in Stockholm, Singapore, and London. The CBD Tolling Program would have tolled between $15 and $22.50 to vehicles driving below 60th Street in Manhattan, excluding the West Side Highway, FDR Drive, and connecting roads to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

While the CBD experiences the greatest concentration of vehicles of any region in the city—about 700,000 per weekday—the average Manhattan household owns zero vehicles. Evidently, most Manhattanites do not feel they need a car at all due to the extensive and well-maintained public transport system available to them compared to other less-serviced regions. There are 151 subway stations in Manhattan, including nine of the ten busiest stations in the city. Eight of those nine are located within the CBD, where most of the funds generated by the program would go. 

Since most people within the CBD drive so much less than those living in the outer boroughs, they will bear relatively little of the financial burden imposed by congestion pricing. Residents in this area might be swamped with vehicle congestion, but they can easily avoid this issue by taking public transit. The generally wealthier tenants in the CBD not only have access to comprehensive and affordable modes of alternative transportation, but they would have also been the greatest beneficiaries of reduced emissions had the policy been implemented. Meanwhile, commuters to lower Manhattan would have borne the model’s financial burden while simultaneously enduring ongoing poor air quality and pollution. Outside of Manhattan, New Yorkers would have seen only a few percentage points worth of air quality improvement caused by diffusion from the CBD. 

Furthermore, the CBD has a household median income of about $106,000 per year, compared to the city’s overall household median income of about $76,000, and only 5% of commuters who live in the Manhattan Core make regular interborough trips. While the regressive nature of a congestion price was inherent to the model, the discrepancies between who would have been charged and who would have benefitted were too wide to ignore. This dynamic was simply inequitable.

For example, a New Yorker commuting from Queens into lower Manhattan for work daily would have quickly racked up $15 charges per day to enter the CBD, resulting in an additional $75 in weekly expenses, assuming the driver was enrolled in E-ZPass, the electronic tolling system that allows drivers in 18 states, including New York, to prepay for their tolls. Those who do not have E-ZPass would have instead incurred a $22.50 toll for each trip into the CBD. In a city with an already high cost of living, this difference would have erected another financial burden on residents. Though the MTA agreed to a half-discounted toll for low-income drivers making less than $50,000 annually, this would not have accounted sufficiently for the disproportionate negative effect on lower-income New Yorkers. Specifically, drivers would have had to apply for the exemption, and it only would have applied after the first 10 trips in a month. Thus, a commuter without E-ZPass would still have had to spend an unbearable $225 before being eligible to receive reduced tolls.

Several New Yorkers sacrifice proximity to their workplaces in the Manhattan Core for lower housing costs in the outer boroughs. Data from Realtor.com shows that in July 2024, median rent in Manhattan was $4,489, compared to $3,718, $3,380, and $3,175 in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, respectively. Notably, the more affordable boroughs are slowly increasing in median rent indicating higher demand for housing outside of Manhattan. The choice to live outside Manhattan is one that comes with a greater need for a car to get around in areas that are less serviced by public transportation. With rent prices increasing outside the CBD as well, the financial pressure on many non-Manhattanites would have further been exacerbated by the implementation of congestion pricing.

There are also concerns with the overall decline in safety and timeliness of the transit system. The pandemic saw a spike in subway crime rates and then a slow decline toward pre-pandemic levels. However, this trend has begun to reverse. Violent crime on the subways has increased to 16% higher than pre-pandemic levels from 2019. Also in 2023, New York spent $155 million in overtime to police officers patrolling the transit systems. A MTA study released in January 2024 found that just 58% of subway riders feel safe riding the train. 

While commuters from outside the CBD can ride the transportation network, too, entering the Manhattan Core from outside the city can be complicated and time consuming. The city’s Manhattan-centric transit system forces residents to make multiple transfers and even travel through Manhattan just to get to an adjacent borough. Additionally, a study found that 43% of outer borough residents do not have a subway station within walking distance (quarter mile) leaving them to take the far more infrequent, unreliable, and slow buses. These particular concerns were referenced by dozens of state representatives when Governor Kathy Hochul opted to indefinitely block the congestion pricing bill, as well as when the governor herself spoke about prioritizing transit improvements and expansions in the wake of her hating the program.

Unfortunately, this issue is no longer just about wanting to use public transit. Outer borough residents are inclined to drive because of safety concerns and limited access to effective public transit. Implemented congestion pricing would have deteriorated the affordability for lower-income commuters to travel into the CBD. An analysis by the Community Service Society of New York determined that in 2023, 19% of New Yorkers struggled to afford transit fares.  This jumped to 29% for residents living in poverty or near poverty, with Bronx and Brooklyn residents as well as Black and Latino/a New Yorkers found to be struggling the most. These two demographics, along with Native Americans and Pacific Islanders, unfortunately experience the lowest median incomes in the city, of about $59,000 and $53,000, respectively.

The congestion pricing model was not solely an issue of economic disparity. It also would have worsened environmental inequality. Because the legislation would have made it significantly more expensive to travel below 60th Street, congestion and pollution within the outer boroughs could have increased as drivers searched for detours to avoid the CBD toll. A MTA report predicted that by 2045, pollutants would have increased in the Bronx and Staten Island, as well as the neighboring counties of Nassau, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, and Bergen. While there would have been varying levels of changes depending on the location and particulate, there was a shocking and definitive increase in all measured pollutants in Staten Island, the highest being an 8% increase in nitrogen oxides. The same people paying the congestion pricing fees to clean up the air of the wealthiest New Yorkers could very well have ended up with poorer air quality in their neighborhoods since diffusion outside the CBD would have been limited to the rest of Manhattan and to some extent Brooklyn and Queens.

The likelihood of these negative environmental effects was no secret. The Cross Bronx Expressway, one of the most congested highways in the entire country, passes through the South Bronx and is often cited as the cause for disproportionate asthma rates in the area. Government officials committed over $150 million to counter a potential air pollution increase in the South Bronx for improvements to parks and green spaces, asthma programs for children, and ventilation systems for schools located near highways and other major avenues. Despite these anticipatory measures, it was fundamentally unjust to force people whose circumstances require them to drive to essentially pay for the clean air of the wealthiest New Yorkers. 

As important as it is for New York to decrease emissions, improve public transportation, and set a precedent for other US cities to do the same, the proposal lacked conviction. It neither would have solved the issue of the city’s aging transit system nor environmental pollution. If the city and the MTA want New Yorkers to use the transit system to its full potential, they should instead focus on the root problems that deter riders from riding in the first place like lack of safety and accessibility. And if the MTA needs more funding to achieve greater ridership, the city must enforce stricter consequences for fare evasion or create a MTA transit tax that every New Yorker pays and seeks to make public transit more appealing and efficient than the unbalanced congestion pricing model. In the long term, the local environment would improve as well because residents across the city would be more open to regularly using public transportation and more equitably distribute financial and environmental costs.

Miranda Zanoni (CC ’25, SIPA ’26) is a staff writer studying political science and energy and environment. She is passionate about local New York politics and international climate policy.