It’s been one full year of congestion pricing in New York City, and downtown Manhattan looks markedly different: 23.7 million fewer vehicles, traffic delays down 25%, and a 22% drop in air pollution, to start.

And that’s just within the “congestion relief zone.” The program, which implements tolls on drivers who enter certain, once often-gridlocked areas of Manhattan, is even having positive effects outside of the streets that are subject to the toll.

Congestion pricing had a rocky start in New York City, and it continues to face lawsuits. But courts have consistently ruled in its favor. 

One year in, it’s clear the program is “overwhelmingly successful,” says Kate Slevin, executive vice president of the Regional Planning Association, a nonprofit that pushed for congestion pricing. Here’s a look at how congestion pricing has changed New York.

Congestion pricing is a way to mitigate traffic, and when it was implemented in New York City on January 5, 2025, it was the country’s first such program. Congestion pricing plans have been rolled out in cities around the world, though, including London, Stockholm, and Singapore. 

The program covers a “congestion relief zone” that spans almost all of Manhattan below 60th Street and includes major routes like the Lincoln, Holland, and Hugh L. Carey tunnels and bridges that go into both Brooklyn and Queens. 

Passenger cars with an E-ZPass that travel through that zone face a $9 toll during peak hours—which are 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends—and a $2.25 toll overnight.

Tolls are more expensive for commercial traffic, and vehicles without E-ZPass are charged a 50% premium.

Those tolls are meant to both reduce traffic congestion in the city and raise funds for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the city’s public transit system.

Environmentalists also backed the plan for its ability to reduce pollution by cutting traffic and ushering in more commuters.

Since January 5, 2025, 23.7 million fewer vehicles have entered the city’s congestion pricing zone, compared to 2024. The number of drivers entering the zone is down 12%, meaning about 71,000 fewer vehicles every day.

Those numbers came in in December, and so they may be even higher now. (At the program’s one-month mark, it already meant one million fewer vehicles on those streets.)

Between January and April, traffic........

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