Is NYC’s Congestion Pricing Working? Fewer Private Cars Are On the Road (For Now)

After years of hand-wringing about how congestion pricing would impact — and potentially harm — New York City, the tolling program on vehicles travelling into midtown and lower Manhattan finally started on Jan. 5. Results from the first week are in: Congestion pricing is helping break up the city’s infamous gridlock.

The number of cars entering the zone below 60th Street is down about 8% from baseline traffic levels, according to preliminary data released on Monday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The data also shows traffic speeds into the zone are largely up, a finding independently corroborated by data from HERE Technologies, a digital mapping and location data company.

“So far, so good,” said former New York City deputy traffic commissioner Bruce Schaller. “And about what we expected.”

However, the data still misses a key question: What vehicles disappeared?

Although it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions, a Bloomberg News analysis of roughly 75,000 vehicles travelling through the zone found that the faster travel speeds are most likely due to fewer personal vehicles. This means fewer car trips by commuters, shoppers and people running errands using their own vehicles.

And the drivers for whom time is money, such as workers making deliveries or shuttling passengers in taxis and Ubers, are reaping the benefits.

Tracking the Traffic

Bloomberg’s US headquarters is uniquely positioned — literally — to take a first pass measuring the changes to midtown Manhattan.

To be sure, this is just one entry point among dozens into the congestion zone. But, by looking closely at one block, Bloomberg hoped to explore questions often raised about the program: Would it disproportionately impact lower-income drivers? Would the pricing structure discourage for-hire vehicle trips? Would commercial vehicles alter their delivery patterns or stop coming to Manhattan during the day?

Without detailed data, these questions are difficult to answer. The statistics released by the MTA only say how many vehicles entered the zone per day. However, by analyzing the footage collected, Bloomberg News was able to provide additional detail, such as make, model and average car value of the congestion zone traffic. Bloomberg was also able to identify large swaths of the taxis and for-hire vehicles entering the area by analyzing license plates.

To compare changes in the traffic, Bloomberg News collected data over two periods: two weeks in December before the holidays and, again during the first week of congestion pricing. The analysis covered approximately 75,000 vehicles over more than 100 hours of midday traffic, starting roughly at 8 a.m. and ending at 4 p.m. each day.

While the period is limited and restricted to daylight hours, it is some of the earliest and most detailed data available on the program’s early impact.

A Drop in Personal Vehicles

Nearly all of the reduced vehicle entries to the congestion pricing zone appear to be due to personal vehicles no longer making the trip, according to Bloomberg’s analysis. The share of private cars traveling down Lexington Avenue dropped by six percentage points — from 40% to 34% of overall traffic — while the percentage of yellow cabs increased by seven percentage points. The share of for-hire vehicles—including Uber, Lyft and black cars—and other commercial vehicles, like semi-trucks and delivery vans, remained largely unchanged.

“There was some concern in the environmental analysis that there would be diversion of commercial vehicles,” said Rachel Weinberger, Director of Research at Regional Plan Association. “But my suspicion is if you’re a commercial vehicle in the zone your destination is in the zone so you don’t have a diversion to make.”

This is as one would expect, said Charles Komanoff, a transport economist and New York City congestion pricing expert. Commercial vehicles pay the highest fees — up to $21.60 during peak hours — but those trips are essential to their business. For-hire vehicles pass the fees onto passengers, who may not change their behavior over 75 cents per trip ($1.50 per Uber ride), which is roughly equivalent to waiting at one extra traffic light. Passengers may even find they save money because their trips are shorter, Komanoff suggested.

Meanwhile, a small but meaningful subset of personal car drivers have options for how they get to Manhattan. As a result, Komanoff’s modeling predicted congestion pricing would affect private cars the most. “The direction of everything goes exactly as one would have predicted,” Komanoff said.

Additionally, one of the early concerns with congestion pricing was that it might make it even more unaffordable for lower income drivers to commute by car into Manhattan. In an attempt to measure this impact, Bloomberg identified the make, model and estimated resale value of roughly 75,000 vehicles travelling down Lexington Avenue, using car pricing data from CarGurus.com, a car sales listing platform.

The analysis showed virtually no change in the average estimated vehicle value from before and after congestion pricing. If anything, more expensive vehicles were seen slightly less frequently than before. Meanwhile, the share of vehicles worth an estimated $15,000 or less — approximately the bottom 10th percentile of observed traffic — increased slightly after congestion pricing.

This isn’t to say lower income commuters aren’t impacted by congestion pricing. But the initial data doesn’t show an exodus of lower priced vehicles from the congestion zone. Extensive research also shows lower income commuters overwhelmingly use public transit to access the congestion zone, whereas car commuters tend to live in high-income areas, and 90% of revenue from the plan will finance MTA upgrades.

But no matter who is driving, trips were generally faster during congestion pricing’s first week compared to the same time last year, according to data from HERE Technologies. Speeds across the Queensboro Bridge and the New Jersey tunnels saw the biggest improvement.

Bracing for the Future

The initial findings are in line with the MTA’s own figures. “Bloomberg’s analysis largely validates the MTA’s own data for the first week of congestion relief, which has been decades in the making and is off to a promising start,” said John McCarthy, MTA’s head of policy and external relations.

Still, experts warn that these positive results may not last due to a phenomenon known as the “rebound effect.” Approximately 60% of the initial travel speed improvements will likely dissipate over time, Komanoff said: “People who are so gridlock averse and never drive into Manhattan will say, ‘Hey Madge, let’s take the car.’”

And the rebound effect may have already started; The MTA’s data shows a steady increase of vehicles entering the congestion zone each day since the plan went into effect last Sunday. More than 30,000 additional vehicles entered the zone on Friday, Jan. 10 compared to three days earlier, a 5.7% increase. On Lexington Avenue, Bloomberg observed an uptick in the share of personal vehicles entering the zone throughout the week as well. Personal cars accounted for 36.6% of traffic the Friday after congestion pricing started, up from 33% on Tuesday.

There is also the possibility congestion pricing will be a short-lived experiment. On the state level, there are at least 17 bills already proposed to chip away at or repeal congestion pricing entirely, according to Streetsblog and Reinvent Albany, an open government nonprofit. And on the federal level, president-elect Donald Trump said he will end the program after inauguration.

Nevertheless, experts like Schaller, the former New York City traffic commissioner, hope the eventual return of most Manhattan traffic doesn’t distract from what has been accomplished. “The big picture on congestion pricing is, first, it’s great to have it in place,” he said. “Second, you just want it to be a good experience all around so you can build on it. And that goes with any kind of change we’re trying to make to the city. Just keep moving in the right direction.”

This article was updated to clarify that TLC license plates include Uber, Lyft, and other types of for-hire vehicles like black cars and livery vehicles.