NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) — New York City’s public buses and taxis are traveling at faster speeds after the start of a controversial congestion-pricing program that charges motorists to drive on Manhattan’s busiest streets, according to a report from the Regional Plan Association.
The tolling initiative, the first of its kind in the US, reached its one-year anniversary on Monday. Most passenger vehicles pay $9 during peak hours to drive south of 60th Street, while trucks pay more, depending on their size. The toll has helped reduce traffic by about 11%, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s transit network and implemented the fee.
Taxi trips starting or ending south of 60th Street traveled at an average of 7.3 miles per hour from January through October of last year, that’s a 1.4% increase from the same period in 2024, before the toll began, according to the RPA report released on Monday. It’s a reversal from recent years as average taxi speeds decreased since 2021.
Some bus riders are also benefiting, with local, limited, select bus service and express buses traveling a combined 3% faster in the tolled zone as of November, the report said.
The drop in traffic has helped buses and taxis speed up. Traffic through tolled tunnels into Manhattan’s congestion pricing zone is down by 3.1%, the report said. Traffic volumes at bridge and tunnel crossings going into the congestion pricing zone were 100% of 2019 levels in the first 10 months of 2025, that’s down from 2024, when the crossings saw 103.6% of 2019’s volume.
The RPA, a nonprofit organization that promotes economic health and quality of life in the New York City area, and the Sam Schwartz Transportation Research Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College collaborated on the report.
Congestion pricing is set to bring in $548.3 million of net revenue in 2025 that will help modernize the city’s aging transit network, according to the MTA.
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