Or, at least, it did.
“You’re basically down to nearly nothing, of people having to wait multiple cycles to get through an intersection,” said Ahmed Darrat, chief product officer at INRIX, a traffic data and analysis firm, demonstrating some of the findings from the newly enacted congestion pricing program in Manhattan.
Researchers at INRIX compared traffic data from December — prior to the launch of the congestion pricing program — with data after the first week of the tolling system, which charges motorists $9 to enter the zone below 60th Street. At the intersection of Park Avenue and 57th Street, it was not uncommon for at least 30 percent of vehicles to spend more than three minutes at this intersection. With the introduction of congestion pricing, excessive delay at Park and 57th has all but disappeared. That means faster speeds for everything from cabs to buses.
“We’re seeing excessive delay just drop significantly in the congestion pricing zone,” Darrat said during a webinar Thursday on traffic congestion and the annual INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, which ranked New York City as the most congested metro region in the United States in 2024, and the second most congested region in the world. (Istanbul holds the title of most congested metro region among all nations.)
The annual scorecard found that traffic volume is tracking up across a majority of U.S. cities, while transit ridership still lags pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. How congestion pricing affects transit ridership in New York City may be one of the most watched metrics as the program progresses, experts said.
“We know we’re in the early stages of this program in New York City. I would certainly expect the program to continue to evolve, and we’re going to continue to monitor it,” Nat Gale, head of product for INRIX's Traffic and Safety verticals, said during the webinar.
For now, the data is showing travel speeds — particularly in the congestion pricing zone — are improving. The average downtown speed in New York City was only 13 miles per hour in 2024, according to INRIX data. But as travel speeds increase, so do bus speeds, Darrat said, adding faster buses could lead to increased ridership.
“We can see that travel times are improving,” he said. And more importantly, “transit speeds are getting better.”
“Most of the time, transit vehicles are going through heavy arterials that are congested, and they get stuck in traffic too,” said Darrat. “And so when we reduce congestion in other places, we see improvements in transit.”
