Congestion pricing in Manhattan is a predictable success

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/06/19/congestion-pricing-in-manhattan-is-a-predictable-success

by edward • 1 year ago

293 445 1 year ago

EGreg4• 1 year ago

And keep in mind that The Economist is traditionally neoliberal.

Yet they stay true to economics principles even when they are more lefty and collectively enforced :)

Now imagine what else Pigovian Taxes can do to help solve collective action problems, if we had a UBI and local city currencies: https://community.intercoin.app/t/rolling-out-voluntary-basi...

To quote: Finally, as taxes and fees are introduced in the local economy, the community can start to issue a Universal Basic Income in its own currency, without causing inflation.

Various taxes can be organically introduced, including sales taxes, land taxes 1, and pigovian taxes 3 on things like pollution, fossil fuels, meat or cigarettes. By redistributing taxed money equally to everyone, this can align public incentives with taxing these negative externalities, and avoid them falling disproportionately on the working class, as happened with the yellow vest protests in France.

As demand for the local currency (and thus local real estate and services) grows, so does the town’s ability to tax various transactions. The town’s citizens could be given the ability to democratically vote on the level of taxes, and thus the level of UBI, they want to receive.

Thus the town can have both sound money and true democratic control of its fiscal and monetary policies, all the while becoming more self-sufficient and stronger. Any town will be able to introduce a local UBI to end food insecurity, improve health outcomes, reduce dependence on means-tested welfare programs, and so on.

PS: Why all the downvotes? Why always silent with no reason?

PaulHoule5• 1 year ago

The Economist was founded in 1843 to oppose the Corn Laws

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws

so there is nothing "neo" about their "liberal".

krustyburger• 1 year ago

I’m not sure neoliberal and “lefty” are anywhere near synonyms either.

EGreg4• 1 year ago

Fair enough from a pedantic point of view, but I was using the term in this sense, as it is the most recognizable modern term to describe serious economic positions of this kind:

Neoliberalism is a political and economic philosophy that emphasizes free markets, reduced government intervention, and individual liberty. It's often associated with policies like deregulation, privatization, and free trade. Proponents believe these measures foster economic growth, efficiency, and individual prosperity. However, critics argue that neoliberal policies can lead to increased inequality, social instability, and exploitation

And my point was here they were applauding policies involving clear government intervention.

jf222• 1 year ago

Doesn't it matter more about who they are today rather than who they were 180 years ago?

jowea2• 1 year ago

Charging for an scarce resource instead of letting the tragedy of the commons play out does sound like something obvious to come out of a neoliberal economist yes.

EGreg4• 1 year ago

What is The Economist’s position on carbon taxes?

Update: wow you’re right: https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/net-zero-and-ene...

DangitBobby• 1 year ago

Flat rates are not the only way to allocate scarce resources. Generally they would be called "regressive", even.

EA-3167• 1 year ago

While I support congestion pricing, I will say that The Economist is most notable these days a negative oracle: whatever it predicts, the opposite will happen.

EGreg4• 1 year ago

The Jim Cramer of macroeconomics? :)

tekla4• 1 year ago

Such as?

ch4s32• 1 year ago

They were spot on about post covid stimulus fueling inflation.

bryanlarsen2• 1 year ago

Examples? Counter-example: the Economist predicted the 2007 sub-prime crisis and housing price crash.

ahepp• 1 year ago

Congestion pricing seems like a pretty liberal policy to me. Using supply and demand to set a price.

Sure, you could crank the Friedman dial to 11 by say, privatizing the roads and letting the operators set the price based on competition.

But the policy is liberal at its core. A “lefty, collectively enforced” policy would be something like a quota or permit system.

A key difference being that anyone who wants to drive on the road can do so as long as they pay. It isn’t “everyone with odd license plate numbers can drive today, evens can drive tomorrow” but rather “you can drive today if it’s worth $9 to you”.

varispeed4• 1 year ago

It is classist. If it was liberal, then it would be based on % of someone's wealth (and using progressive scale).

These policies are aimed at getting unwashed pleb off the roads so the rich can show off their cars in peace.

Tangurena2• 1 year ago

Alternative link: https://archive.ph/6qlmb

lysace• 1 year ago

It’s great for the very wealthy.

See also: Singapore. When I first visited I was amazed at how little traffic there was. Turns out they had imposed so severe costs on car ownership that the vast majority can’t afford to own one.

Why Driving in Singapore Is Like 'Wearing a Rolex'

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/world/asia/car-certificat...

(https://archive.is/X6dpP)

lokar8• 1 year ago

Driving into manhattan and paying for parking is something only the fairly wealthy could afford anyway.

decafninja• 1 year ago

Driving into Manhattan every day? Yes.

Occasionally? Tons of middle class people do it.

The majority of my social circle consists of middle and upper middle class Newjerseyans. Many commute daily into Manhattan via public transit. But if they’re going in for anything other than work, it’s always the car.

Which congestion price is perfectly fine for if you’re only going in occasionally.

shipscode2• 1 year ago

Tell me you've never lived in lower Manhattan without telling me you've never lived in lower Manhattan.

Edit: Happy to be downvoted by people who actually live in Manhattan and take 5 seconds out of their day to talk to anybody who works in a local store. Brooklyn transplants can move along.

kjkjadksj• 1 year ago

If that were true congestion pricing would not affect car counts

tetromino_• 1 year ago

I have a school teacher friend who commutes by car every day between the Bronx and upper Manhattan (outside the congestion zone - but you said "Manhattan" without any qualifier). Obviously she doesn't pay for parking. Public transportation in her case would be quite inconvenient due to how the subway lines are laid out.

CPLX8• 1 year ago

That was the original criticism, or rather the cynical attempt to block it.

It hasn't panned out that way at all however, it's just great for everyone.

OK, actually not everyone. There's one very specific group that this sucks for, which not-coincidentally was the group that was loudly opposing it using the excuse you tried.

That group is people who work for the city and/or are connected so they get free daily parking. That's a lot of cops and firefighters and various city functionaries at various levels and agencies that have been able to get their hands on parking placards. It's a core NYC subculture and they were the annoying loud voices that tried to stop this.

Almost anyone who was driving into central Manhattan and paying for parking already is thrilled by this, it's only a little more expensive and in exchange they shave hours of traffic out of their commutes.

It's the people that were gaming the system to get free parking that are suddenly screwed. Fuck them.

wang_li• 1 year ago

It's a bit absurd though. The roads are paid by tax payers from the general fund of the city, but they discriminate on how much it costs to use those roads based on where you live. If everyone entering the zone paid the same then it would be one thing. But they have exemptions and deductions based on residency and income. If they are going to charge people who don't live in the area and not charge the people who do live in the area, then the people in the area should have to buy all the roads and pay for the upkeep.

timr19• 1 year ago

It hasn't panned out that way at all however, it's just great for everyone.

Oh, come now. Try a little bit harder to see the other side.

Live here, don't have a car -- haven't had one for 20 years. Ride the subway every day.

I freely acknowledge that the roads feel less crowded, but it makes no practical difference to me. As far as I am concerned, the entire thing is a small net loss, in that it's another tax, and on the rare occasions I do actually need a car or a service that requires a car (plumber, mover, etc.) it costs me more.

I look at congestion pricing purely as a question of "do I consent to another tax for the MTA?", and when framed in that way, the answer is emphatically "No."

jcranmer2• 1 year ago

The biggest improvement are for the very poor, who rely more heavily than other socioeconomic classes on bus transportation, which has seen the greatest efficiency improvements from congestion pricing. The merely poor or middle class, in NYC, are already reliant on mass transit (although more likely the subway rather than the bus system), which sees somewhat more indirect benefits from increased funding as a result of the congestion charge.

The people whom congestion pricing hurts the most are those who feel that public transit is beneath them but still rely on driving in Manhattan to a degree that the congestion charge is a significant tax. Which unfortunately seems to include most of the media class in NYC, hence the incessant whining about it.

dh20222• 1 year ago

With this new moneys coming in they will not even fix one of these 50-year old subway switches. Nevermind buying some new subway cars, or improving ventilation / air conditioning during summer. This new moneys will go to waste. Meanwhile, yeah, rich investment bankers get to spend less time in traffic.

maest• 1 year ago

vast majority can’t afford to own one.

Why is that an issue?

Public transportation and taxis are readily available.

throw7• 1 year ago

"Only after Donald Trump won re-election did it start."

That makes it seem like Trump was pro-congestion pricing... he was not. I remember reading there was a threat and attempt by him to reverse it. Lest it seem like I am a Trump hater, I am very much not impressed by Hochul's delaying which was certainly because of her special interests.

paulgb5• 1 year ago

It was not just an idle threat either, they tried to do it until they were blocked by a judge https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/nyregion/nyc-congestion-p...

jimt1234• 1 year ago

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1892295984928993698

gosub1004• 1 year ago

They conveniently timed it until after the election.

enragedcacti• 1 year ago

There was no "They". The state legislature passed it, NY/NYC/MTA designed it, and the Biden admin approved it to go into effect before the election. Kathy Hochul delayed it until after the election on extremely spurious grounds, despite the law being on the books and NYCers supporting it.

timr19• 1 year ago

Elasticity of demand is not magic, so yeah, making something more expensive will likely reduce demand. While I have no doubt it is a success if you consider only reduced traffic, there are other considerations that override that for me:

1) It's a regressive tax on everyone living here -- even if you never use a car. Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this law.

2) That same regressive tax is used to provide a lifeline for an exceptionally wasteful public organization (the MTA) that needs budget discipline, not additional funding. The MTA rivals Tammany Hall in terms of waste and fraud, and the talks of budget cuts were political crocodile tears.

3) (more minor) By definition, the point of this tax is to make it so that only rich people can drive. As the article notes, of course this is great if you're rich enough to afford it...but the article doesn't quote the people who can't now.

---

Edit: I'm just going to respond to the single point that everyone is making in one place, instead of repeating it: you don't just get to assert that the hypothesized "reduction in transit time" offsets the costs. You have to prove that argument.

You're the one arguing in favor of a new tax. It's not my job to prove the negative.

Ultimately, congestion was itself a cost, but it was a dynamic cost, increasing and decreasing with the amount of congestion to maximize utility of the roads. What the state has done here, effectively, is set the price of driving higher than the market at all times in order to guarantee a marginal reduction in demand.

ceejayoz17• 1 year ago

Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this law.

Significantly? Aren't those delivery trucks spending a lot less time paying drivers to idle in traffic now?

timr19• 1 year ago

I don't know, but you don't have any evidence for that argument.

bryanlarsen2• 1 year ago

The MTA has massive waste in absolute terms, but divide its budget by 5 million passengers per day and those numbers become much more reasonable.

Money spent on the MTA benefits everybody, especially the poor.

timr19• 1 year ago

"Sure, Tammany Hall was corrupt, but the corruption was only a tiny amount per capita...and what a nice courthouse!"

dh20222• 1 year ago

These new moneys coming in will not buy one new subway car, will not fix one mile of subway track, will not fix one mile of potholes-filled-streets. Will not even paint one mile of street sign. It will all go paying some bureaucrats to create some Tableau dashboards showing how much better something (anything) is.

dml21354• 1 year ago

Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this law.

Aruguable. It’s very possible that the time saved by not sitting in traffic will outweigh the congestion charge for delivery trucks (which is what I assume you’re referring to).

CPLX8• 1 year ago

1) It's a regressive tax on everyone living here -- even if you never use a car. Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this.

That's an empirical question, you're going to have to prove it. The time saved by delivery drivers or contractors, for example, has value. If they can make more deliveries, or fix more elevators in the same day those services get cheaper. If the only downside is that the assistant patrol supervisor deputy liaison that would have driven to 1 Police Plaza takes the train instead it's clearly a net savings and economic improvement and makes everything we buy and use in the city cheaper.

2) That same regressive tax is used to provide a lifeline for an exceptionally wasteful public organization (the MTA) that needs budget discipline, not additional funding.

The MTA is chronically starved for cash and unable to do large scale long term projects because of unstable funding. If this policy, which as we saw above might well have literally zero aggregate economic downside, also builds more efficient transit, it's a virtuous circle of winning.

3) (more minor) By definition, the point of this tax is to make it so that only rich people can drive. As the article notes, of course this is great if you're rich enough to afford it...but the article doesn't quote the people who can't now.

Rich people can already drive. Now those rich people give money to transit for everyone else. Working people or people who need to drive (like those with a van full of stuff that needs to be somewhere) are able to do so much more efficiently and most likely face net lower costs.

The "downside" is midly affluent people who do have cars and regularly drive in the central area take fewer trips or take the train a few more times instead. And the other downside is that the tens of thousands of assholes who've been abusing the city parking placard process for decades have to find another way to get to work like the rest of us.

paulgb5• 1 year ago

Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this law.

Congestion was already priced into all goods and services in NYC, it just came in the form of a deadweight loss (paying delivery workers / tradespeople / professionals to sit in traffic) instead of a tax that at least ostensibly will fund better transit.

timr19• 1 year ago

Congestion was already priced into all goods and services in NYC

I agree!

instead of a tax that at least ostensibly will fund better transit.

Telling me that the money will be set on fire by a public organization with good intent doesn't convince me.

What has happened here -- and mathematically, this has to be true, or it wouldn't work -- is that the city has taken what used to be the market cost of congestion, and set an artificial floor higher than that market. They then captured the difference as revenue.

That's the fundamental argument against the assertion that traffic speed increases will offset the costs. It cannot be true, or people would choose to drive.

rafram7• 1 year ago

It's a max of $21 for a truckload of goods, and that's if they deliver during the day. It probably costs the shipper more than that when the driver stops at a gas station to use the bathroom. Obviously the numbers will vary significantly depending on what the vehicle is carrying, but a truckload of groceries might go for around $100,000 retail [1]. The congestion charge is 0.02% of that.

By definition, the point of this tax is to make it so that only rich people can drive.

That's not true. There's a tax credit for low-income residents and a full waiver for disabled people. The average person who drives in Manhattan makes $130,000, 40% more than the average income in the city as a whole [2], so letting them do it for free (while creating negative externalities that we all bear) is just a handout to people who don't need it.

[1] https://selectliquidation.com/collections/grocery-liquidatio...

[2] https://fiscalpolicy.org/impact-of-payroll-mobility-tax-on-n...

timr19• 1 year ago

That's not true. There's a tax credit for low-income residents and a full waiver for disabled people.

That's a fig-leaf argument. Yes, there's some theoretical tax credit that may or may not offset the costs for particular groups of people -- and it would be insane if they didn't exempt the disabled. But if the tax weren't causing the marginal driver to stop driving, it wouldn't work, by definition.

Eric_WVGG• 1 year ago

— and speaking of truckloads, the truckers & delivery guys love congestion pricing.

After being the most vocal critics for years, they’ve learned that low traffic == more, faster deliveries == more business and more coverage, or same business with fewer drivers.

This is the real reason why I think it'll never get repealed. If anyone tries, the industry lobbies will be arguing to keep it instead.

arolihas2• 1 year ago

Buddy if you are going to make an argument where you make statements, people are going to ask for evidence. You are making statements in the affirmative. So you also have to give proof as well. You are arguing the tax should be removed. Do you have proof that literally everything will become cheaper without this tax?

maybelsyrup2• 1 year ago

I'm just going to respond to the single point that everyone is making in one place, instead of repeating it: you don't just get to assert that the hypothesized "reduction in transit time" offsets the costs. You have to prove that argument. You're the one arguing in favor of a new tax. It's not my job to prove the negative.

You ok man? Like, respect for your passion on this issue but you’re also seething pretty hard about New York City having cleaner air and less traffic.

timr19• 1 year ago

I'm not seething, and I can assure you from the disgusting piles of city dust that accumulate in my apartment that the air is not cleaner in any way that matters to me.

8note3• 1 year ago

as far as i can read, your argument is that traffic jams are impossible, because congestion acts as a dynamic cost function to keep the road at its highest utility, when the throughput is highest.

unless you disagree with the that definition of the utility of the road?

how do you explain phenomena like shockwave traffic jams, where otherwise high utility roads get sections of nearly stopped traffic. eg. https://youtu.be/Suugn-p5C1M?feature=shared in a closed system (30s of video)

can you spend some time showing your work, and both propose and prove what the cost function of congestion is? then, it should be clear whether the government set cost is higher or lower, and under what conditions. id especially want to see the limiting behaviour - standstill traffic. my gur sense is that the cost of congestion should be going towards infinity, but im interested in how the constant value from the government is still higher.

righthand9• 1 year ago

Congestion pricing is great. I routinely end up in Manhattan on Friday and Canal Street at 5pm is running smoothly (not packed end to end with idling cars as before), the city looks like a regular city instead of the packed cars honking and spewing tire dust and exhaust. Long gone are the people that would drive into LES on Friday night with their expensive cars and blare loud music and rev their engines. It’s a different environment and everyone is loving it that I’ve talked to.

ericmay2• 1 year ago

Long gone are the people that would drive into LES on Friday night with their expensive cars and blare loud music and rev their engines. I

I don't live in New York, but have been following along loosely on the congestion pricing policy as someone who has some official business but also just generally curious to see how it would work out, and this is a benefit that I had not considered. Thank you for mentioning this.

righthand9• 1 year ago

Yes I imagine a handful of crime was caused by the sheer number of people on the street. Fewer people idling about looking to cause a ruckus has made a huge difference. Passive benefits are what will keep cp in place.

fitsumbelay• 1 year ago

Same

I would've had a hard time wrapping my head around being OK with ~$10/trip before this post

Goes to show time is the most valuable commodity anyone'll ever own

xvedejas2• 1 year ago

Surely the reduction in vehicle count is more than enough to cancel this out, but a moving vehicle does emit more exhaust and tire dust per unit of time than does a vehicle idling. For the environmental improvements it's more about the reduction in the number of cars than about the better traffic flow.

mumbisChungo• 1 year ago

The better traffic flow reduces the amount of time they’re operating for as well (assuming start/end of planned route is independent of travel speed)

mystified5016• 1 year ago

The stop and start conditions of highly congested traffic produce more brake and tire dust

wat100005• 1 year ago

Pollution per time doesn’t make any sense as a metric. A trip that includes a lot of idling will pollute more than a trip that doesn’t.

toomuchtuna• 1 year ago

Won't those idling vehicles also end up moving?

eddd-ddde• 1 year ago

A moving car from point a to point b will always emit such "moving vehicle" pollution. The idle pollution is just extra.

jgalt212• 1 year ago

It remains amazing to me, time and time again, how relatively small fees can encourage large changes in behavior. At the aggregate level, people overvalue their time and undervalue their money.

somsak2• 1 year ago

i think it's the opposite right? people that didn't mind spending an hour in traffic are now unwilling to pay $9.

yupitsme12312• 1 year ago

If you make it so only rich people can do a certain thing, you'll have way fewer people doing that thing. I'm curious what kind of inconveniences this has caused for people who can't afford to pay the fee though.

supertrope7• 1 year ago

People are not perfectly rational. When there's no explicit price tag people tend to overlook costs. For example when Tesla Model S sold at $70,000 a decrease in gasoline prices was predicted to hurt sales even though a few hundred dollar swing in fuel cost for one year is not going to materially change total cost of ownership of a luxury vehicle.

GoatInGrey• 1 year ago

I'm not sure why what is functionally a $180/month fee is considered "small". I think what we're seeing here is that public services (like roads) are more enjoyable, for those who can still use it, if the lower half of the income ladder is banned from using it.

3eb7988a1663• 1 year ago

I certainly refuse to pay $0.10 / plastic grocery bag since those fees were put in place. I have been exclusively shopping with a canvas bag for years now. Likely having saved thousands of bags in that time. In fact, I am angry at the half-dozen times where circumstances have forced me to pay for one.

michaelmrose5• 1 year ago

Eg when plastic bags are free Grandma wants 5 things in 2 doubled bags but at 8 cents each she'll just stick them in the cart with no bag at all and transfer them to the back seat even if 8c for single bag to carry them in would add negligible costs to her $120 basket.

dcchuck• 1 year ago

Really? I must admit I have not noticed it. I've had nightmare trips trying to get into the city still during traditional heavy traffic times. Frankly I've thought more "the pandemic is finally over" than I did "congestion pricing is working" over the past few months.

I'll be curious what happens come winter time. Midtown becomes gridlock in the evenings. I do not expect that to change.

All that being said - probably my own biases skewing things. I will keep my eyes peeled!

lr1970• 1 year ago

Congestion pricing is only a half of the solution. The second half should be the MTA reform. MTA has been a dysfunctional mess and a bottomless money pit for as long as I remember. MTA of today will squander any amount of money you throw on it wasting all the potential gains from congestion pricing.

sethhochberg• 1 year ago

Regrettably the only source I can find hosting this video is a reddit post, but you might find the remarks by the MTA chair interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/1iyve4d/mta_buildi...

In short: for decades they’ve been allergic to doing any design or project management in house, which meant brand new teams of consultants and contractors spun up for every single project. Lucrative for the consultants, not an efficient way to use funds for a big organization that is constantly doing design and construction.

Seems like the MTA is finally starting to invest in building internal expertise again so they can stop farming everything out

nobodyandproud• 1 year ago

Largely because a hostile state government is given control over what’s largely a NYC issue.

passivedonut• 1 year ago

Congestion pricing is a regressive tax. It doesn’t actually ‘work.’

As the population or inflation increases the fee will have to increase to keep enough people off the road. It doesn’t actually address the public’s transportation needs, it’s just some rich assholes way of using wealth to cut in line at the expense of the general public.

Most of these policies that seek to inflict harm on the public to effect social change never actually produce a positive and productive end result.

Small businesses which is the U.S. economy will be heavily impacted resulting in local cities moving revenue generation from commerce to residential property, increasing cost of living.

If gentrification is your wheelhouse then yah Congestion Pricing sounds wonderful.

Reason077• 1 year ago

”Long gone are the people that would drive into LES on Friday night with their expensive cars and blare loud music and rev their engines.”

Interestingly, in London’s case we do not get this particular benefit from the congestion charge zone, because congestion charging ends at 6pm! So all the boys eager to show off their hot, loud cars still show up on a Friday or Saturday night.

tim3333• 1 year ago

Also a lot of the flash car revving is around Harrods which is outside the zone.

graemep• 1 year ago

London is a pretty good city for walking around and public transport.

When I lived in London (pre congestion charge) I used to walk for pleasure a lot simply because I enjoyed it.

I think road design and good public transport have improved it (although reliability could be better sometimes) since then. I do not agree with all the changes over the years, but net its great.

Lots of expensive cars but never really noticed the loud revving.

tixocloud• 1 year ago

Great to hear the positives about congestion pricing. It would be great to see how it can ease the congestion in Toronto. Unfortunately, I suggested congestion pricing as a possible solution as part of an academic project and was laughed off.

righthand9• 1 year ago

Car culture is strong, I’d seek local transport advocacy group interest[0] before academic interest. Your academic colleagues all probably drive to work.

[0] in the case of NYC, for example, Transportation Alternatives https://transalt.org/

AnthonyMouse9• 1 year ago

Long gone are the people that would drive into LES on Friday night with their expensive cars and blare loud music and rev their engines.

The people who blare loud music and rev their engines are the people with expensive cars? The people who can afford expensive cars are the ones being deterred by congestion pricing?

7jjjjjjj• 1 year ago

The people who blare loud music and rev their engines are the people with expensive cars?

Yes, this has been my experience as well.

The people who can afford expensive cars are the ones being deterred by congestion pricing?

Who says they could afford it? Getting an insane car loan for a vehicle you can't afford is an American tradition.

taeric7• 1 year ago

Are there any measures that show any downside to this? I confess a bit of bewilderment at how many people will assert there must be something bad every time this comes up. I don't think a single measured outcome has gone poorly from this.

TulliusCicero5• 1 year ago

It reminds me of what happens nearly every time car parking on a busy retail street is removed for bike lanes/bus lanes/better walking.

Business owners universally oppose the change and predict catastrophe, the change goes through, and business/foot traffic goes way up instead.

It seems that business owners' ability to "know their customers" is rather limited; that, or they're just biased by their own need for car/delivery parking.

proee• 1 year ago

Some changes, like having a highway bypass a small city, can be catastrophic to local businesses. A restaurant that might have hundreds of out-of-town cars go by, now has only local residents.

mcphage• 1 year ago

It seems that business owners' ability to "know their customers" is rather limited

Movie production companies compared VCR sales to a serial killer. These were the leaders of large, successful companies, and they didn’t know shit.

ASinclair• 1 year ago

I think it's often that the business owners themselves drive to their businesses and street park. They don't want to give up their own parking.

timeinput• 1 year ago

I think the businesses do kind of know their customers.

This is an exaggeration of what (I think) happens: all of their current customers only ever drive there and park in front of their shop. They say oh with no parking I won't come any more. Then they stop coming. They lost all their customers! Everyone who can now safely walk to the shop (who couldn't / wouldn't before for multiple reasons) starts walking there. There are a lot more people who can now safely walk to and patronize the shop, and they do. The shops foot traffic went up by 10x. They still lost all their customers.

I think it's probably good that it's easy for people to walk / bike / bus to this shop, and the shop owner probably does to, but they still may have lost a lot of old customers.

acdha2• 1 year ago

It seems that business owners' ability to "know their customers" is rather limited; that, or they're just biased by their own need for car/delivery parking.

I think the latter is often the case. In many case, I don’t even think it’s conscious: many business owners, especially people who started / inherited successful small businesses in city neighborhoods, moved out to the suburbs for bigger houses/schools/etc. and are thus completely car dependent. It’s very human to assume other people live similarly to you in the absence of evidence otherwise and someone who bikes or walks looks just like someone who drove unless they’re carrying a helmet or something. If you’re in most suburbs, there isn’t a great transit/bike option to get to the shop and so they aren’t even in the habit of thinking about alternatives.

There’s an especially funny thing which comes up all of the time when local advocates actually monitor spots: small shops often only have one or two street spots so the person who works there has a completely different view of the convenience because they almost always get a space when they show up at 7:30am but nobody else thinks of it as easy because the spots is taken and so actual customers would spend longer finding another spot and walking to the store than it takes to walk/bike from within the neighborhood.

norir• 1 year ago

Yeah, I imagine they are often projecting their own frustration over parking onto their customers. Every time a customer comes in and grumbles about parking, it triggers their confirmation bias. Conversely, new customers who only popped in because they were on foot are probably less likely to express that fact.

Given how annoying parking is, I'll bet that there are also many business owners who would trade some profit for their own ease of parking. Especially given that they have the power to squeeze their employees rather than bear the full cost themselves.

ctkhn• 1 year ago

There were some negative effects at a construction shutdown of a street recently where it temporarily did hurt some business, mostly retail shops but not the restaurants/bars which had a big boost in business. These boutique style shops were more patronized by people from suburbs or far flung parts of the city than actual locals, and their location was based on the owners wanting to live in the city vs their actual customers.

focusgroup0• 1 year ago

Small business owners in SF were pretty upset after the Valencia St bike lane killed their business:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdYyQ8ev5yE

Tiktaalik• 1 year ago

The business owners are clueless.

Vancouver did a study of how people arrived to their shopping destination and found that a small minority drove to their destination. This was in opposition to the assertions of the business owners that claimed drivers were remarkably more dominant and parking critical.

https://slowstreets.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/new-vancouver-c...

Every time I see a study like this it is similar results where the reality doesn't match the guesses of local business.

xvedejas2• 1 year ago

I wonder whether pedestrian collisions will be slightly more deadly, since one effect is that traffic flows faster than before. Great for drivers but probably more dangerous for the jaywalking new yorker.

ceejayoz17• 1 year ago

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/conges...

With fewer cars on the road in the congestion zone, there have been fewer car crashes — and fewer resulting injuries. Crashes in the zone that resulted in injuries are down 14 percent this year through April 22, compared with the same period last year, according to police reports detailing motor vehicle collisions. The total number of people injured in crashes (with multiple people sometimes injured in a single crash) declined 15 percent.

zahlman5• 1 year ago

What matters in a pedestrian collision is the speed of impact. Traffic flow is about the average speed over time. Cars that spend less time stopped don't become significantly more dangerous when their maximum speed is still limited to, say, 30 km/h (20 mph). Certainly not for those who are aware of a constant traffic flow.

Herring• 1 year ago

It's basically that America has a caste system, and public transit is a lower-caste thing that any respectable member of society should ideally avoid. It's a pity because public transit done well is amazing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNTg9EX7MLw [NotJustBikes]

conductr2• 1 year ago

We'd have to have an example of public transit done well to break the caste stigma you referenced. I don't think anywhere in the US is anywhere close to Amsterdam (discussed in video you linked)

gosub1004• 1 year ago

Refusing direct contact with homeless people's excrement is not based on class/self-respect.

ch4s32• 1 year ago

Wealthy people use the subway in NYC, it's often the fastest way to get somewhere.

anthomtb2• 1 year ago

In my lived experience, public transit is not actively avoided by so-called upper castes (I am not convinced you know what a caste is). Rather, it is so straightforward to take ones own automobile that you don't even consider public transit options.

Obviously there's a significant negative feedback loop here.

taeric7• 1 year ago

I'm torn on this. It is a very appealing way to blame people in discussing why it goes this way.

It doesn't contend with the fact that having a car is ridiculously useful. It is intensely amusing when I see people in other nations comment on how useful getting a car has been in their daily life. And I don't think people realize just how many cars Americans have.

That is, there may be a caste system, but as this congestion pricing shows, the catch is that we have a ton of cars. And people use them because they are convenient as hell.

rafram7• 1 year ago

Not Just Bikes is such a terminal pessimist. I enjoy his videos but I think he really has trouble acknowledging the counterpoints to his doom-and-gloom rhetoric. What he says in that video just barely applies to NYC at all.

some_random2• 1 year ago

First off, comparing classes in the US to a caste system is genuinely delusional. The US doesn't have a caste system (except where it has been imported by immigration) and if you think it does either you don't know what a caste system is or you are completely out of touch with American culture.

More importantly, no C-Suite executive, Banker, Socialite, or whatever "upper caste" stand in you want to select gives a shit about sitting next to a Janitor on the train. Hell, they don't give a shit about sitting next to a normal sane person who is homeless. The reason so many people who have a choice don't chose to use public transit is because of low quality service (as always), crime, and a very small number of very visible mentally ill people having daily breakdowns in public.

This is a good thing! NotJustBikes is a huge doomer loser, don't listen to him, there's a really straightforward route to making things better.

p_dubz• 1 year ago

I created an account because of how terrible this comment is.

A caste system? are you kidding me. CASTE. Like the system where a group of people were called untouchables??? These kinds of extreme comparisons are so utterly unhelpful to literally everyone.

Frankly just on the face of it your claim is completely out of touch with the US cities with decent public transit options (New York, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago). Everyone that lives in NYC that can take the subway takes the subway. I know plenty of hedge funders and traders and big tech workers in NYC who take the subway every day, and plenty of big law partners who take the DC metro to the office.

Obviously there are really big problems with how transit is implemented and treated in most cities in the USA, but you are completely incorrect. In American cities where there is good transit everyone takes it

righthand9• 1 year ago

The project was studied for 10 years so the nay-sayers really don’t have a platform because they’re up against a decade of research. Most of the anti-cp has a romanticized view of driving into the city as some sort of right or NYer benefit.

standardUser• 1 year ago

Other than Trump's seemingly knee-jerk opposition because it was implemented by, in his own oft-repeated words, radical left lunatics, I haven't really heard anything negative at all as a Manhattanite.

hedora2• 1 year ago

The metrics I have seen all look cherry picked.

Archaeology tells us that for ~ 4000 years, people have tolerated an average of a 30 minute commute.

The usefulness of a city goes up (superlinearly!) with the number of people that can work / shop / live there.

So, the universal metric for any city, and therefore transit system is: “How many people can regularly make use of the city?”

A simple proxy for that is: “How many people live within a 30 minute commute of the city center?”

So, at peak times, how many people can simultaneously get to their destination in NYC in under 30 minutes?

Second: How many of those people can do so during non peak hours?

If congestion pricing is a success on all metrics, then both those numbers will have increased. Those metrics have worked well for 4000 years of cities so they are as close to a natural law as exists for cities.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the numbers went up (or down) but the lack of reporting on “is NYC’s effective population increasing or decreasing as a result of congestion pricing?” makes me skeptical.

ceejayoz17• 1 year ago

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/conges...

Commute times: Faster.

Transit ridership: Up.

Visitors: Up.

prasadjoglekar2• 1 year ago

The biggest downside is that the reason this was done had little or nothing to do with congestion. That's a side effect. It was to fill budget holes in the MTA, which is a notorious money pit that delivers far less value than the billions if gobbles up.

There's a real chance that future cash flows from this congestion pricing are going to be securitized for today's cash payments, similar to Chicago parking.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-transit-governor-s...

zahlman5• 1 year ago

the reason this was done had little or nothing to do with congestion. That's a side effect

Then why, out of the countless alternatives, did they choose to raise the funds this way?

erehweb• 1 year ago

Trivially, the measure of how much it costs in dollars to drive into Manhattan along the affected routes has gone up. So there are likely some people who are worse off. It's rare to have a completely free lunch, but this one looks pretty cheap.

zahlman5• 1 year ago

how many people will assert there must be something bad

Some of my friends seem to be convinced that Pigouvian taxes don't work, that hoi polloi just suck up the extra cost and complain more. Also they'll say that it's regressive (i.e. the thing being taxed already represented a higher proportion of income for the lower classes).

What I'm getting at is, I agree with you, but I don't think the objections are all that nebulous, nor based in "too good to be true" intuition.

tim3333• 1 year ago

In London from 2020 till about 2023 congestion charging ran till 10pm and then that was moved back to 6pm. The reason was it was hurting nightlife especially west end theatre.

anthomtb2• 1 year ago

I find it surprising that theatre would be harmed by a congestion charge. It seems like the cost of paying or planning around a congestion charge would be small relative to the cost and planning required to go to a live show.

JumpCrisscross10• 1 year ago

Are there any measures that show any downside to this?

The opposition to Manhattan’s congestion pricing has a curious tendency to be inversely correlated with how frequently that person is in Manhattan.

At this point I think it’s just another proxy for rural voters’ rage at liberal cities.

taeric7• 1 year ago

I fully subscribe to this view. The obsession with people hating all things California is borderline insane, at this point.

I probably too fully subscribe to this view. Seems a lot of "western" things that people love to complain about have been over indexed on. A lot are things that do need to get better, but when I hear people talk about how "actually, the US has been fascist for some time," I just... What?!

navane• 1 year ago

A downside could be that 2 years from now the effect has rippled away (the shock and awe of paying for it is gone), and everyone sits in the same traffic but pays more money for it.

agentultra• 1 year ago

There are so many more initiatives from climate adaptation and environmental advocates and urban planning folks that will have similar, “well duh,” effects. It’s surprising how many easy, simple ideas there are that society and politicians dismiss.

Maybe we don’t need to burn the planet to “achieve AGI,” in order to “solve climate change,” and, “make cities livable.” It’s not like that tech, even is possible, is going to stop hurricanes or take cars off the streets.

Hope more cities in North America will follow suit. It’s sad how many have been doing the exact opposite of good ideas for so long.

newyankee• 1 year ago

Another predictable success would be converting entirety of NYC into a driverless car zone, but we are probably not ready for the repercussions as a society

ericmay2• 1 year ago

Maybe, or maybe just have more street cars and trams and such. More walking, and more biking to go from A -> B.

I'm not sure in the case of Manhattan that driverless cars are particularly valuable, and it's very much debatable whether they would be a predictable success for a few reasons.

Inevitably you arrive at a scenario where you have a limited number of them because of course otherwise would be to defeat the purpose of the congestion zone, and then you'll only have certain operators with the right permits able to extract money from moving people. Kind of like the taxi medallion scheme all over again.

One of the best things America could do is to be to reduce reliance and spend on cars. This applies to New York but even moreso to the rest of the country.

TheGRS2• 1 year ago

Entirety seems a little extreme. Maybe gradually they could get there as society and technology changes. But yes changing large areas to pedestrian-only seems totally doable to me in NYC.

humanpotato• 1 year ago

Already 90-95% get around without a car and the rest are paying. Car traffic is necessary to an extent. Compare how shipping companies offer Next Day Early AM shipping for 10x the cost of 4 day shipping. Hardly anyone uses it, but when you need it, you are glad to have that expensive option.

trgn7• 1 year ago

The future of nyc is one with electric kei cars puttering around for the one offs and trams and subways for everything else. I can see it in my minds eye and it is better in every way

post_break• 1 year ago

Ironically NY bans kei vehicles.

wakawaka284• 1 year ago

Since they define what success is, of course it will be.

ceejayoz17• 1 year ago

Which contrasting metrics that've gone in the negative direction would you like to highlight?

s1artibartfast3• 1 year ago

There are obvious winners and losers. Of course it is one sided if you dont care about the losers.

Those who want to drive, not pay, and not take mass transit are losing out and nobody cares.

Im not saying anyone has to care, but I dont think it is honest to call it a free lunch.

wakawaka284• 1 year ago

How about the average person's commute time, or cost of living? Disclaimer: I did not read this article. I don't need to in order to state the obvious but there is a tiny chance someone thought about the impact on people overall.

amazingamazing• 1 year ago

we need to do this with more things

djaychela2• 1 year ago

Relevant Climate Town Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEFBn0r53uQ

ks2048• 1 year ago

It's interesting that everyone is saying it is a drastic change, when it says "Traffic is down by about 10%" (which doesn't sound like a drastic change to me).

I guess it is near a critical point where a relatively small change in traffic results in a large change in travel times, traffic jams, etc.?

carabiner• 1 year ago

Yeah it's like fluid flow where once you reach choked flow or hit the sound speed, there's a discontinuous jump in resistance that fucks up everything.

djaychela2• 1 year ago

I guess it is near a critical point where a relatively small change in traffic results in a large change in travel times, traffic jams, etc.?

Yes, same as school traffic (certainly where I live in the UK). It's not all the traffic on the road, but the difference it makes is enormous.

toast0• 1 year ago

Manhattan traffic was pretty much at capacity. Bumper to bumper most of the time, certainly during peak times.

Reducing traffic to 90% of capacity makes a huge difference. A little bit of room here and there allows for much smoother flow and a lot better experience for those who didn't get priced out. And almost certainly better flow for busses, which is helpful for a lot of people.

bravesoul22• 1 year ago

Like CPU %. Or maybe memory is a better analogy.

time4tea• 1 year ago

Cycling is so much more effective than cars.. actually approx 5x more in terms of street usage. So when people move to bikes, the streets look way less busy. You'd need a 5x more bike traffic than car traffic for the two lanes to be equivalent.

Just worth bearing mind when people talk about streets being emptier - just emptier of cars

mizzao• 1 year ago

Luckily, NYC supports this so much that they've started handing out criminal misdemeanor summons for (minor) cycling offenses: https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/traffic_and_transit/2025/05...

You can do the same things in a car and all you'll get is a traffic ticket.

michaelcampbell• 1 year ago

Cycling is so much more effective than cars

... for 1 person in decent weather having to transport very little.

As it turns out, this is the majority of traffic, but let's set constraints.

crowbahr• 1 year ago

Slight hyperbole but every single food delivery on door dash happens with cyclists in NYC. Rain or shine. Multiple orders at a time. So not for everyone and everything but cyclists are still 5x more efficient in bad weather.

mattlondon3• 1 year ago

Congestion will creep back up, just like it has in London.

Unless they really price it to deter people, they'll just drive. In London it's cheaper to pay the £15 charge than to get two adults return tickets on the tube from the outer suburbs. Once you factor in comfort, convenience, reliability and practicality of your private car Vs London's public transport it's obvious why more and more people just pay the fee to drive.

If they really wanted to stop congestion they'd increase the fee from £15 to something like £150-250 a day. But they won't do that because then hardly anyone would pay it and they'd lose the revenue.

bravesoul22• 1 year ago

Thinking the same thing. Sydney has a lot of tolls but not for congestion. More as an additional tax really. Doesn't stop people using cars. What probably does is pedestrian streets and less parking making it a PITA to drive vs get a bus.

AnthonyMouse9• 1 year ago

Congestion will creep back up, just like it has in London.

This is actually a good point, because of the nature of what causes congestion.

It's that governments don't do the things that prevent it (e.g. allowing higher density housing construction to shorten commutes or adding capacity to both mass transit and road systems), until the congestion gets really bad.

So when you first introduce congestion pricing, congestion goes down, because of course it does -- increase the cost of something and you get less of it. But then, why do any of the other things that address congestion until it gets really bad again? So population grows over time or existing infrastructure decays and doesn't get replaced because it isn't "needed" yet. Until congestion is as bad as it ever was, but now people are living with a new mass surveillance apparatus and paying a regressive tax.

JumpCrisscross10• 1 year ago

governments don't do the things that prevent it (e.g. allowing higher density housing construction to shorten commutes or adding capacity to both mass transit and road systems), until the congestion gets really bad

This is Manhattan. We tax the living shit out of parking, are actively converting driving space to bike lanes, and have multiple efforts to reduce or potentially even eliminate street-side parking in the congestion zone.

JumpCrisscross10• 1 year ago

If they really wanted to stop congestion they'd increase the fee from £15 to something like £150-250 a day. But they won't do that because then hardly anyone would pay it and they'd lose the revenue

This is nobody-goes-there-it’s-too-crowded logic.

If there is congestion despite a charge, you can make more money by raising the price until there is less congestion.

mattlondon3• 1 year ago

They don't raise the price to deter people. Because the reality is it is a money-making scheme so they price it just right so that most people will pay it.

If they really cared about stopping congestion they'd raise the price. This would very very very simple for them to do. But then they lose a major source of revenue. As a result it is clear that they don't care about reducing congestion. It's basically a toll now, because it has not reduced congestion in the long term. I deeply suspect NYC will be the same once the realisation creeps in that the fee isn't really that much to pay.

tmaly• 1 year ago

I am ok with congestion pricing. Most of the time I park above 60th street to avoid the tax.

But the tolls on the tunnels are super expensive.

EasyMark• 1 year ago

*for those rich enough to afford it.

amai• 1 year ago

Why is this called congestion pricing as if the price would change dynamically based on traffic congestion? In fact it seems to be a static toll of $9. Or am I missing something?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing_in_New_York...

Congestion pricing in Manhattan is a predictable success

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