New York City’s Congestion Pricing Program

Delayed, debated, and divisive, congestion pricing has — at long last — been implemented in Manhattan's central business district (CBD). The tolling program, which charges a toll to all automotive traffic below Manhattan’s 60th street, is meant to raise money for the Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) and reduce congestion in the world’s most congested urban area. With its implementation, New York City joins an exclusive group of cities — and is the first in North America — in charging drivers of cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles to enter its CBD. 

Implementing a charge in North America, a continent well-known for the ubiquity of the private automobile, where the very concept of the car is bound to social status, was bound to be difficult. However, of all North American cities, in New York City — where 75% of those travelling to Manhattan’s CBD arrive by public transit, and 55% of households do not even own a car — it should have been easy.

Easy, it was not.

First proposed in 1933 by a municipal government facing bankruptcy, versions of congestion pricing have been floated for decades, with today’s plan the brainchild of a 2007 plan by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It took a catastrophic funding crisis in the summer of 2017 (the ‘Summer of Hell’) for the plan to really get going, and was finally implemented — following a vague delay in 2024 — on January 5th, 2025. The near-two-decade process was wrought with opposition by individuals and groups who claim the program to be a regressive tax that harms low-income New Yorkers more than wealthier New Yorkers — despite the fact that the average car commuter is far wealthier than the average transit commuter and more likely to reside in the city’s expansive suburbs. 

For a region like New York, where congestion drains more than $9,400,000,000 from the economy annually — with a further $389,000,000 lost from subway delays — the congestion charge is a much-needed breath of fresh air. Buses are running faster, traffic is down (as much as 50% in some areas!), and the MTA — whose existential budget cuts, subsidy elimination, and ‘deferred maintenance’ have long wreaked havoc on New Yorkers’ commutes — has, at long last, a stable funding source. With this funding, the MTA can invest in much-needed accessibility improvements, upgrading New Deal-era signalling systems, and swaths of long-ignored repairs, maintenance, and capital projects needed to keep the MTA — and, by extension, New York City — running. 

Moreover, as cars continue to grow in size, and as pedestrian fatalities continue to surge, limiting car traffic, even if merely through a toll, sends the right message: that the flow of vehicular traffic no longer trumps the well-being of the citizens of the City of New York. After all, the crashes are down 50% in the congestion zone since the toll began, with at the time of writing, nearly forty fewer victims of traffic violence thus far in 2025 than this time in 2024. 

 It can be argued that with congestion pricing, a new era of municipal policy has been ushered in — one that diverges from the automobile-centric design that so marked the preceding seventy years, and that no longer venerates the automobile atop a totem pole.

Congestion pricing is not without its shortfalls, however. While there is a long list of exemptions and discounts — including for low-income and disabled commuters, emergency vehicles, and buses — those who continue to drive into the congestion zone, whether out of necessity or out of choice, will indeed be forced to pay. The organization of the toll as a flat charge (for a private automobile, it is $9 from 5 AM-9 PM and $2.25 otherwise) of entry has been justly criticized for allowing those within the congestion zone to travel within it free of charge. However, in lieu of technology with big privacy implications that track the exact movement of vehicles, it would be challenging to implement a congestion charge that is not cordon-based like New York’s.

But what about in Canada? Using Toronto as a hypothetical example, the rest of this article will delve into the possibilities of congestion pricing in Canada’s largest — and most congested — city and metropolitan area. Toronto shares many elements that drove New York City to implement the toll: extreme traffic that drains billions from the economy and lowers its residents’ quality of life; a robust, well-used, and expanding public transportation system; and citizenry wearied from congestion damage. Moreover, both the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the GO Transit system have had their fair share of funding woes. Viewed through this lens, congestion pricing can be seen as a possible solution.

It seems that the Toronto City Council agreed, and a congestion pricing plan was approved in 2017 before getting axed by the provincial government of then-Premier Kathleen Wynne. Similar to New York City, residents of the City of Toronto commute by car at lower rates than residents of surrounding municipalities. However, with 53.7% of Torontonians continuing to drive to work, and that number jumping to 85% in the whole of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), a proportionally higher number of residents will be charged in a hypothetical congestion toll. Even if the higher incomes of suburban municipalities are taken into account, and even if the trend of low-income groups taking transit at higher rates holds steady, the rate of car use in Toronto is such that a hypothetical congestion charge could end up being the regressive tax that so many feared it would be in New York City. 

However, as New York’s Regional Planning Authority writes, the chief goals of congestion pricing — both pressing and enduring — namely reducing traffic, bettering air quality, and funding transit, can be achieved by “none of the proposed alternatives.” Thus, with problems as prickly and urgent as congestion in our central cities, solutions are often imperfect; yet they are still solutions. If anything can be learned from New York’s rocky road to the congestion charge, it is that persistence pays off. If Toronto can continue to expand its transit network — through the new Ontario line, GO Expansion, and more — and advocates continue to fight the good fight, a charge for vehicular traffic in Canada’s most congested city may, in time, materialize. 

Back in New York, President Trump has threatened to kill the toll; it is true, and he may indeed do it. Yet the brief breath of fresh air New Yorkers — of all strata — had in the weeks that followed January 5th will not soon be forgotten. The fight against congestion and the fight for people-centered policy will continue in whatever form it can; just this time, it will have a proof of concept to point to with pride and hope.