A new report from the Department of Health shows air quality remains stable or slightly improved after the first year of city-wide congestion pricing. \n<\/p>\n
On Aug. 14, The DOH released its first comprehensive evaluation<\/a> of congestion pricing\u2019s impacts, after the policy was implemented in January 2025.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s air quality remained stable or improved slightly in the first year of congestion pricing, which continues a two-decade long trend of declining air pollution, according to the department<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen fewer vehicles entering Manhattan\u2019s central business district and more people choosing to bike, walk and take mass transit,\u201d said New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn.<\/p>\n The Congestion Relief Zone was measured, as well as areas where environmental concerns were specifically raised, such as cross-borough expressways.<\/p>\n Although most sites stayed steady or improved slightly, the department reported <\/a>that the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway didn\u2019t improve as much as would be expected in comparison to other measured areas.<\/p>\n The findings in the report measured concentrations of four traffic-related air pollutants: fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), nitric oxide (NO) and black carbon (BC).<\/p>\n The city uses integrated monitors to measure air quality \u2014 the same tools used by the Environmental Protection Agency, to get exact pollutant mass values, rather than estimates.<\/p>\n