Not so fast.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Drivers say traffic\u2019s bad as ever nearly two years after congestion pricing was unleashed on Midtown Manhattan<\/a> \u2014 now they\u2019re just paying more to sit in it.<\/p>\n Data from a truck-tracking company shows speeds barely budged even as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority keeps patting itself on the back for the toll, which costs a minimum of $9.<\/a><\/p>\n Drivers tell The Post they don\u2019t think congestion pricing has eased traffic below 60th Street in Manhattan as officials promised it would. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n MTA boss Janno Lieber has called the toll<\/a> an \u201cunqualified success,\u201d saying \u201call of the metrics\u201d show people are saving time \u2014 and the agency is taunting\u00a0drivers by slapping signs on construction projects that read \u201cmade possible by congestion pricing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But GPS trucking data showed 16% of the zone actually moved slower while drivers railed their daily commutes are anything but a fairy tale.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a money grab,\u201d said Michael, 55, a courier from Queens, who was filling up at a Mobil station at 36th Street and 10th Avenue. \u201cWorking people can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m paying up to four grand, and I\u2019m not getting any benefit,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cTraffic is not flowing.\u201d<\/p>\n Benadon Benmore, 40, an ironworker from Harlem who works in Hell\u2019s Kitchen, said his ride home has not improved since the cash-strapped MTA got its new revenue stream flowing with the help of Gov. Kathy Hochul.<\/p>\n Benadon Benmore, 40, an ironworker from Harlem who works in Hell\u2019s Kitchen, said his ride home has not changed. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n \u201cIt still takes me two hours to get home,\u201d Benmore said. \u201cI\u2019m gonna get me a real horse.\u201d<\/p>\n Jhoffre Arevalo, 40, an Uber driver from Flushing, said the streets did ease up when the toll was new.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen congestion pricing started, you\u2019d see the difference. Traffic went down a lot,\u201d Arevalo said. \u201cBut now it comes back to normal. I think I see more traffic now.\u201d<\/p>\n Jhoffre Arevalo, 40, an Uber driver from Flushing, said the traffic did ease up when the toll was new, but is back to the way it was before the toll. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n The MTA claimed congestion pricing cut traffic into the zone by 11% in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Port Authority counts at the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, two main ways into the zone, showed just a 4.5% drop in vehicle entries that year compared with 2024 before congestion pricing was implemented.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trucking data doesn\u2019t show traffic in the zone has sped up either. <\/p>\n Geotab, a company that sells software businesses put in their trucks and vans to track vehicle activity, analyzed more than 50,000 commercial vehicle trips in the zone and found that from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., speeds in 2025 were mostly the same as in 2024, before the toll.<\/p>\n Traffic only moved faster along 37% of mileage within the zone, while 46% showed no significant change in speed and 16% was slower, Geotab found.<\/p>\n Geotab researchers created a graphic to illustrate where traffic speeds changed. Traffic only moved faster along 37% within the congestion pricing zone in 2025, compared to 2024, while 46% of roads showed no significant change in speed and 16% of roads were slower. Geotab<\/p>\n The way trucks are tolled may be keeping them parked in the zone, Geotab data showed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cars pay once a day, but trucks pay every time they come in, which gives truckers a reason to come in once and stay put.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Geotab found the commercial vehicles it tracks are idling more each day as they make more trips.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s software, which\u00a0counts a trip as over when the engine shuts off or the vehicle sits for more than 3.3 minutes, showed trucks and vans made about 4.6 stops a day in 2025, up from 4 in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n Geotab said those extra trips created more emissions than in 2024.<\/p>\n New York Gov. Kathy Hochul claimed the congestion toll brought \u201ccleaner air\u201d \u2014 but Health Department data showed pollution levels showed no change. James Messerschmidt for NY Post<\/p>\n But Gov. Kathy Hochul has bragged that the toll she shepherded in brought \u201ccleaner air\u201d<\/a> \u2014 a claim refuted by an August city Health Department report <\/a>that found pollution inside the zone was not significantly different from what it would have been without the toll.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, the MTA is getting paid, with the toll raking in $548 million through September of this year and more than $700 million in all of 2025, according to board documents.<\/p>\n A driver with E-ZPass who commutes into the zone at rush hour five days a week pays $45 a week, or about $2,250 a year.<\/p>\n A big truck pays $108 a week, about $5,400 a year for one trip into the zone five days a week \u2014\u00a0but if drivers had to make two trips into the zone in one day that yearly cost would double to $10,800.\u00a0<\/p>\n The toll will keep rising, with cars jumping to $12 in 2028 and $15 in 2031.<\/p>\n Drivers said it\u2019s not sustainable. <\/p>\n \u201cThe tolls are eating us alive,\u201d Michael said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not so fast.\u00a0 Drivers say traffic\u2019s bad as ever nearly two years after congestion pricing was unleashed on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[748,426,75,57,360,141,9,24,55,54,56,17898,2023,58],"class_list":["post-385291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-congestion-pricing","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-manhattan","tag-metro","tag-midtown","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-tolls","tag-traffic","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}