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Tracking the Congestion Pricing Tracker
So far, it looks like it’s working?
A student of the economist and Brown professor Emily Fair Oster and his brother — Benjamin Moshes and Joshua Moshes — have created a Congestion Pricing Tracker, which is collecting Google Maps traffic data for 19 commuter routes, using the shortest time to drive from point A to point B for each route. You can see a snapshot in the chart above, but glancing at the Holland Tunnel route at 7:15a, it was about 10 minutes faster to get through on Wednesday than it was before Jan. 5. (The blue line is pre-Jan. 5; the red is Jan. 5 and after.)
I am then extrapolating to assume that faster times means fewer cars that come out of the tunnel on our side.
To make the tracker, the pair collected pre-congestion pricing data for 16 weeks to serve as the comparison, averaging data for the same weekday across dates in May, June, July, August and December 2024.
Routes 1 to 13 are commuting routes; Route 14 measures congestion on FDR drive, which is excluded from congestion pricing tolls. Routes 15, 17 and 19 are routes within New York City, but outside of the congestion zone, to measure the effect of congestion pricing for those commutes. Routes 16 and 18 are control routes running in Boston and Chicago, respectively.
I think this will be a useful tool to watch as the weeks roll out.
I wanted to know more about the brothers, and why they did it, and sent them an email: “We are not New Yorkers (but feel as though we have become part of the community in spirit tracking this data!),” Benjamin said. “We realized that people would want to stay informed about congestion pricing once it began, so we began tracking NYC traffic way ahead of time to be able to compare traffic once congestion pricing began. We plan to keep going as long as we can! Running the site isn’t cheap, but as long as we can afford it/get some money in donations, we will keep the site up!”
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Statistics can be manipulated. Is there a disclaimer for this data? What was the traffic level before Thanksgiving? Most tourists leave after New Year’s, and many elderly people don’t venture out during frigid weather.
S, the stats are compared against a historical data from the year prior. From their website: “Our pre-Jan 5th averages are calculated for the first chart using about 16 weeks of pre-data to compare congestion zone routes prior to January 5th to dates after. We are averaging the same weekday across dates in May, June, July, August and December of 2024.”
I expect it will take a little while for people to adjust their behavior, so it’s probably too soon to make any assessment of the results of congestion pricing.
The impact on sales tax receipts – particularly small businesses / restaurants – is key. Obviously traffic will decrease because the market is at least somewhat elastic – this data is pointless (also they should be comparing January ’25 to January ’24, not 4 random months they chose). To know if it was worth it, you need to know the incremental consequence on Manhattan businesses (e.g. lost revenue) which could be far more than the tax collected from congestion pricing. Ultimately, the real issue is that the MTA budget is so bloated from the unions and red tape that if the real goal was to invest in public transport and encourage people to use it, reforming the MTA cost structure (and increasing policing on transit) would have been a far more effective solution.
AGRRED….. early january is a slower time in NYC. Compare the date and take actuals in February when thing are back to normal and college is back-in-session.
Parking on our street was down over 50%. I’ve never seen so few cars parked (Thursday at 11:30am). It seems like an unintended consequence of this could be lower toll revenues for the Port Authority if more commuters do move to public transit. Revenues from public transit are much lower than PA tolls. I might have missed this but was possible lower PA revenues part of the calculation?
Let’s review your statics after one year and let’s compare them to DOT’s data. I would also like to see in DOT’s data what percentage of cars are exempt from paying the congestion pricing.
If anyone thinks $9 is going to stop people from driving into the city they are delusional. Jack the price to $100 and maybe you got some movement. Also no reason that people who live in the city (Manhattan, not the other lower priced burroughs) and own cars should be paying this, only those coming from the outside.
This corrects typos above,
This debate is one sided. It focuses on reducing traffic, emissions and the time it takes to commute to and from work in the city’s midtown congestion pricing zone.
Here’s why that’s a problematic:
1) Any flat tax tat taxes the poor, wealthy, and ultra wealthy equally is a regressive tax that eats a huge income of take home pay for the working poor who often must commute. It kaes the poor even more poor.
For the poor who work in the city, driving at to work is cost-prohibitive and unsustainable, so fewer of them drive into work, and so the working poor now risk safety to commute and pay as much as the wealthy.
For the wealthy and those who get car service to get to work, nothing changes. They’re companies the the difference and write off the diff as a tax break. They pay no money out of pocket, the commute feel is corporate subsidized.
Ultra wealthy pay the fines without noticing.
Now, only the Poor and working poor can not drive into NYC.
Therefore, manhattan is now a de facto fact community that keeps out the poor and protects the rich, paid for by the working poor and poor, to keep everyone there but themselves, who pay for their own exclusion? NYC is now like rich enclaves lake Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard. At least in those cases, locals pay for the access they enjoy. NYC is for the rich while it’s paid for by the working poor,bwho can’t access it. NYC is the most unAmerican city.in America. The city that never sleeps is now part of the suburban 5am club for wealthy California women, all other New Yorkers can go to hell.
As for the subway – over the past few days my co-workers and I have thought there were a few more people on the No. 1 in the morning but demographically (20-something and 30-something) seemed to be 1) students and/or 2) people who had been working remotely but now back to the office.
Has not looked like lawyers from Great Neck who were driving.
Also, in midtown (no surprise) far fewer tourists in January.