When Governor Kathy Hochul ​“indefinitely paused” congestion pricing, one of her reasons was a claim that the Manhattan Central Business District (CBD) hadn’t recovered post-pandemic. We looked to the traffic and speed data to see if this is true.

The fact is, New York City is experiencing the slowest travel speeds since the city started keeping track. With a deadly exception during the COVID pandemic, speeds are getting steadily slower. Today travel in the Midtown core averages less than 5 miles per hour, a 3% drop from the previous low in 2019. In the proposed congestion zone, speeds are better, but still unacceptable, averaging about 7 miles per hour, still lower than the prior low in 2019 by about 1%.

Compared with London, San Francisco, and Buffalo, rush hour travel speeds in New York City (not just the congestion zone) are 58%, 33%, and 150% slower.

What happens when we can’t efficiently move goods and people? The Partnership for New York City estimates that we lose approximately $20B per year in lost time, productivity, and opportunity by sitting in traffic the way we do. As traffic continues to slow, those losses are magnified. And we are on a clear downward trajectory. Without common sense policy interventions such as congestion pricing to rationalize the street, or massive subway improvements which depend on congestion pricing, the only net result of this gridlock is economic, public health, and environmental damage.

The traffic increase is not hard to understand. Private automobiles coming into the CBD have reached their pre-pandemic level. The increases in home delivery precipitated by the pandemic have pushed truck traffic beyond pre-pandemic levels. The streets are full, and the only way to facilitate the regional economy is to reduce congestion and tap mass transit alternatives.

Adding capacity does not threaten the economic recovery. Rather, it is a critical strategy that fosters, nurtures, and enables economic stability.

Since most people coming to the congestion zone do so via transit, the best way to accommodate more commutes and flows of commerce into the CBD is to encourage people out of cars and into mass transit.

Immediate congestion relief is created by eliminating a relatively small percentage of vehicle trips by using a congestion charge. By using those proceeds to improve the transit experience, more riders are drawn to transit.

So much for a slow and fragile economic recovery. The reality is that we are beyond capacity on the road, and the only way out is to stop giving away the road by having drivers carry the greater cost of their travel and funneling those proceeds into mass transit investments. That sounds a lot like congestion pricing to us.

Special thanks to RPA Board Member, Sam ​“Gridlock Sam” Schwartz and transportation planner Kelly McGuinness for their valuable assistance in data gathering and refinement for this report.