America's first congestion pricing system leads to dramatic drop in traffic in New York

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New Yorkers are cruising much faster along Manhattan's bridges and tunnels since their city implemented its long-debated congestion pricing plan earlier this month, according to newly available traffic data.

Morning rush hour speeds from New Jersey via the Holland Tunnel, a major route running under the Hudson River to Manhattan, nearly doubled to 28 mph from the previous year. Evening speeds on the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn increased from 13 mph to 23 mph.

If these trends continue, motorists willing to pay a toll of $4.50 to $14.40 to enter the congestion zone in the center of the busiest city in the United States will save thousands of hours per year than 'They are currently losing out to crawling through smog tunnels or over clogged bridges.

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New York's congestion pricing system, which took effect January 5, aims to reduce traffic and help fund $15 billion for much-needed improvements to local transit.

The toll applies to vehicles entering a decongestion zone below 60th Street in Manhattan, a part of the island that includes Midtown, Greenwich Village, SoHo and the area around Wall Street. Most passenger cars entering the area now pay a $9 toll, while trucks pay $14.40 and motorcycles, $4.50. Certain automobiles, including emergency vehicles, are exempt.

The plan means New York joins London, Milan, Singapore and Stockholm in a small club of big cities charging congestion charges. In London, which introduced its program in 2003, traffic fell 14 percent in its area in the first year. Other cities saw declines of more than 20 percent.

The increase in speeds in New York is evident in data provided to the Financial Times by traffic tracking company Inrix, and collected from anonymized vehicle GPS, mobile devices and road sensors. The data contains speeds on different routes around the city, at different times of the day, before and after the toll system began.

Fortunately, Manhattan has very few access points, and they are limited to bridges and tunnels, so you can really get a sense of what's going on, said Bob Pishue, an analyst at Inrix.

Of eight bridges and tunnels examined, seven experienced significant acceleration during at least one rush hour. Three bridges leading into Manhattan that are not connected to the congestion zone did not see a similar increase in speed.

An FT analysis of hourly traffic data from New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority also showed fewer vehicles in the affected tunnels during peak hours. Bridges and tunnels outside the area carried more vehicles.

A report released this week by the MTA also showed significant declines in travel times, including 30 to 40 percent for vehicles entering Manhattan's business district. The study also found that city buses ran faster and had slightly higher ridership.

According to the Congestion Pricing Tracker, a project by student brothers Benjamin and Joshua Moshes that monitors travel times via Google Maps, peak hours in the Holland Tunnel went from 20 minutes before the toll to nine minutes this week.

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We are convinced that we are seeing very significant changes in the bridges and tunnels that lead to the congestion zone, said Benjamin Moshes.

Lewis Lehe, an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, found that drivers in other cities with congestion pricing respond more dramatically to the introduction of a toll than 'to subsequent price increases, an idea he describes as high elasticity. in introduction.

Lehe was surprised by the magnitude of the effects shown in New York's early data, but cautioned that it would take time to fully understand the effects of the new tolls.

Recently, at 5 p.m. near the mouth of the Holland Tunnel in lower Manhattan, a single car waited at a red light that, until recently, would have been blocked for blocks. The brazen brigadiers who monitored the intersection had disappeared. Speeds in the tunnel have increased by almost 50 percent.

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