One 12 months after New York’s much-delayed and hotly debated congestion toll went into impact, Gov. Hochul, Mayor Mamdani and MTA Chairman Janno Lieber Wednesday launched numbers they argue factors to the success of this system, which fees drivers a base toll of $9 to enter Midtown and decrease Manhattan.
In accordance with state knowledge, vehicular visitors into the congestion zone is down 11% in contrast with final 12 months, with 27 million fewer autos touring the streets, a median of 73,000 fewer per day.
“The results are extraordinary, beyond what we could have expected,” Hochul instructed reporters Monday.
“People with asthma are breathing better,” Hochul stated, “and our streets are safer.”
Congestion pricing, which was written into state regulation as a way to again a $15 billion bond issuance towards initiatives from the MTA’s 2020-2024 capital finances, can be making extra money than initially projected.
Although the toll was initially set at a $15 base charge, Hochul made a controversial eleventh-hour determination to section that determine in, beginning the toll on the present $9 base charge. The zone covers all of Manhattan south of sixtieth St.
Preliminary projections by the state estimated that may usher in some $500 million a 12 months in gross income. However present projections estimate the toll will find yourself bringing in $550 million by the point the primary 12 months in income are counted.
“For a long time we have asked the MTA to do the impossible without providing them with the funding that would even make it something they could consider,” Mamdani stated Monday. “What this program has done is commit funding to the very capital needs that have been put off for years if not decades.”
New York Metropolis Mayor Zohran Mamdani joins New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is Chair and CEO Janno Lieber in Manhattan to have a good time the successes of 1 12 months of congestion pricing in Manhattan on Monday, January 5, 2026. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Images Workplace)
“Those are investments that can transform the day-to-day realities of a New Yorker,” the mayor added.
The toll is about to go as much as $12 in 2028, after which to $15 in 2031.
The toll, which confronted years of authorized opposition in its planning levels, was nearly instantly assailed by the Trump administration after it started final January, with the president claiming to have shut this system down by fiat final February.
“We stood up here in New York, we showed who we are, and yes, the cameras are staying on,” she stated.
Trump’s efforts to kill the toll are nonetheless working their approach by way of federal courtroom in Manhattan. The federal authorities has sought to characterize the toll as an assault on New York’s working class and small-business neighborhood, whereas concurrently claiming it doesn’t scale back congestion sufficient and focuses an excessive amount of on income technology.
However Hochul stated Monday that the toll has been a boon for the minority of space residents who commute by automotive.
“How does 25% faster coming through the Lincoln Tunnel sound?” she stated. “Let me top that, how about 51% faster coming through the Holland Tunnel? About 25% faster going across our bridges into Brooklyn or Queens? That’s time in your life that’s precious.”
Hochul projected confidence that the most recent authorized problem would finish with congestion pricing intact.
“Every time it’s gone before a judge, the judge says, ‘No, no, the state is right,’” she stated.
“Later this month, guess where we’ll be? We’ll be back in court,” she stated.
“But we’ll just keep on winning,” she stated, mimicking President Trump, “We’ll be successful a lot we’ll be uninterested in successful.
