August 11, 2022 – Traffic in New York City is a big problem. The city consistently ranked among the top five most congested in the U.S., with at least one study showing that commuters lost 140 hours a year, or nearly six days of life, to sitting in gridlock.
Since 2019, the New York has been hoping to ease the logjams by introducing a congestion charge. That’s essentially a toll for driving into the city’s central business area, a play borrowed from places like London, Milan, and Singapore.
Final pricing for NYC isn’t set yet, but an MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) report released August 10 has put forth scenarios that would see charges between $9 and $23 per trip during peak hours, $7 to $17 during off-peak hours, and $5 to $12 for overnight access. A bill passed by New York state wants to limit charges to once per vehicle per day, however.
