How New Yorkers Are Adjusting to Congestion Pricing

New York Times

13-05-2025

Good morning. It's Tuesday. Today we'll take a look at congestion pricing, now that it has passed the four-month mark. We'll also look at a lawsuit that challenges short-term rentals at a hotel that offered rooms on sites like Airbnb.
And, later today, this week's edition of our limited-run newsletter about the race for mayor will come your way from members of our politics team. They will look at the 30-second television commercial that cost former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's campaign $622,000, and they will demystify ranked-choice voting.
It's hard to change habits, but congestion pricing has done it.
My colleagues at The Upshot looked at every way of measuring the difference congestion pricing has made that they could think of. They concluded that charging drivers $9 to enter Manhattan has achieved the program's two main objectives: to bring down congestion and to bring in revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
There are fewer cars. There are fewer car crashes and fewer injuries. There are more passengers on mass transit, in taxis and on Citi Bikes. There was $45 million in net revenue in March, putting the program on pace to generate roughly $500 million in its first year.
There is still some grumbling, but congestion pricing has become a part of life in New York, even as the Trump administration continues its efforts to kill it.
Traffic is moving faster in Manhattan, and so are buses. Commutes from New Jersey are also faster. And there are other pluses: Traffic has not surged in the South Bronx, where community groups had fretted that toll-averse drivers would crowd the roads. Traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway was down slightly from January through April, compared with last year, according to the New York State Department of Transportation. Speeds were up about 2 to 3 percent during working hours on weekdays.
But enough of the macro perspective. What about the micro perspective? Three of my colleagues decided to find out by hitting the streets — specifically one street.
They picked Bleecker Street because it is in the heart of the congestion pricing zone, which starts at 60th Street and runs to the Battery, the southernmost point in Manhattan. 'Also, Bleecker seemed like a good place to ask because it's a really busy corridor where people walk, bike and drive — and it's close to subway lines,' Winnie Hu, one of the three reporters, told me. 'It's also a destination for locals and visitors. People come to Bleecker Street because they know John's Pizzeria, they know Murray's Cheese, they know Pasticceria Rocco.' But there is more to Bleecker Street than pizza places and markets. Filling out the picture are a charter school, a church, a small park and expensive boutiques that help make it the backbone of a neighborhood.
Their informal survey found complaints about higher delivery costs, but most businesses said they were making do. Of the 40 businesses the reporters contacted, 25 said that congestion pricing had not made a significant impact. Ten said they had been hurt by congestion pricing. Four said it had helped. One would not say.
'I was surprised there weren't more arguments about congestion pricing,' Winnie told me. 'People still don't like it, but they've come to accept it because they have no choice. And there are so many things to worry about right now — tariffs, inflation, food prices. Congestion pricing is just one more thing.'
Or, as Kevin Jackson, the manager of John's Pizzeria, put it, the conversation has moved on. He said that congestion pricing remained 'a bitter pill,' and that he was still against it. He said it had increased delivery costs, but less than he had expected and not enough to raise prices. One example: A beer distributor added a congestion fee of $5 per keg. That adds up to an extra $65 a week.
Little more than 100 feet down the block, an owner of O. Ottomanelli & Sons, a meat market, said that congestion pricing was behind a 20 percent drop in customers this year. He said that his customer base now included fewer drivers from New Jersey. They used to call ahead and pick up their orders.
But congestion pricing has boosted a store that sells folding bicycles that can be carried on trains and stowed under desks, allowing cyclists to avoid the problem of finding places to lock conventionally sized bikes during the workday. The bikes sold by the store, Brompton Junction, are not cheap: They sell for more than $1,100. Crystal Aguilar, a sales technician there, said more people had been coming in to check out the inventory.
Expect cloudy skies and showers with a high around 70 degrees. In the evening, rain will continue with a low around 60.
In effect until May 26 (Memorial Day).
The latest Metro news
City targets short-term rentals in a new lawsuit
A Greenwich Village hotel with several safety violations that offered rooms on sites like Airbnb has become the first test of a new law cracking down on short-term rentals.
City officials said in a lawsuit filed on Monday that the hotel, Incentra Village House, was actually an illegally converted apartment building that was not approved to be a hotel. The city said that Incentra did not have the right alarms and sprinklers, among other fire safety violations.
My colleague Mihir Zaveri writes that the lawsuit was the first to be filed by the city since a statute known as Local Law 18 essentially banned short-term rentals of less than 30 days unless the host is present. Companies like Airbnb vigorously fought the law. The number of listings posted on such platforms plunged after it took effect in 2023.
Incentra is a boutique hotel with rooms that were listed on its website for as high as $617 on Monday, not including city and state sales taxes and the city's hotel room occupancy tax. It has been fighting the city to stay open for the past few years, according to the lawsuit.
One room, named the Stonewall Room in a nod to the Stonewall Inn, was an 'illegally created unsafe cellar room,' the lawsuit said. The Stonewall Room was accessible only by a rickety staircase, and one guest said it had 'no means of escape, should anything happen.' The city aims to shut down the hotel and force the owner to fix the violations.
The hotel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Before the law went into effect, the city estimated there were roughly 10,800 Airbnb listings that were illegal short-term rentals. City officials said on Monday that since the law took effect, the city had approved more than 3,000 registrations for legal short-term rentals. But some homeowners complain that the city is being too heavy-handed by prohibiting them from doing what they want with their homes.
Tiramisu
Dear Diary:
He slid the oval dish toward us, a perfectly clean column of cream waiting at the edge of the plate, an arrow made of ladyfingers and mascarpone pointed directly at our hearts.
Befuddled, we looked at him, then at the bartender's face, which evolved from confusion to adoration.
'Here,' said the stranger I had been shoulder to shoulder with as we ate an Italian supper on a Saturday night in Carroll Gardens. He gestured toward his plate of tiramisu (well, our plate of tiramisu). 'You try it.'
Just a few minutes before, I had gestured toward the plate with my eyes while craving it under my breath to my friend.
The two of us had shared a regretful, longing glance: We should have gotten dessert. Now, we were being offered the last bite of someone else's.
I was almost afraid to ask the bartender for a spoon. Was this kind of sharing allowed?
Before I could think too hard, shiny silver spoons were resting on the counter, then caressed in our hands, then sinking into the custard with an Olympic diver's grace, and then, satisfyingly, into our open mouths.
It turned out the owner's father came into the place every morning and made the tiramisu by hand.
— Jordana Hope Bornstein
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Natasha Cornelissen and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [e-mail].
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