Rolling into a New Era

The switch flips on 2025, congestion pricing, and more inclusive commentary

Reminder: Our January Happy Hour is next Wednesday, 1/15. RSVP today!

The switch finally flipped. No, we don’t mean the switch from 2024 into the new year—we mean the one from a gridlocked past into a new, slightly-less-car-centric era for New York City.

As January 4 turned to January 5, the congestion pricing cameras came on, doing a bit to price the social costs of car rides into central Manhattan. (Track the impact in real time!)

Photo courtesy of James Llamas

These costs—hours in traffic behind the wheel, record-slow bus speeds and record-low emergency vehicle response times, disinvestment from the subways that support 3.6 million rides each day, the climate damage and traffic violence caused by cars—are borne by all New Yorkers. We’re finally doing a little bit to mitigate them: doing $2.25 to $9’s worth, to be exact. (More on these social costs below.)

Of course, this step forward is too small and long overdue—a reflection of gridlocked, incrementalist politics:

• Decades after first conception, Mayor Bloomberg started a push for present-day congestion pricing in 2007.

• The legislature passed the plan twelve years later, kicking off five years (that should’ve been two) of environmental review and community engagement.

• Governor Hochul slammed the brakes before the original 2024 start date, then lowered the fee from $15 (and scrapped planned surging price after one critical Post article).

Encouragingly, as the wheels of congestion pricing and New Yorkers’ cars start spinning a bit faster, so too is the discourse around the change becoming less apocalyptic and more inclusive of voices in favor of improvements.

Voices from New York Times coverage of the congestion pricing launch

Let’s hope New York keeps rolling forward—and let’s build power to accelerate that progress. This year offers ample opportunity: we’re just 24 weeks from the primary to choose nominees for our next mayor, comptroller, borough presidents, and city council. Stay tuned to learn about how to support the most abundance-minded among them!

Ryder

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Our Car-Centric Context

Congestion pricing comes after a not-great year for city streets, with space still allocated disproportionately to ever-bigger, ever-deadlier cars—and all of us suffering the consequences.

• More pedestrian deaths: “In 2024 there was a nearly 18 percent surge in pedestrian deaths, which jumped to 119 through Dec. 30 from 101 during the same time period in 2023”

• Parking above all: City Council decisions gutted outdoor dining, preserved much of the city’s parking minimums for new housing, and “ in one of their last acts of 2024, the City Council passed a law that would delay street safety improvements. Why? To ensure that they get enough time to protect the loss of a single parking space”

• Cop car crashes: “In the first 11 months of 2024, an unprecedented 398 vehicle crashes were preceded by police pursuits, resulting in at least 315 people injured — up 47% from the 215 people injured over the same period last year”