NYC drivers in congestion zone say traffics still terrible and its tolls are eating us alive

Not so fast. Drivers say traffic’s bad as ever nearly two years after congestion pricing was unleashed on Midtown Manhattan — now they’re just paying more to sit in it.Data from a truck-tracking company shows speeds barely budged even as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority keeps patting itself on the back for the toll, which costs a minimum of $9.MTA boss Janno Lieber has called the toll an “unqualified success,” saying “all of the metrics” show people are saving time — and the agency is taunting drivers by slapping signs on construction projects that read “made possible by congestion pricing.” But GPS trucking data showed 16% of the zone actually moved slower while drivers railed their daily commutes are anything but a fairy tale.“It’s just a money grab,” said Michael, 55, a courier from Queens, who was filling up at a Mobil station at 36th Street and 10th Avenue.“Working people can’t afford it.”“I’m paying up to four grand, and I’m not getting any benefit,” he said. “Traffic is not flowing.”Benadon Benmore, 40, an ironworker from Harlem who works in Hell’s Kitchen, said his ride home has not improved since the cash-strapped MTA got its new revenue stream flowing with the help of Gov.

Kathy Hochul.“It still takes me two hours to get home,” Benmore said.“I’m gonna get me a real horse.”Jhoffre Arevalo, 40, an Uber driver from Flushing, said the streets did ease up when the toll was new.“When congestion pricing started, you’d see the difference.

Traffic went down a lot,” Arevalo said.“But now it comes back to normal.

I think I see more traffic now.”The MTA claimed congestion pricing cut traffic into the zone by 11% in 2025. But Port Authority counts at the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, two main ways into the zone, showed just a 4.5% drop in vehicle entries that year compared with 2024 before congestion pricing was implemented. Trucking data doesn’t show traffic in the zone has sped up ei...