The implementation of congestion pricing quieted the city that never sleeps on Jan. 5. New York’s first congestion pricing initiative was finally carried out after its initial conception in 2007 by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg following a laborious approval process.

Although congestion pricing features limitations surrounding legal challenges, barriers to the working class and larger questions of efficacy, it remains a step in the right direction for a country set to face a commuter crisis. Subsequently, there is room for a potential  parallel piloted program in a traffic-riddled city like Austin.

Still, problems facing congestion pricing – specifically, the intervention of the federal government over municipal authority – are likely to occur in a hypothetical Austin implementation.

New York City’s congestion pricing program, officially called the Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP), aims to alleviate traffic in lower Manhattan, south of 60th Street, in what is referred to as the Congestion Relief Zone. Cars driving into the relief zone incur a once-per-day toll depending on the type of vehicle and time of day. 

The program took considerable time to come about because of challenges at the municipal, state and federal levels. Its passage was largely contingent with the whim of the various New York mayors, the New York State Legislature and approval by the federal government. 

Since CBDTP’s launch, the MTA reported that one million fewer vehicles entered the most congested part of Manhattan, while weekend bus ridership increased 20%. Additionally, tolling on the lower isle brought in roughly $48.6 million to the MTA.

“Suddenly, traffic in New York is more like traffic in Philadelphia or Washington, D.C., than I have experienced in my 23 years here,” John McWhorter wrote in an opinion article for The New York Times.

While there currently is a lack of data on increased prices in New York, businesses and service providers will likely transfer the burden of the toll onto services and goods within the city.

“The biggest thing has been that Uber, Lyft prices have gone up,” Max Pasternak, a corporate banking analyst at Citi bank and resident of the Financial District, said. “The week of the toll initiation, there were way more people using the Subway when it is usually empty. I feel like that you would always see a lot of state plates — but now you rarely see a New Jersey plate.” 

Despite the reported successes, the new Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy reneged on the federal agency’s previous approval of the program.

“Highway users of the federal-aid highway network within the priced zone are burdened with a price that is set to raise certain amounts of revenue for MTA capital projects rather than a price that is necessary to have an impact on congestion,” Duffy said in a letter to Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. 

Duffy also cited concerns about unnecessary tolls levied against working class commuters travelling from out of state places, such as New Jersey. 

“If you’re middle class, I think it could still hurt, but I think you have avenues. Like you can drive to a train station and park in the parking lot or something like that,” Pasternak said.

Following the injunction from President Donald Trump’s administration, New York says they will continue the CBDTP operations.

“We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king. The MTA has initiated legal proceedings in the Southern District of New York to preserve this critical program,” Hochul said in a statement issued in response to Duffy’s letter. “We’ll see you in court.”

However, the future of congestion pricing in New York is uncertain pending the legal challenges it faces. It suggests that subsequent efforts to alleviate traffic in the world’s “worst city to drive in” will face hindrances from overzealous executives and the slow droll of bureaucracy. 

“Congestion pricing is political at the end of the day,” Pasternak said. “It’s not an economic problem anymore. It’s political.”

Similar efforts, if attempted in Austin, would likely face preemption from the state’s government, as the attorney general’s attempts to hollow out Austin’s Project Connect have shown. Project Connect is the City of Austin and CapMetro’s landmark public transit program, which was approved by voters in 2020 to create better mobility within the greater Austin area. However, questions of its proper funding mechanism and its processes have elicited intervention from Attorney General Ken Paxton. Through legal action, Paxton has slowed the process of Project Connect. This has also exacerbated the inadequacies of the initial plan, which has since scaled back the length of new light rail lines and has increased the cost.

Paxton’s logic and legal concern follows much of the same reasoning as Duffy who cited CBDTP’s funding process a usurpation of citizen funds. 

The tragedy of Project Connect and the failure to stop the I-35 expansion, suggest the impossibility of Austin to receive non-motor vehicle centered transit. Further, the Texas Constitution requires part of the state’s revenue from fuel sales be directly invested in public roadways.

Some have advocated for congestion pricing within Austin as a means to curb traffic in one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S.

“Austin City Council members can alleviate the city’s notorious traffic problems, encourage the use of public transportation, and enhance the overall quality of life for residents. We need congestion pricing, and the time to act is now,” Transit Youth Commission members Aarnav Chitari and David Li wrote in a 2023 opinion in the Austin Chronicle.

All attempted solutions will have set backs, but these are not indicators for progress to halt in the face of adversity. Though congestion pricing is contemporarily facing challenges, this does not suggest doom for transit-forward initiatives in urban centers. The added stress of traffic in the lives of those in dense cities can affect the mental health of commuters as well as undermine the connectivity of a city. Such problems create the exigence for solutions that are effective and achievable. 

Austin is no stranger to tolls, with Central Texans seeing them on almost every highway. It is also evident that the Austin public wants more transit, through the passage of Project Connect. We must look towards the innovative solutions that experts and communities are presenting around the world and develop community-based responses, only through this may we potentially exit off the highway of inadequacy.