New York’s Congestion Pricing Is Working. Now Comes the Real Test.

Even if the revenue from congestion pricing comes in under expectations—that is, if it’s more effective than predicted at keeping cars off the roads, therefore lowering the amount of money collected from tolls—our public transit system will be safer with more people using it, and it will feel safer too as using it becomes more normal, acceptable, and instinctive even to suburbanites who have resisted it. (By the way, a word about those suburbanites: You’d think from some of the media coverage that all of New Jersey was ready to add to the Geneva Convention the inalienable human right to spend one’s days in Manhattan gridlock. But the numbers suggest otherwise: Three out of four commuters from New Jersey relied on public transit even before this month.)

Traffic should decline still further—projections suggest it will reduce by some 17 percent overall. Greenhouse gas emissions are expected to decline by some 20 percent. Child asthma and other pollution-related health problems should decline as the city’s air gets cleaner; air pollution should decline by about 10 percent, leading to fewer of those depressing air quality warnings and allowing New Yorkers to literally breathe easier. And with fewer cars on the road, fewer pedestrians, bikers, and motorists will die in traffic accidents.

Congestion pricing’s opponents may continue to try to spin it as a failure, even as the data on these successes mounts. The right will not easily relinquish such a high-profile target, and congestion pricing has almost everything the far-right loves to hate: a Democratic governor and legislature, public transit, an attack on cars, a climate angle, division between city and suburbs (so far no one has blamed trans athletes or immigrants, but give it time). That makes congestion pricing a test of our media ecosystem’s resilience under climate crisis: Can American media outlets help amplify good solutions built on solid data, evaluating the evidence fairly and emboldening others to try them? Or will they fall prey to questionable culture-war narratives, and let the world burn?