Hochul’s Hot Air: Congestion Pricing Did Not Slash Air Pollution, City Says

Despite curbing traffic below 60th Street in Manhattan, a year of congestion pricing has not significantly reduced air pollution in that area according to a new report, contradicting the governor’s repeated claims to have “cleaned our air.”Governor Kathy Hochul was a late convert to congestion pricing, having delayed implementation of the program for months after the network of cameras required to surveil Lower Manhattan’s entrance and exit points was already in place. But by this past winter, she was all in on the bridge-and-tunnel tolls. “Nearly one year in, congestion pricing has already sped up traffic and cleaned our air, and now it is supporting generational upgrades to our subway system,” Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement in December. The following month, at a press conference marking one year of congestion pricing, she went a step farther: “We changed how people in this great city and the region live, how they breathe, how they act, and now the results are in,” she said, adding “pollution is down more than 20 percent in one year. People with asthma are breathing better. Little kids don’t have to worry about this.”But those assertions stand in stark contrast to the latest data released last week by the city’s Environmental and Health Data Portal, as well as two preliminary reports that said much the same. Doubling DownIn response to questions from The New York Sun about the 20 percent figure, Gov. Hochul’s spokesperson, Sean Butler, cited a Cornell University study that drew “quasi-experimental data” from six monitoring sites within the Congestion Relief Zone. That study looked only at fine particulate matter in the air during the first six months of the program. The city report, on the other hand, tracked four contaminants – fine particulates, soot, nitrogen dioxide and nitric oxide — across 12 sites in the zone during the first year.Drawing data from a dozen sites below 60th Street monitored by the Health Department’s New York City Community Air Survey, the city found that “the measured pollution levels were not significantly different than they would have been without the program.” Mr. Butler doubled down on the governor’s remarks in a statement to the Sun.“Every data point says the same thing: congestion pricing is working. Several studies of air quality have shown reduced pollution in the zone and, stable or improving air quality throughout the region, exceeding all expectations,” he wrote. Mr. Butler did not provide any data beyond the Cornell study.Congestion Pricing’s Real WinnersEncouragingly, the city’s air quality data showed outer-borough neighborhoods that were judged to be at risk for higher traffic because of Manhattan’s new cover charge likewise saw insignificant changes in air quality as a result of congestion pricing. “The changes in pollution levels from 2024 to 2025 (before and after congestion pricing) continue the gradual decline in air pollution that we’ve been tracking throughout the city over the past 18 years,” the city said in its conclusion, noting that the findings were “not unexpected.”While congestion pricing hasn’t cleared the air — or significantly worsened it — for New York children with asthma, according to the data, some of the funding the tolls bring in has been earmarked for their care. In May, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a $20 million program to improve support to Bronx children with asthma, including in-school medication administration and education for kids and families about managing the condition.The city’s biggest winner from the congestion pricing program, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is counting on $15 billion from the program in the coming years, funding that it has committed to signal improvements, accessibility upgrades, and its hundred-year bugaboo: the Second Avenue subway.Railway service provider L.K. Comstock & Company LLC won $1.3 billion last December to update the Great Depression-era traffic signal systems that run the A and C lines. Construction firm Paul J. Scariano, Inc. won $84 million to improve accessibility at two of Manhattan’s busiest subway stations, Bryant Park-42nd Street and the 7 train’s Fifth Avenue stop. Representatives for both companies did not respond to requests for status updates in time for publication.Phase 2 for Second AveThe MTA is also scheduled to start drilling in East Harlem next year, with $3 billion in congestion pricing funds committed to the next stage of the Second Avenue Subway project, which is planned to extend the Q train line from its current terminus at 96th Street up to 125th Street and Lexington. The train spent most of the Twentieth Century stalled in the planning phases after first being proposed in the 1920s. By 2005, straphanger advocate Gene Russianoff dubbed it “the most famous thing that’s never been built in New York City.”Phase 1 of the project extended the line from 63rd Street to 96th Street. The additional 1.8 miles took almost 10 years and $4.6 billion to complete.But this time will be different, Ms. Hochul declared in a press release in June, referencing “lessons learned” from Phase 1. Those lessons, which were ostensibly learned the hard way, include utility relocation requirements, real estate acquisition, the introduction of pay-for-performance contracts, and reducing the size of the stations to be built.“All told, these initiatives have saved more than $1 billion,” the governor’s office said. Even with the savings, Phase 2 is expected to cost $7 billion and start bringing in revenue in 2032.

Hochul’s Hot Air: Congestion Pricing Did Not Slash Air Pollution, City Says

Hochul’s Hot Air: Congestion Pricing Did Not Slash Air Pollution, City Says

More from the New York Sun

Trump To Rally with Darline Graham Ahead of Special South Carolina Senate Primary

Scientists Discover Cellular ‘Switch’ That Could Reverse Aging

King Charles’s Chief Courtier — ‘The Wasp’ — To Retire, Bolstering Buzz That Harry and Meghan Are Aiming for Comeback

The Pillars Supporting America’s Left Are Collapsing

A Historic Document for Mayor Mamdani To Read

MoMA Animates the Case for Experimental ’Toons

The Fiat Yen

Trump and the GOP Actually Have a Strong Election Message as Long as They Make It

More from the New York Sun

Trump To Rally with Darline Graham Ahead of Special South Carolina Senate Primary

Scientists Discover Cellular ‘Switch’ That Could Reverse Aging

King Charles’s Chief Courtier — ‘The Wasp’ — To Retire, Bolstering Buzz That Harry and Meghan Are Aiming for Comeback

The Pillars Supporting America’s Left Are Collapsing

A Historic Document for Mayor Mamdani To Read

MoMA Animates the Case for Experimental ’Toons

The Fiat Yen

Trump and the GOP Actually Have a Strong Election Message as Long as They Make It