Project by Erma Swartz, Jui Shih, Steven Shi, Wayne Chen
This project investigates the spatial, environmental, and behavioral impacts of New York City’s Central Business District Toll Program (CBDTP), commonly known as congestion pricing, one year after its implementation in January 2025. Exploring a combination of automated traffic counts, MTA subway ridership, Citi Bike usage, bridge and tunnel crossing volumes, and satellite-derived NO₂ measurements, the study examines if and how congestion pricing has affected mobility patterns across New York City. Spatial analysis methods including proportional symbol mapping, tessellation, hotspot analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*), Global Moran’s I, and LISA cluster analysis were used to identify concentrations of traffic, ridership shifts, and environmental change. The findings suggest that congestion pricing did not uniformly reduce traffic activity across New York City. Instead, vehicle activity reorganized spatially, concentrating along specific boundary corridors and bridge approaches outside the toll zone. Transit and micromobility ridership increases were modest but spatially uneven, while air quality improvements were more evident within and around the congestion zone. Overall, the findings suggest measurable yet uneven impacts rather than a dramatic citywide transformation.
