Did congestion pricing speed up buses?
Data: the MTA’s bus speeds inside and outside the congestion relief zone, by route, month and hour, January 2023 to August 2026. Weekdays, 6 am–8 pm. Pricing started 2025-01-05. Run 2026-10-05.
Short answer
Section titled “Short answer”Yes, modestly. Buses ran about 3.5% faster inside the zone in 2025 than in 2024, compared with the same routes outside the zone. The year before pricing shows no such gain (−0.5%). By 2026 the gain had shrunk to about 2.4%. Routes that only run inside the zone, mostly crosstown locals, gained less, and their gain can’t be told apart from uptown Manhattan routes.
Method
Section titled “Method”1. Each route against itself. The MTA splits every route’s miles and hours into the part inside the zone and the part outside. For each route and month, compare with the same month a year earlier: the change in speed inside the zone minus the change outside. That cancels whatever changed for the whole route (buses, schedules, operators, weather, season). Averaged over 99 routes, weighted by miles inside the zone; 95% intervals from resampling routes.
| Inside the zone | Outside, same routes | Difference | 95% interval | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 vs 2023 (before pricing) | −0.8% | −0.3% | −0.5% | −0.9 to 0.0 |
| 2025 vs 2024 | +2.5% | −1.0% | +3.5% | +2.7 to +4.3 |
| 2026 (Jan–Aug) vs 2024 | −0.4% | −2.7% | +2.4% | +1.1 to +3.9 |
- Same at peak hours (+3.7%) and other daytime hours (+3.1%).
- Every month of 2025 is positive, from +0.8% (December) to +6.4% (March). Monthly before-pricing differences swing between −3% and +3%, so single months mean little.
- The M15 SBS, the route with the most miles in the zone, gained 7%.
- 79 of the 99 routes are express buses (the zone part is their Manhattan run). Local routes crossing 60 St (19) show +3.0% (+1.3 to +6.1).
2. Routes inside the zone against routes outside it. The first comparison leaves out routes that never leave the zone. So: 14 Manhattan locals at least 90% inside (M8 M9 M12 M14A/D M20–M23 M34/M34A M42 M50 M55) against 13 at least 90% outside (M10 M35 M60 M66 M72 M79 M86 M96 M98 M100 M106 M116 M125).
| Inside routes | Outside routes | Difference | 95% interval | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 vs 2023 | −1.5% | −0.2% | −1.3% | −2.1 to −0.4 |
| 2025 vs 2024 | +2.2% | +1.2% | +0.9% | −0.5 to +2.3 |
| 2026 vs 2024 | +1.1% | +1.7% | −0.6% | −2.6 to +1.2 |
Downtown crosstowns were losing ground before pricing and caught up in 2025, but the gain is within the noise, and gone by 2026.
Reading it
Section titled “Reading it”- Bus speed includes time at stops and lights. On crosstown locals most of the trip is that, which fewer cars don’t change, so a smaller gain is expected; buses doing longer runs between stops (express, SBS) gain more.
- The fade in 2026 matches reports of traffic creeping back as drivers adjust. Worth checking against the MTA’s vehicle entry counts.
- If pricing also changed traffic just outside the zone, the first comparison would understate or overstate the effect; the outside part of routes slowed slightly in 2025 (−1.0%), so any such spillover looks small.