The first year of Manhattan's congestion toll, in 2025, by the MTA's own figures

On January 5, 2026, one year after tolling began, MTA Bridges and Tunnels published its first evaluation of the toll on vehicles entering the Congestion Relief Zone, the streets and avenues of Manhattan at or below 60 Street. Its headline findings: vehicle entries 11% below what the authority estimates traffic would have been without the toll, and $468 million in net revenue through October 2025. The report is the authority's own assessment, required by the state law and the federal agreement behind the program.

The tolled zone excludes the FDR Drive, the West Side Highway/Route 9A and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel connections to West Street. Tolling began on January 5, 2025.

What the report measured

The 11% figure is a comparison with an estimate, not with a count from the year before. To build it, the authority started from regional counts of daily entries on a typical October business day, which had settled at about 640,000 in 2022 and 2023, and adjusted them for seasonal swings in traffic. Entries came in below that baseline every month, from 8% in January to 14% in June and August, or about 21.6 million fewer entries from January 5 to October 31, 2025. Because older data did not separate the two, the comparison also counts trips made only on the excluded roadways, which are not tolled.

What the figures do not show

The report flags its own limits. It came out before a full 12 months of data were available, so different chapters cover different stretches of the year. It says the rise in subway trips continued a trend that predated tolling, and it found no significant change in levels of fine particles, nitric oxide or nitrogen dioxide around the region.

A fuller look at air quality came from the New York City Health Department on August 14, 2026, using a full year of data and a control site on the Van Wyck Expressway to separate the toll's effect from weather and regional trends. Inside the zone, it found that pollution in 2025 fell slightly or held steady compared with 2024, and that measured levels "were not significantly different because of congestion pricing." At its sites in environmental justice neighborhoods, the toll did not raise pollution or worsen air quality near major routes around the zone, although at one site, on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, one pollutant improved less than expected. The department said the program's documented benefits, from reduced congestion to transit improvements, show its "overall benefit."

Where the money goes

From January through October 2025, tolls brought in $573.1 million and operating expenses came to $105.3 million, leaving $467.8 million in net revenue, according to the report's unaudited figures. Of that, the authority applied $15.8 million to interest and, on November 3, 2025, $145.7 million to retiring notes that financed the toll infrastructure; it also set aside $20 million for mitigation and placed $276.2 million as collateral for a $500 million loan for transit projects.

The state law behind the toll requires it to raise enough to fund $15 billion of projects in the MTA's 2020-2024 capital program. The report lists $4.5 billion of recently committed projects, including $974.4 million for the second phase of the Second Avenue Subway, and says $495.9 million of borrowed money had been spent on eligible projects as of November 19, 2025.

What drivers pay now

The tolls are being phased in, starting on January 5, 2025, at 60% of the rates the MTA board approved in March 2024, according to the authority's toll pages. A passenger car with E-ZPass pays $9 at peak times, 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends, and $2.25 overnight, and is charged no more than once a day. In 2028 those rise to $12 and $3, and from 2031 to $15 and $3.75. The MTA says E-ZPass rates are generally 50% lower than Tolls by Mail rates.

The MTA lists exemptions, including for qualifying emergency vehicles and vehicles carrying people with disabilities. Under its Low-Income Discount Plan, registered participants pay $4.50 at peak from their 11th trip in a calendar month, and zone residents whose New York State household adjusted gross income is under $60,000 may qualify for a state tax credit. The MTA's toll pages link to the full schedule, discounts and exemptions; for the tax credit, the MTA refers residents to the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

The federal challenge

According to the court's opinion, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote to New York's governor on February 19, 2025, that he was "rescinding FHWA's approval" of the program and "terminating the Agreement," the program's agreement under the federal Value Pricing Pilot Program (VPPP). He concluded that the Federal Highway Administration had lacked the authority to approve it: the federal program did not cover cordon pricing, which leaves many drivers no toll-free option, and the toll appeared "driven primarily by the need to raise revenue" for the MTA rather than to reduce congestion. The MTA and the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority sued that day.

In a letter dated April 21, 2025, he restated the termination and gave as "an independent basis" for it that "New York's cordon pricing program imposes a disproportionate financial hardship on low and medium-income hardworking American drivers for the benefit of high-income drivers." In court, the government argued that the April letter's policy grounds alone justified the termination.

On March 3, 2026, Judge Lewis J. Liman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York held that the termination rested on a misunderstanding of the Secretary's authority, that the April grounds were "post hoc rationalizations," and that he had not adequately considered the reliance placed on the agreement. The court entered judgment for the MTA and the bridge and tunnel authority on four of their 10 claims and for the government on two: an environmental-review claim, and a claim that the Secretary exceeded his powers, which duplicated one already won. The other four were dismissed as moot.

The court directed entry of a declaratory judgment that "the Defendants' termination of the VPPP Agreement was unlawful" and that the Secretary may end the agreement "only pursuant to the terms expressly stated therein." It vacated both letters, restoring the federal approval, but declined to issue a permanent injunction. The MTA's questions and answers say it is still collecting tolls "until further notice."