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Would be interesting to see how this has affected number of visits and travel times at different affluence levels. At least in London the less well off started

Would be interesting to see how this has affected number of visits and travel times at different affluence levels. At least in London the less well off started visiting the congestion charge zones less altogether.

Ylpertnodi 1y ago
So, less cars (good), but businesses may be suffering (probably bad)?
- mayneack 1y ago
  I haven't seen suggestion of businesses suffering > Others have said it would hurt businesses in the congestion zone. The report, however, says pedestrian activity inside the zone was up 8.4% in May, compared with the same period last year, while outside the zone only saw an increase of 2.7%. And from an earlier post > And just to take a different kind of measure, The New York Times visited 40 storefronts on a stretch of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village to gauge how businesses felt about congestion pricing. People working in four of those businesses said the change had been positive, 10 said it had been negative — and 25 said it had had no impact. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/congestion-pricing.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/conges...
  - drob518 1y ago
    So, do you notice how the first quote doesn’t actually answer the question? Of course pedestrian activity was up. Because cars were taxed. But was pedestrian traffic up to the same rate as cars were down such that overall traffic was unaffected? No, probably not, because the story says vehicles are down 11% but pedestrian traffic is only up 8%. And businesses saying it had a negative impact were more than twice as prevalent (10 to 4) than businesses saying it had a positive impact, with 25 saying no impact. So, overall, a negative impact. You can debate the magnitude and whether it is “worth it,” but it’s definitely a negative impact on commerce.
    - rainsford 1y ago
      > But was pedestrian traffic up to the same rate as cars were down such that overall traffic was unaffected? No, probably not, because the story says vehicles are down 11% but pedestrian traffic is only up 8%. Those percentages are only directly comparable if the number of cars and the number of pedestrians is the same, which I'm guessing it's not. Some quick searching doesn't seem to yield an answer to this question, but in a city like NYC I'd venture to guess there is more pedestrian traffic than car traffic, so it's entirely possible that an 8% increase in pedestrian traffic more than makes up for an 11% drop in car traffic. > So, overall, a negative impact. You can debate the magnitude and whether it is “worth it,” but it’s definitely a negative impact on commerce. I don't think you can conclude that at all because you're missing some key pieces of information, like whether the average positively impacted businesses had a greater positive impact than the average negatively impacted business had negative impact. You also don't know the long term impacts that might change what types of businesses are in the area of how they attract customers. Businesses that optimize for car traffic (like Costco, at the extreme end of the spectrum) might see an initial decrease in customers, but longer term could either adapt to be more pedestrian friendly or be replaced with pedestrian friendly businesses that might generate even more economic activity. Also not to put too fine a point on it, but the "business impact" numbers were based off a reporter going to 40 businesses in one neighborhood and asking "people working there" what the impact had been. I'm not sure that's a very scientific way to draw broad conclusions, as the NYT freely admits.
      - drob518 1y ago
        Perhaps pedestrian traffic would make up for it, but nothing said in the article actually shows that. I agree with you that the article doesn’t contain enough information to make a firm conclusion. In fact, that was my point. Yes, I’m basing my conclusion on the fact that more than twice the number of businesses said it went down as up. Yes, that’s qualitative at some level, but if it supports any conclusion whatsoever, it supports the conclusion of business being down, not “no impact.” The article is trying to whitewash the impact. It reports a bunch of numbers but those numbers don’t say much at all, and if they say anything, it’s actually opposite of what the reporter claims they say. To be clear, I don’t live in NYC and I don’t have an opinion on the policy. I’m just noticing the poor reporting.
- thebrid 1y ago
  Businesses may benefit from this move. People driving past in cars are unlikely to stop by a local business in Manhattan. People passing by on foot are much more likely to. The article has evidence of modal shift. Car journeys are down, but both subway ridership and foot traffic are up. Reducing traffic has other benefits in terms of making a place more liveable. If a street is full of vehicle traffic and noisy, it is a place people don't want to be & so pass through quickly. If you make the space nicer, people are more likely to want to dwell and spend money with local businesses & restaurants. Manhattan can be quite unpleasant at times, but it's been really nice to see recent efforts to try to improve that: - Partial pedestrianisation of broadway - The 14th Street busway - New protected bike lanes Baby steps for sure, but better than doing nothing!
  - user3939382 1y ago
    There’s more to business than retail. People with service and delivery vehicles are screwed under this.
    - donohoe 1y ago
      Not really - unless you have specific info to add on this?
      - user3939382 1y ago
        I have the info of company owners going on the news saying they’re screwed by this.
    - thebrid 1y ago
      If by "screwed" you mean having to pay a modest fee to access one of the most valuable pieces of land on the entire planet, sure.
      - occz 1y ago
        With less hindrance from congestion as well, meaning that they get to make more transactions and hence make more money.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Preliminary results are that businesses is up in downtown New York. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/congestion-pricing.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/conges...
tlocke 1y ago
The least well-off don't have cars at all, but suffer from their ill-effects the most. So the least well-off benefit the most from congestion pricing.
- 1116574 1y ago
  Those "least well-off" that happen to live in the zone, which is less and less each year due to gentrification
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    People outside the zone benefit too -- from the tax revenue, the reduced pollution, and every time they visit.
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    Public transport in London is world class. Most people don’t even drive into London, let alone inside the congestion zone. And this was true even long before the congestion zone was created.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

Ylpertnodi 1y ago

So, less cars (good), but businesses may be suffering (probably bad)?

mayneack 1y ago
I haven't seen suggestion of businesses suffering > Others have said it would hurt businesses in the congestion zone. The report, however, says pedestrian activity inside the zone was up 8.4% in May, compared with the same period last year, while outside the zone only saw an increase of 2.7%. And from an earlier post > And just to take a different kind of measure, The New York Times visited 40 storefronts on a stretch of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village to gauge how businesses felt about congestion pricing. People working in four of those businesses said the change had been positive, 10 said it had been negative — and 25 said it had had no impact. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/congestion-pricing.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/conges...
- drob518 1y ago
  So, do you notice how the first quote doesn’t actually answer the question? Of course pedestrian activity was up. Because cars were taxed. But was pedestrian traffic up to the same rate as cars were down such that overall traffic was unaffected? No, probably not, because the story says vehicles are down 11% but pedestrian traffic is only up 8%. And businesses saying it had a negative impact were more than twice as prevalent (10 to 4) than businesses saying it had a positive impact, with 25 saying no impact. So, overall, a negative impact. You can debate the magnitude and whether it is “worth it,” but it’s definitely a negative impact on commerce.
  - rainsford 1y ago
    > But was pedestrian traffic up to the same rate as cars were down such that overall traffic was unaffected? No, probably not, because the story says vehicles are down 11% but pedestrian traffic is only up 8%. Those percentages are only directly comparable if the number of cars and the number of pedestrians is the same, which I'm guessing it's not. Some quick searching doesn't seem to yield an answer to this question, but in a city like NYC I'd venture to guess there is more pedestrian traffic than car traffic, so it's entirely possible that an 8% increase in pedestrian traffic more than makes up for an 11% drop in car traffic. > So, overall, a negative impact. You can debate the magnitude and whether it is “worth it,” but it’s definitely a negative impact on commerce. I don't think you can conclude that at all because you're missing some key pieces of information, like whether the average positively impacted businesses had a greater positive impact than the average negatively impacted business had negative impact. You also don't know the long term impacts that might change what types of businesses are in the area of how they attract customers. Businesses that optimize for car traffic (like Costco, at the extreme end of the spectrum) might see an initial decrease in customers, but longer term could either adapt to be more pedestrian friendly or be replaced with pedestrian friendly businesses that might generate even more economic activity. Also not to put too fine a point on it, but the "business impact" numbers were based off a reporter going to 40 businesses in one neighborhood and asking "people working there" what the impact had been. I'm not sure that's a very scientific way to draw broad conclusions, as the NYT freely admits.
    - drob518 1y ago
      Perhaps pedestrian traffic would make up for it, but nothing said in the article actually shows that. I agree with you that the article doesn’t contain enough information to make a firm conclusion. In fact, that was my point. Yes, I’m basing my conclusion on the fact that more than twice the number of businesses said it went down as up. Yes, that’s qualitative at some level, but if it supports any conclusion whatsoever, it supports the conclusion of business being down, not “no impact.” The article is trying to whitewash the impact. It reports a bunch of numbers but those numbers don’t say much at all, and if they say anything, it’s actually opposite of what the reporter claims they say. To be clear, I don’t live in NYC and I don’t have an opinion on the policy. I’m just noticing the poor reporting.
thebrid 1y ago
Businesses may benefit from this move. People driving past in cars are unlikely to stop by a local business in Manhattan. People passing by on foot are much more likely to. The article has evidence of modal shift. Car journeys are down, but both subway ridership and foot traffic are up. Reducing traffic has other benefits in terms of making a place more liveable. If a street is full of vehicle traffic and noisy, it is a place people don't want to be & so pass through quickly. If you make the space nicer, people are more likely to want to dwell and spend money with local businesses & restaurants. Manhattan can be quite unpleasant at times, but it's been really nice to see recent efforts to try to improve that: - Partial pedestrianisation of broadway - The 14th Street busway - New protected bike lanes Baby steps for sure, but better than doing nothing!
- user3939382 1y ago
  There’s more to business than retail. People with service and delivery vehicles are screwed under this.
  - donohoe 1y ago
    Not really - unless you have specific info to add on this?
    - user3939382 1y ago
      I have the info of company owners going on the news saying they’re screwed by this.
  - thebrid 1y ago
    If by "screwed" you mean having to pay a modest fee to access one of the most valuable pieces of land on the entire planet, sure.
    - occz 1y ago
      With less hindrance from congestion as well, meaning that they get to make more transactions and hence make more money.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
Preliminary results are that businesses is up in downtown New York. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/congestion-pricing.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/conges...

tlocke 1y ago

The least well-off don't have cars at all, but suffer from their ill-effects the most. So the least well-off benefit the most from congestion pricing.

1116574 1y ago
Those "least well-off" that happen to live in the zone, which is less and less each year due to gentrification
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  People outside the zone benefit too -- from the tax revenue, the reduced pollution, and every time they visit.
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  Public transport in London is world class. Most people don’t even drive into London, let alone inside the congestion zone. And this was true even long before the congestion zone was created.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]