New York City named America’s worst city for traffic, one day after a congestion charge rolls out to fix that
NYC topped the rankings for gridlock in the US and was 2nd globally, a new report says.
At exactly one second after midnight on Sunday, a long-awaited legend at last cast its spell over New York City. Yes, first proposed back in 2007, congestion pricing has now finally hit Gotham, making it the first city in America to enforce the traffic-disincentivizing fee.
According to NYC’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Congestion Relief Zone will cover “local streets and avenues at or below 60 Street” in Manhattan and charge drivers up to $9 a day to enter the area during peak times.
Despite drawing criticism from several government figures, the MTA estimates that the toll will result in “at least 80,000 fewer vehicles” entering the area every day, though that’s only about 11% of the total traffic that enters central Manhattan on any given weekday. Still, the new legislation should help reduce traffic jams, increase public-transport use, and improve air quality in what is America’s most congested district — and the second-most-congested city globally.
Indeed, the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, conveniently released today, said that the average driver in NYC lost 102 hours to traffic last year — that’s more than four whole days spent sitting in gridlock — equal to Chicago’s traffic-delay times and just shy of the 105 hours recorded for Istanbul.
