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Now do that to the Van Wyck.
Did this actually solve a transportation problem or did this just make it so only people with money can use cars?
Wikipedia has already done a decent job of collecting data and citing sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing_in_New_York_City?wprov=sfla1
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Traffic has decreased, though it’s still early and you can slice the data in different ways, looking at different geographic areas and comparing over different periods of time. Seems to range from 1.2% to 14% decrease
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Travel times have decreased 20-40% depending on how you measure
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Bus ridership, subway ridership, and even taci ridership is up. Travel times for all of these have decreased
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Pedestrian traffic increased, while traffic-related fatalities decreased
Seems like it’s been an overall improvement. It’ll take years to actuallybcollect data and evaluate properly, but it’s been good in every other city that has done it so I would be surprised if NYC was any different.
All those points are obvious with any measure that reduces car usage. What I’m interested in is the quality of life impact of those who now have to take public transport or walk to places because they can’t afford the added cost. What are their commute times compared to before? A particular bus having ~5.3% shorter travel time because of less congestion is nice, but can be overshadowed by that bus ride being much longer than a direct car drive. Does this limit activities that those individuals used to be able to do (e.g. being able to carry more items back from shopping)? It’s like saying laws criminalizing homelessness are an improvement because fewer homeless people are on the street (and instead are in jail or moved to different parts of the country).
I hate being reliant on a car and most of the time I prefer to find a place to walk to, but it really limits where I can go. If I want to go further out, often the bus takes 2-4x the time it would in a car where I live.
Quite often, the bus taking longer is because so many people are taking cars.
One time in Switzerland, I went to a club with some tour friends. We took a taxi, and it was a 20 minute affair to await it, get in, go, etc. Eventually, I said I was done and went home before the others. They were surprised I picked a bus to go home, and arrived at our hotel in 15 minutes.
In environments that prioritize transit lanes and don’t have many drivers on the road, it becomes a wholly different system.
Metering the effects in a city still making the transition is tricky. But, I can say New York is supposed to be better than my city, and I get by without a car here.
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it’s NYC, my understanding was only rich people and tourists who don’t know any better drive in the city (especially manhatten)?
I sure didn’t notice it. My trip to NYC over Thanksgiving week left me with sore and painful lungs nearly every day I was there.
Even more reason to promote things like this instead of being apathetic
That’s like saying “I sure didn’t notice climate change, because it was cold when I visited Texas”
Your quote made me instantly angry, so, well done.
Normally I’d agree with you, but I’ve been traveling to NYC once or twice a year for the past 8 years, was there for 5 days, and only had issues on the most recent trips.
So you had one, subjectively bad personal experience and that somehow disproves or discredits an empirical scientific study ?
Two, actually. And they were almost a year apart. And it didn’t happen in Brooklyn, only in Manhattan.
I’m obviously not discrediting the study, only stating that I didn’t notice a difference. Clearly 20% cleaner is not enough for me. 
Sounds like you got a cold. That often happens when traveling to cities with millions of people during a cold holiday.
I would have a love for it to be a cold, but I have never had colds with no other symptoms than burning lungs when I am walking down the street in Manhattan.
What street, by the way? Because I lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn for over 15 years, biking on the streets, and this wasn’t ever a problem for me. But there are some roads, especially the exits of the tunnels, that can be particularly bad as they’re just nonstop traffic all day every day. I used to run a server room in a building directly over the exit of the Lincoln Tunnel and those server racks got coated with black particulate, it would permanently stain any clothes I accidentally put in contact with them.
Our hotel was in FiDi, but I had issues even in Midtown. I have a brother in Harlem, and when I mentioned it to him, he was not surprised.
We come up to visit our daughter pretty regularly. I usually don’t have issues when I go to NYC, just these past two times when it was downright painful. 
