Public transit gains and spatially uneven travel demand changes after NYC congestion pricing
Provides first causal evaluation of NYC congestion pricing using counterfactual forecasts, revealing spatial equity implications for urban policymakers.
NYC's 2025 congestion pricing increased bus and subway ridership significantly while reducing overall travel demand modestly, with spatially uneven effects concentrated within the Congestion Relief Zone and transit gains extending beyond Manhattan's core.
New York City implemented the nation's first cordon-based congestion pricing program in January 2025, providing an opportunity to evaluate how system-wide urban mobility responds to large-scale pricing interventions. Because such policies generate spillovers across modes and locations, credible control groups are difficult to construct. We address this challenge using time series foundation models to generate probabilistic counterfactual demand forecasts with calibrated uncertainty. Applying this framework to bus, subway, and aggregate trip volume data, we find that post-policy bus and subway ridership increased significantly relative to expected no-policy demand, while overall travel demand decreased modestly. The effects are spatially heterogeneous: while reductions in overall travel demand are concentrated within the Congestion Relief Zone, transit gains extend beyond Manhattan's core. Socio-demographic analyses further reveal uneven adaptation across neighborhoods, highlighting spatial equity implications. Our framework provides a scalable approach for the uncertainty-aware evaluation of system-wide urban interventions when clean control groups are unavailable.