Monday’s Headlines: Happy Birthday, Congestion Pricing Edition

This week is going to be congestion pricing week in the city, as all the outlets mark today’s one-year anniversary with largely laudatory coverage. And why not? The toll is working more or less as expected.

Each outlet will likely focus on what it feels is most important, but here’s what we’re seeing so far:

• Fast Company spotlighted how 24 million fewer cars have entered the toll zone since Jan. 5, 2025. That’s cool, said every lung in Manhattan.
• Vital City saw the glass as a bit more than half-full, with the unambiguous success of congestion pricing tempered slightly by the fact that travel speeds aren’t as fast as everyone thought they’d be.
• Bloomberg went straight at the critics to show the success of the toll in five charts.
• The Times did the “Upshot” treatment, which had a nice stat about noise complaints.
• We added a chart of our own — Broadway grosses — in David Meyer’s seminal overview piece for Streetsblog.
• And Dave Colon rounds up all the remaining lawsuits against congestion pricing (yes, the wheels of justice grind slowly even as Midtown buses move a bit faster).

Gov. Hochul is slated to do her own birthday party at 2:45 p.m. at the F train station at 14th Street in Manhattan (Mayor Mamdani will be there, which itself is notable, given his predecessor’s arm’s-length approach to the toll). Dave Colon better bring us back some cake.

In other news:

• The big story over the weekend was Mayor Mamdani’s Saturday announcement that he would complete the full road diet on McGuinness Boulevard, the one ex-Mayor Eric Adams had watered-down in a corruption scandal. Our coverage was seminal, but it was followed by NY1, NY Times and the Daily News.
• Speaking of not disappointing the livable streets movement, Mayor Mamdani rode the bus again last night. (X.com)
• A car driver struck and badly injured a scooter rider in Queens. (amNY)
• The Daily News had more details from Sunday’s fatal crash in Staten Island.
• The Post, predictably, is freaking out about the 10-cent transit fare increase — the one that has been scheduled for years and known about for months. But the paper also highlighted higher hikes on commuter lines. Gothamist played it in the middle, while The Times played it straight, including the key line: “The Metropolitan Transportation Authority … approved the increase in September.” As Tommy Ko of the Post used to bellow in the newsroom, “We are newspaper, not oldspaper.”
• The Post is already calling Council Member Julie Menin “Speaker,” but her likely election isn’t until later this week. That said, the division-obsessed paper played up Menin’s Zionism as a counterweight to Mayor Mamdani’s criticism of Israel (only to then begrudgingly admit that City Hall has no real role in international affairs).
• The Post also wrote up the “controversial” pasts of Mamdani’s cabinet, but this is all the slime they could hurl at the DOT commissioner: “Mike Flynn will serve as the city’s transportation commissioner as Mamdani aims to overhaul public transportation in the city by making buses free. He boasts a decade of experience in the Department of Transportation before he jumped ship to work at a consulting firm.” Wow, what a radical!
• One crash is too many, but before we fully move onto 2026, let’s remember that crashes, injuries and fatalities were way down last year in New York City. That’s more evidence that Vision Zero does work — and that the Mamdani administration has to triple down on it. (NYDN)