Taming Traffic: How Congestion Pricing Became a Breath of Fresh Air for New York

Dense, walkable and transit-friendly cities are one of our greatest climate solutions. As we chart a new future for the 21st century city, leaders are looking for ways to make safer streets, fix polluted air, reduce carbon emissions, and make more vibrant, livable cities. In 2025, New York City implemented a bold and transformational program: congestion pricing, achieving a long-sought victory in the work to improve urban life. Today, New Yorkers are adjusting to a marvelous new normal: an 11% decrease in traffic congestion, an 8% drop in traffic injuries, 22% cleaner air, and faster buses leading to a 7% increase in transit ridership. In this panel we’ll dive into how New York finally pulled off this transformative policy, the results we’ve seen so far, and what lies ahead for other major U.S. cities that want to explore similar policies. Learn how New York overcame political, legal and bureaucratic hurdles to implement its groundbreaking program to decongest streets, and how doing so is helping New York tackle one of its most persistent problems – congestion and tailpipe pollution. As New York followed in the footsteps of overseas pioneers, like London, Stockholm and Singapore, so too will U.S. cities follow New York. The panel will walk through how cities can build a winning coalition, champion the positive impacts, and reap the benefits of one of the most powerful tools in the urban climate policy toolkit.