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It’s been a week since Gov. Kathy Hochul dropped a bombshell by indefinitely pausing congestion pricing. Much of the attention since then has focused on the MTA losing $15 billion it had been counting on for subway repairs and upgrades.

But what about Hochul’s decision to maintain the status quo when it comes to traffic?

Traffic planner and former transportation commissioner Sam Schwartz says he’s never seen it this bad, going back to 1915.

“Congestion now is worse than it’s been in history,” Schwartz told Gothamist. “Probably people in the 1800s were going faster than we are today.”

Here are a few data points on the state of the streets:

4.5 mph

Average Midtown travel traffic speed

At the peak of the pandemic, in March 2020, the average speed was 11.5 miles per hour.

716,150 vehicles

entering Manhattan below 60th Street every day

The MTA says 100,000 fewer cars would enter Manhattan with congestion pricing. The agency predicts traffic will only increase without the tolls.

85% of commuters

into the toll zone south of 60th Street use mass transit

The vast majority of people who commute to the city for work – 1.3 million – are getting there on public transit. Just 143,000 people drive into the toll zone for work.

$107,996

is the average annual income of those who drive into the congestion zone for work.

$88,407

Is the average annual income of people who use public transit to get to work in the congestion zone.

Those income figures come from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which used Census data to estimate commuter demographics.

$20 billion

in lost time every year.

Drivers stuck in traffic hurt New York’s economy through lost productivity, according to an estimate from the Partnership for New York, a pro-business group.

Curious Commuter

Question from Kennedy, from Queens

Why aren’t there bike racks on the buses?

What Clayton says:

Other cities like Chicago have bike racks on the front of all public transit buses. In the Windy City, there are two spots to secure a two-wheeler on the front of a bus while cyclists ride inside. Here in New York, the MTA has only rolled out that type of equipment on a handful of routes that cross bridges like the Whitestone, Verrazzano-Narrows and Triborough, which don’t have bike lanes. The MTA has not announced a plan to install the racks on all 5,700 of its buses.