Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
'Every second counts': Congestion pricing speeds up ambulances in Manhattan, study finds
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Jul 6, 2026
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Francois LOCHON/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Jul 6, 2026
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Congestion pricing has not only reduced gridlock in Manhattan — new research shows it could also be saving lives.
A new paper published Monday by six academics for the National Bureau of Economic Research found the tolls have significantly sped up ambulance response times below 60th Street since January 2025, when the MTA started charging drivers a daily fee to enter the area.
The MTA has touted that congestion pricing has reduced vehicle traffic in the toll zone, and has highlighted research showing the program has also improved air quality in parts of the city. But the new research, which has not yet been peer reviewed, found the time it takes for an ambulance to get from an incident location to the hospital fell by more than a minute after the tolls went into effect.
“ Any increase in the time from the incident to the hospital saves lives and generates lots of cost savings,” said Brad Humphreys, a professor of economics at West Virginia University who co-authored the study. “Congestion pricing wasn't introduced to make it easier for ambulances to get from incident scenes to hospitals, but they do.”
The researchers also found that cycling appeared to increase by 20 percent in the congestion zone, indicating some commuters switched their commutes from cars to bikes, which do not pay a congestion toll.
“Taken together, these patterns paint a coherent picture of behavioral response to the toll: drivers avoided the congestion zone, and at least a portion redirected their trips toward non-motorized alternatives,” the authors wrote.
The report found the drop in ambulance response times “emerged quickly following the January 2025 congestion price implementation.”
It was welcome news to Sam Schwartz, a traffic analyst who’s advocated for congestion pricing for decades. His firm issued a report three months before congestion pricing launched that found ambulance response times had increased nearly three minutes between 2014 and 2024, a trend he blamed on the rise of Uber and Lyft cars in the city during that period.
”In cardiac arrest, every minute reduces the chance of survival by 7 to 10%,” Schwartz said. “So the fact that a minute is saved means quite a few people will survive and will survive with better outcomes.”
The union representing the FDNY's EMTs and paramedics disagreed with the study’s findings.
“ On the ground, we are not seeing a 60 -to 90-second reduction, especially when, for the past, you know, two years, our response time is creeping up every day,” said Michael Greco, president of Local 2507.
Greco said the report was a good starting point, but wanted to see more peer-reviewed research that better accounts for the variety of traffic patterns in Manhattan.
Humphreys said one of the goals of the paper was to offer insight to leaders in other cities who might be considering congestion pricing of their own.
“You're gonna have improved health outcomes,” he said. “In a city like New York, we've got a large number of EMT calls. So those savings add up over the many, many thousands of calls that occur in New York City, and that's an important unexamined aspect of congestion pricing policies.”
Tagged
congestion pricing
manhattan
new york city
transportation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
The Central Park Conservancy wants horse-drawn carriages banned. Its poll says NYC agrees.
The most passionate responses are from respondents favoring a ban, pollsters say.
By
Apolline Lamy
Published Jul 9, 2026 at 4:33 p.m. ET
NY attorney general sues chemical companies for PFAS pollution
New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit Thursday against major chemical companies for knowingly manufacturing and marketing consumer products with toxic forever chemicals.
By
Rosemary Misdary
News
NY attorney general sues chemical companies for PFAS pollution
New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit Thursday against major chemical companies for knowingly manufacturing and marketing consumer products with toxic forever chemicals.
By
Rosemary Misdary
We mapped every UES cooling tower in the area affected by NYC’s latest Legionnaires’ outbreak
By
Joe Hong
Education tech purchases on pause as NYC schools wrestle with AI
By
Jessica Gould
NYPD officer charged with rape of a minor after internal affairs investigation
By
Brittany Kriegstein
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .