Anyone familiar with being in the center of Manhattan knows the mental calculus of, “should I take a cab, or is it faster to just walk?” The M102 bus crawls down Lexington Avenue at a speed under 5 miles per hour on average, making it just barely faster than walking. If you’ve been in a taxi and frustratingly said, “I’ll just get out here!” to walk to your destination around the corner, you know how soul-crushing and inefficient moving around the streets of Midtown Manhattan can be.

After being proposed by multiple mayors since 2007, yet repeatedly facing delays and setbacks, this year New York City finally became the first American city to charge drivers for entering the busiest parts of the city via automobile, joining European cities like London and Stockholm to do the same.

On Jan. 5, 2025, the Central Business District Tolling Program, commonly known as Congestion Pricing began in New York City. Early data shows a precipitous drop in traffic, total cars entering the congestion zone, and a stark reduction in pedestrian injuries. It’s already easy to see the benefits, too – there is more pedestrian and transit activity, Broadway grosses are up, and polls show a majority of New Yorkers support the charge. And now, just a few weeks into the program, on Feb. 19, 2025, the Trump administration announced intention to kill the program. It sets up a battle between the Federal government and the State of New York, putting this transformative, hugely beneficial project in jeopardy — and needs our help and support.

According to the MTA, over 700,000 vehicles used to enter the Manhattan Central Business District (CBD) daily. Since 2010, average travel speeds in the district decreased from 9 mph to just 7 mph, a palpable increase in time spent in stand-still traffic that Manhattan has become known for.

Early data from the first weeks of Congestion Pricing show travel times are down an average of 34 percent across the eight bridges and tunnels into the CBD, resulting in 200,000 fewer cars entering the CBD on a weekly basis. Travel times to cross the Holland tunnel went from 12 minutes down to 4, and crossing the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridge both had minutes shaved off.

This transformation is reminiscent of the pedestrianization of Times Square during the Bloomberg era — a decision that at the time had a loud-but-small outcry of opposition which is largely now forgotten, as the area is widely enjoyed by all visitors who flock to one of New York’s most iconic streetscapes.

A vast majority (80 percent) of people coming to the CBD arrive via public transit, and the revenue from Congestion Pricing collected from the minority who drive will fund long overdue MTA repairs, improving commute times. These improvements mean better travel time on buses and subways, station repairs, and desperately needed accessibility updates. Empowering a bus to move efficiently through the city streets is the one of the most worthy, and economical efforts — a bus moves dozens of people in the space occupied by just a few cars.

For the Broadway community, increased pedestrianization in Times Square created space for many outdoor concerts and performances in areas that were once only used to move and store cars. Broadway shows now perform in the pedestrian portions of Times Square for the “Curtain Up” festival, along with performances for TV shows such as “Good Morning America” in spaces that used to be just for motorists.

By further disincentivizing non-essential car travel, our community has a renewed opportunity to imagine what we would like our streets to look like, and it’s a chance to not only make them safer, but more enjoyable, too — think of the possibilities for performances, big and small, in new parklets and freed up space from reducing the number of both moving and parked cars.

In other good news for the entertainment community, even with the stark reduction in cars so far, it did not come with any reduction to Broadway attendance. According to the Broadway League, only about 15 percent of Broadway-goers drove their own car to the theatre whereas 76 percent of the audience walked or used transit.

Theatre goers and performers alike can now benefit from a safer, speedier commute to the theatre. If a car is needed for instrument transportation or individual accessibility needs, they will no longer be subjected to the same crushing gridlock of years past.

This program has surpassed expectations in terms of its benefits of traffic reduction, and has had noticeable quality of life improvements for drivers and pedestrians alike — which means it’s no surprise that it has now come under fire from the incoming Trump administration, which looks to kill it. Stifling a program with this much potential would only benefit a small minority of drivers (who, according to Census data have a household income double of their non-driving counterparts), and serve to further pollute the air, and increase pedestrian injuries and fatalities.

Stopping the program now puts a huge crater in the MTA budget, which would now need to find $15 billion dollars from the budget elsewhere — along with canceling all the improvements already planned for the system. The MTA has already filed suit, looking to protect the program as settled law, saying “It’s mystifying that after four years and 4,000 pages of federally supervised environmental review — and barely three months after giving final approval to the Congestion Relief Program — U.S. DOT would seek to totally reverse course.”

We have only scratched the surface of the benefits this program brings – in London and Stockholm it has done everything from reducing particulate matter in the air, and even cut hospital visits due to childhood asthma nearly in half. New York has just started to reap the massive benefits a policy like this can bring — to cross the street safely, to have vibrant public spaces, to breathe cleaner air, and if you do wish to travel by car, to not get stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.

If cleaner air, safer streets, faster commutes and better public spaces appeal to you, please call your local representatives, along with Kathy Hochul to urge them to continue to support this massively important policy. It’s a chance for New Yorkers and visitors to have the city they deserve — a city that’s safe, and welcoming to the arts and the artists who make it what it is.

Local 802 member Dominic Fallacaro is the musical director and co-orchestrator of “& Juliet.” Personal essays published in Allegro (including MEMBER TO MEMBER) do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the officers, staff or members of Local 802. To give feedback on this article or submit something to Allegro for consideration, send to allegro@local802afm.org.