(Bloomberg) -- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is amping up calls for congestion pricing to combat traffic in increasingly congested streets and encourage a faster return to mass transit amid the recovery from the pandemic.
“There is clearly a problem of too many people in cars,” de Blasio said in a press conference at City Hall on Wednesday. “Congestion pricing should be expedited by the federal government, the state government, MTA. I don’t see that, I don’t know why they’re not doing it.”
Traffic logged on the city’s tunnels and bridges was about 3% above pre-pandemic levels on Monday, according to data from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Meanwhile, the subway system is slowly reviving, with ridership of about 2.3 million that day, roughly 47% below pre-pandemic levels.
