New York City was supposed to terminate its congestion pricing program last Friday because, well, Trump told them to. But they didn't do it and so harsh words were exchanged and then the deadline was extended for another 30 days. (This sounds oddly familiar.) Who knows what happens next month, but we are able to accurately quantify the benefits of nearly 3 months of congestion pricing.

Firstly, it's generating a lot of money. In the first two months of operation, congestion pricing has already brought in over $100 million in new revenue for the city. This is important because it's money that can be used for transit and other infrastructure improvements.

Equally important is the fact that this money was generated by creating measurable value for drivers. For all of the river crossings that lead into the CBD, average weekday travel times this past January are lower compared to January 2024. And in some cases, they're lower by a lot. The Holland Tunnel, for example, saw travel times drop by 48%.

Lastly, it's encouraging more people to take public transit. Here's a chart from Sam Deutsch over at Better Cities showing the increases in ridership since the program was implemented:

The MTA as a whole is now averaging about 448,000 more public transit riders per day. And to put this number into perspective, Sam reminds us that Washington DC has the second most-used public transit system in the US and that it sees an average of about 304,000 total riders per day (January 2024 figure). So in other words, New York's congestion pricing bump alone was nearly 1.5x DC's entire ridership base.

Some critics will argue that NYC's subway is dangerous and that this program unfairly pushes people toward it. But crime data suggests otherwise. New York's subway also saw over a billion rides in 2024! So I don't know how you argue that less people should be taking it. It's pretty clear that this is what moves the city. Imagine if the above went the opposite way and 448,000 more people started driving to work.

Some people may not like it, but the reality is that congestion pricing is doing exactly what it's intended to do: reduce traffic congestion, make money, and encourage more sustainable forms of urban mobility.

Cover photo by Wells Baum on Unsplash

We arrived in Tokyo late last night. Our departure was delayed by a few hours, but we ended up sleeping most of the flight, and so we landed relatively refreshed and ready to tackle all of the late-night snacks at the closest 7-11.

The onboarding process for taking the train into the city was as easy as it could have been. I was able to add and then load their Suica card directly from Apple Wallet. (Thanks for the tips, everyone.)

Here's us, taking up too much room on the train with our two ski/snowboard bags.

However, I will say that Shinjuku station -- which is the busiest train station in the world, by far -- is just as confusing as I remember it. Between the vastness of the station and overall network, and the language barrier, it can be a real challenge to figure out where to go to make your connection.

But ultimately, we made it to our hotel, and to 7-11. In case you're wondering, and to give you an idea of scale, my legs absolutely hang off the end of these beds.

I have no idea what the circular thing was in this bowl, but it was good, hot water was readily available in the store for these purposes, and I was able to supercharge the entire thing with some charcoal-grilled chicken from a separate package.

The first time I visited Japan, I had a cell phone with one of the first ever color screens. I thought this was a huge deal. And, I had a standalone digital camera that was about the size of a small wallet. I also thought this was a huge deal. Sadly, I'm not sure where most of these photos are today (though I still have the phone).

So it's exciting to me that I'm now writing posts and sharing photos with all of you on a decentralized and open ledger that is intended to act as permanent information storage. In theory at least, these posts and these photos will be around forever, even if Paragraph as a company goes away.

Which means I'll be able to look back on the above photo and remind myself that I took it from the window above my hotel bed when I woke up at 530AM, I couldn't sleep, and I decided to just get up and write today's post. Tokyo is such an awesome city. It's great to be back after all these years.

Mexico City is all kinds of big. It is the largest metropolitan area in North America, the largest Spanish-speaking city, and broadly one of the largest megacities in the world. Because of this, it can be, you know, hard to move around.

I remember visiting the city for the first time when I was in elementary school, and it standing out to me that everyone had one day of the week when they were simply not allowed to drive their car. It was/is a form of load balancing. Imagine that. (I don't know if this is still the case, or if it's even more stringent today.)

I also remember visiting the city later on, when I was in grad school, and it standing out to me that their metro had women-only cars. This was and continues to be an attempt to try and minimize the amount of sexual harassment that takes place on transit. Again, it can be hard to move around Mexico City.

The city's latest solution is one that has found success in other Latin American cities, such as Medellin, and that is: cable cars. Relative to subway or light rail, they're inexpensive. They're also good at navigating steep terrain, and their stations can be inserted into dense urban areas. This includes working-class neighborhoods who might otherwise have very limited mobility options.

For reasons like these, Mexico City has spent the last three years building three new cable car lines, the most recent of which opened just last month. The city now has the longest cable car line in the world. But more importantly, it has a new transit add-on that is moving up to 80,000 people per day.

This isn't as much as rail. But that's okay. The point of these lines is to bring more people closer in so that they can then connect to more services and other mobility options. And to do it quickly. Three new lines in three years is impressive. And from the sounds of it, it has transformed many people's lives for the better.

Here are maps of the 3 lines, zoomed out a bit so that you can see how they fit into the city's broader urban context: