Today is the third day of New York's new congestion relief zone. And if you're curious to see how it's already impacting traffic conditions, here is a website run by Joshua Moshes and Benjamin Moshes, under the supervision of Brown University Professor Emily Oster.
The site collects Google Maps traffic data every 15 minutes for 19 routes leading into Manhattan (some of which are directly affected by the new relief zone and some of which are not). It then calculates average traffic times for each day of the week, both before and after the congestion charge.
Here is the Holland Tunnel on Sunday (which was day number one):
And here is the Holland Tunnel on Monday (which was the first weekday):
Already, we are seeing a meaningful reduction in average traffic times. Maybe demand is more elastic than I suggested yesterday. But obviously we're only looking at two days. So I'll check back in later once we have more data points. In the meantime, if you'd like to follow along, you now have a website.
