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New Yorkers have been navigating Manhattan’s bridges and tunnels faster since their city implemented a long-debated congestion pricing plan earlier this month, according to newly available traffic data.

Morning rush-hour speeds from New Jersey through the Holland Tunnel, a main route under the Hudson River to Manhattan, have nearly doubled to 28mph compared to a year ago. Nighttime speeds on the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn increased from 13mph to 23mph.

If these trends continue, motorists willing to pay the $4.50-$14.40 toll to enter the congestion zone in the center of the busiest city in the US will save thousands of hours each year that they currently waste in smoky tunnels or on clogged bridges.

New York’s congestion pricing scheme, which went into effect on January 5, is intended to cut traffic and help fund much-needed $15bn. development of local mass transit.

The toll applies to vehicles entering a “congestion relief zone” below 60th Street in Manhattan, a section of the island that includes Midtown, Greenwich Village, SoHo and the area around Wall Street. Most passenger vehicles entering the zone now pay $9, while trucks pay $14.40 and motorcycles, $4.50. Other cars, including emergency vehicles, are exempt.

The scheme means New York will join London, Milan, Singapore and Stockholm in a small club of big cities with congestion pricing. Traffic in London, which introduced its program in 2003, decreased by 14 percent in his zone in the first year. Some cities experienced a drop of more than 20 percent.

The increase in New York The speeds appear in data provided to the Financial Times by traffic tracking company Inrix, and gathered from anonymous GPS in cars, mobile devices and road sensors. The data covers speeds on different routes around the city, at different times of the day, from before and after the tolling scheme started.

“Thankfully Manhattan has very few access points, and it’s limited to bridges and tunnels, so you can feel what’s going on,” said Inrix analyst Bob Pishue.

Of the eight bridges and tunnels examined, seven experienced significant acceleration for at least one hour during rush hour. Three bridges leading into Manhattan that are not connected to the congestion zone did not experience a similar increase in speed.

An FT analysis of hourly traffic data from New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority also showed fewer vehicles in the affected tunnels during rush hour. Bridges and tunnels outside the zone carry more vehicles.

A report this week from the MTA also shows significant drops in travel times, including 30-40 percent for vehicles entering Manhattan’s business district. It also found that the city buses run faster and they ride a little longer.

According to the Congestion Pricing Tracker, a project by college student brothers Benjamin and Joshua Moshes that monitors commute times through Google Maps, peak times in the Holland Tunnel have dropped from 20 minute pre-toll up to nine minutes this week.

“We are very confident that we have seen major changes in the bridges and tunnels leading to the congestion zone,” said Benjamin Moshes.

Lewis Lehe, an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, found that drivers in other cities with congestion pricing were more responsive to the introduction of a toll than to later increases. at a price – an idea he refers to as “large elasticity of introduction“.

Lehe was “surprised” by the magnitude of the effects shown in the initial New York data, but cautioned that it will take time to fully understand the effects of the new tolls.

At 5 p.m. on a recent weekday near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel in lower Manhattan, only one car was waiting at a stoplight that until recently had been jammed for blocks. Gone are the useless crossing guards that once guarded the intersection. Tunnel speeds have increased by almost 50 percent.