Congestion Tolling Program Shows
Improvements in Bus Performance
NEW YORK— A new report from the Office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander released this month found another positive impact the congestion tolling program is having on Manhattan traffic.
While persistent issues with bus speeds and reliability continue to hamper bus services citywide, the report found some areas of improvement. Using the most recent data before and after the implementation of congestion pricing in January 2025, Comptroller Lander’s report found that the 106 bus lines operating in the congestion pricing zones saw reliability scores improve by more than 9% in the five months after implementation. Express buses saw the largest growth in speeds throughout this period.
The report, released on Thurs., Sept. 4, stated: “Data on speed, on-time performance, and bunching for these lines, collected for five months before and after implementation, demonstrates measurable improvements. Between Jan. 1 and June 1, 2025, reliability scores for buses operating in the CBD improved by 9.2% compared to the five months preceding implementation. Express buses account for much of this effect. Buses operating outside the congestion zone did not see effects at the same scale. Speed improvements were modest across all lines, likely due to buses maintaining schedules created prior to the program’s enactment.”
The report defines that two or more buses are “bunched” if buses on a route are scheduled to arrive every eight minutes, a bus two minutes or less behind the one preceding it is considered bunched. The comprehensive evaluation detailed in the report, “Life in the Slow Lane: A Report Card for NYC Buses,” builds on the Comptroller’s April 2025 report “Behind Schedule” that documented how bus speeds remain stagnant despite NYCDOT and MTA’s pledges to improve the nearly one-in-three buses that fail to arrive at scheduled stops on time.
“New York City is home to the largest bus network in all of North America, yet pedestrians can walk faster than some buses, like the M34 in Midtown,” Mr. Lander noted. Some of the report’s other key findings include:
• A majority of buses perform at “below average” standards: 56% of bus lines (186 out of 332) received a grade of D or lower due to bunching and consistently failed to arrive at scheduled stops on-time. By comparison, only 27 lines (8%) received a B or higher. Just seven bus lines throughout the city received an A grade.
• Almost three-quarters (73%) of Manhattan buses got a D or F, worse than in any of the other four boroughs, largely due to heavy traffic in Manhattan, where some buses run at speeds as low as 5 mph.
• Express buses have higher average speeds but a much lower on-time reliability rate than the system overall. Many express buses travel across bridges, highways, and tunnels, allowing them to reach speeds most local buses cannot. However, they fail to reach stops at their scheduled times compared to local or SBS buses. All of the 10 bus lines with on-time performance rates below 50% are express buses.
Published: September 10, 2025.
