Also today: LA pushes to rebuild homes faster, and real estate vultures eye middle-class homeowners.

New Jersey dropped its unsuccessful appeal of a court order that allowed New York’s congestion pricing to start on Jan. 5 and intends to file a new suit against the Federal Highway Administration, attorneys said.

NJ lawyers will no longer pursue their appeal to immediately halt congestion pricing. But they plan to file an amended complaint with new arguments.

Early data from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority suggests that traffic has dropped around Manhattan’s core.

Preliminary data from the first week of New York City's highly debated congestion pricing program shows the country's first plan of its kind is working, officials said.

NYC’s 2025 congestion pricing found fewer personal cars on Manhattan’s roads and more cabs over its first five days, a Bloomberg analysis of 75,000 cars show.

Drivers using the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels saw travel times drop due to congestion pricing, an MTA report said.

What was meant to provide critical relief has instead devolved into a bureaucratic nightmare." — Kamillah Hanks

The introduction of a $9 congestion fee has resulted in faster speeds on some of the city’s famously snarled streets and fewer commuters on the bridges and tunnels. “The traffic is absolutely less, even during rush hour,

Traffic entering Manhattan below 60th Street dropped by 7.5% in the first week after the start of a controversial $9 toll on driving in that area.

Now that New York City has finally flipped the switch on congestion pricing, the big question is: Will it work? And if so, how well?

Congestion pricing was never just about reducing the number of cars in the city, though. Fewer cars would also mean a better quality of life for the millions of people who actually live in New York City, and in that regard, it sounds like congestion pricing has also been a success: