Hailing a Taxi or Uber Will Be More Expensive Under NYC Congestion Pricing Program

Many of the vehicles that crowd the tolling zone are taxis and cars for ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft.

The new tolls will not fall on the drivers of those vehicles, who are often struggling to make ends meet. Instead, passengers will be charged an additional amount for each trip into, out of and within the zone. (Even before the new pricing began, passengers already paid congestion-related fees of up to $2.75.)

Riding in a taxi, green cab or black car will now cost passengers an extra 75 cents in the congestion zone, which runs from 60th Street south to the Battery. The surcharge for an Uber or Lyft will be $1.50 per trip. Cars on Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and on the West Side Highway, which run along the edges of Manhattan, will not face charges as long as drivers do not enter the tolling zone.

The fee for passengers in taxis is lower than for passengers in ride-hail vehicles because cars for services like Uber and Lyft make fewer trips and are more likely to idle in the zone. In 2023, taxis made an average of 12 daily trips, while ride-hail vehicles made an average of six, according to transportation officials.

Public officials also made the taxi fee lower because they wanted to avoid driving customers away from the ailing yellow cab industry, whose drivers have faced many challenges over the past decade, such as predatory loans and the rise of for-hire apps.