In the first week of March, about 559,000 vehicles entered the congestion zone, 13 percent fewer vehicles than the weekly average in 2022 and 2023, according to Juliette Michaelson, the deputy chief of policy at the M.T.A.
Additionally, retail sales in the tolling zone in January were up 1.5 percent, compared with the same time last year, and there was a 6.7 percent increase in the number of people who traveled to work in the area in February, Ms. Michaelson said. Foot traffic and attendance at Broadway shows have also risen.
In terms of public safety, traffic crash injuries in the congestion pricing zone are down since the start of the toll, said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group. That point was conspicuously absent in the secretary’s latest letter, he noted.
“Rather than threaten to defund our trains,” he said, “the secretary should get on board and see the progress we’re making.”