How congestion pricing is trying to fix downtowns

NYC congestion pricing a year in: traffic is down, transit is up

Manhattan's congestion pricing program has quietly become a success story. WNYC reporter Stephen Nessen examines why the original backlash to the concept has faded, how New Yorkers adjusted, and what the city's experience shares with similar policies in Stockholm and London.

Hear about the debate over free public transportation

Free public transit boosts economic opportunity and social mobility and is better for the environment. So why do we charge for it? Opponents of free transit cite revenue losses threatening service quality and data showing that free fares don't translate into reduced car use.

Toronto's downtown has 18 miles of underground pedestrian tunnels

Known as the "Path," these tunnels have helped reduce pedestrian traffic on Toronto's busy downtown streets for over a century. They were first built by local business owners, prompting a network effect of add-on tunnels.

Many issues facing urban environments cannot be solved by smart technologies

Although connecting systems to the Internet of Things can provide improved efficiency in municipal systems, problems such as limited affordable housing are driven by larger socioeconomic factors. Some experts suggest that local governments should focus resources on practical solutions to these issues rather than investing in smart technologies.

How parking infrastructure reveals a region's values

As cars became more popular, the need for city parking increased. In Europe, well-established cities with limited space generally opted for more expensive underground parking beneath public spaces to preserve aesthetics. Available land and decentralized planning in the US saw more parking lots and garages built. These decisions reveal broader policy realities for these regions.

45% of Americans have no access to public transit

Most US transit was built on a monocentric design, funneling riders into a downtown center. But today's most common commute is from suburb to suburb, meaning the system is built for a work pattern that no longer exists.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

Why some US cities pay thousands of dollars for a single public trash can

The rationale supposes high-end, heavy-duty trash cans reduce litter and maintenance costs, justifying per-unit costs of close to $3,000 in some municipalities. But results are mixed, and some experiments using cheap 55-gallon drums were similarly effective.

Experts argue some frugal habits—like driving farther for cheaper gas—aren't worth it

Other frugal habits experts suggest might not be worth the squeeze include driving to multiple stores in one trip to hunt for deals, as well as buying everything in bulk.

In 2024, US airports generated over $1B of revenue—partly due to overpriced airport food

Some in the airport industry argue that charging street prices in airport restaurants isn't sustainable because it's more expensive to run a business inside an airport.

The hidden engineering of gas stations

Contemporary gas stations are the result of a century of engineering progress. In the early 1900s, only a few thousand cars drove around, and they used kerosene. As vehicles and cheaper gasoline became more popular, fire hazards grew, forcing the invention of fuel pumps, underground storage tanks, and the automatic shutoff valve—all engineering marvels.

In defense of the advertisement economy

Advertising is frequently reviled for how it clutters up public spaces and our everyday experiences. Nonetheless, it allows for vast amounts of goods and services to be rendered free to millions of users—and gives users the option to pay with money or time and attention.

Making sense of Mexico City's traffic honks and horns

A car's horn makes just one sound, but somehow, drivers across the world manage to use the monotone for a surprising variety of purposes. This audio-inflected essay takes readers into the nuanced horns of Mexico City's famously congested traffic, providing a "claxonomy" (taxonomy + claxones, or horns) of its drivers' honks.

An explanation of dynamic pricing algorithms and the factors that impact them

Rather than static prices set by manufacturers or retailers based on the costs of goods, online businesses or box stores with electronic price tags can change prices in real time based on supply, demand, time, location, and competitor prices. These algorithms can be programmed to maintain or maximize profit margins based on shoppers' willingness to spend.

Some US states are now revising their happy hour bans

While states like Massachusetts started banning happy hour in the 1980s as an anti-overconsumption measure, not every state has kept these bans intact. This article dives into the arguments for and against revising the happy hour ban in Massachusetts, the first state to institute such a ban.

The squeegee kids of Baltimore

For decades in Baltimore, youth looking to earn some money have waited at high-traffic intersections to offer quick windshield washes for a fee. While some drivers find it encouraging, a positive way to spend time, others get annoyed, resentful, or...

Explore policy options for reforming the Clean Water Act

The Bipartisan Policy Center brought together experts from across the political spectrum to discuss ways to expedite federal permits for energy and infrastructure projects, including updating some provisions of the Clean Water Act to reduce bureaucratic hurdles without compromising water protections.

Los Angeles once suffered some of the worst smog on Earth

From the 1940s through the 1960s, Los Angeles was blanketed by dense, eye-burning smog so severe that drivers sometimes couldn't see traffic lights. The issue led to the nation's first local air pollution controls and inspired the passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act.

Guess US city populations via bracket-style game

The US Census Bureau's data visualization team created a game—laid out like a March Madness basketball bracket—where you try to decide which metro area of two has the greater population. Test your knowledge of relative city populations and see...

The sewage of New York City

Residents of the five boroughs of New York produce 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater everyday. Seventy miles of sewer pipes, first built in the mid-1800s, feed the sewage to 14 wastewater treatment and recovery plants where the waste is treated back to viable, drinkable water. See what shouldn't go down the toilet here.

See the real-time numbers of ships traversing the canal each day

This platform uses satellite data to track chokepoints and trade disruptions along the shipping lanes that crisscross the globe. Search for data from more than 1,600 ports, or run the climate scenario simulator.

South Korea's decades long effort to build a new capital

South Korea has spent decades trying to ease overcrowding in Seoul by developing Sejong City as a new administrative hub. Named after the king who created Hangul, Sejong was designed to decentralize government functions—but slow population growth and limited transit have complicated the plan.

The 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act spent $25B to build 41,000 miles of freeway

Sold to Congress as a national defense measure, the Interstate Highway Act committed the federal government to covering 90 cents of every dollar spent on a 41,000-mile freeway network, a subsidy that reshaped American cities and supercharged car dependency.

The US war on drugs, explained

The United States has been fighting a global war on drugs for decades. By making drugs more expensive and less available, the US has sought to reduce drug use and inhibit the international drug trade. However, increasing prison populations,...

Carbon markets incentivize companies to cut emissions but require high carbon prices

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a cap-and-trade system issues a limited number of emissions permits—carbon credits—that decrease each year, cutting into a company's profits if it does not reduce emissions and must buy permits from others. However, cheap permits and minimal fines for lacking permits have reduced the system's effectiveness.

Critics of concierge medicine argue it's worsening physician shortages and expanding inequity

Some research suggests that the average wait time for a primary care visit in major US cities can be 21 days. Subscription-based medical practices offer faster in-person and virtual appointment options, but the price barrier to this type of service may worsen inequity in healthcare access. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Venture capital is a form of funding provided to early-stage companies with high growth potential, typically in exchange for an equity (or ownership) stake

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.