Today commences UN week in New York, with the opening of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. The speeches by the world’s leaders start tomorrow, with Brazil being first by tradition and always followed by the U.S. president, but the world’s worst traffic (or at least New York’s worst traffic) begins today. For that reason, today is the first of New York’s 20 gridlock alert days for 2024, the most there have ever been, imploring people not to drive in Midtown and Downtown. In 2023 and before, there were 19 such days of total traffic nightmares. Pre-COVID, in 2019 and 2018, there were 16 gridlock alert days. Before that there were 10 days, as UN week wasn’t included and the annual gridlock alert days began with Thanksgiving and ended before Christmas. The five days through Friday is the longest consecutive stretch of the warnings. There are more gridlock days because Manhattan’s traffic keeps getting worse and worse. When he was city traffic commissioner, Sam Schwartz coined the word “gridlock” and invented gridlock alert days, before he wrote the Gridlock Sam traffic column for the Daily News for more than three decades. Yesterday, Schwartz, along with Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Manhattan state senator, wrote in these pages that Manhattan’s traffic speeds are getting slower and slower while travel times are getting longer and longer. Response times for police cars, fire trucks and ambulances trying to get through Midtown are growing, endangering the public. These facts are also reflected in the annual Mayor’s Management Report, published last week, showing the time for emergency help to arrive is the longest it has been in decades. The only answer is less traffic and the only way to get there is congestion pricing. As we wrote a year ago this week during the traffic crunch of the UN’s 78th session: “But hopefully, during the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly next September, the gridlock won’t be quite as bad, because by then New York will have congestion pricing firmly in place.” At least that was the plan. At least until Gov. Hochul illegally intervened on June 5, stopping the June 30 kickoff of the tolling program to charge $15 to drive below 60th St. during peak times. In the months since, Hochul has said that she is working on an alternative to make up for the missing $1 billion a year that was to be bonded out for $15 billion, funding much of the MTA’s capital budget. The hole she recklessly created is getting deeper as the MTA has now issued its next $65 billion, five-year upgrade blueprint for the subway and buses. Maybe Hochul will be able to find the money elsewhere (which we sincerely doubt), but what’s the solution to reduce choking traffic (and the accompanying air and noise pollution from all those cars)? There will be gridlock every day this week and we could write an editorial every day this week on the problem. Friday is the last gridlock day of the week and it’s also the day of the oral arguments in the lawsuit brought against Hochul for blocking the implementation of congestion pricing. The plaintiffs’ compelling brief was filed last week, with the governor’s response due on Wednesday. But the best evidence will be on the streets of Midtown every day this week.