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

With the first week of New York’s Congestion Pricing toll in the books, commuters are reaping a reward, spending less time in traffic in exchange for their $9 toll to enter lower Manhattan, said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

New York City’s congestion pricing is the first of its kind in the United States. Yet congestion pricing has been implemented in cities across the globe for decades, including in Singapore since the 1970s, London since 2003 and Stockholm since 2007.

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.

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,