“You’ve got to hustle,” Mr. Chin said.

But he also noticed something positive: The streets seemed less crowded than usual.

“It might be less traffic,” he said, steering through Times Square with his eyebrows raised.

It was the first day of New York’s congestion pricing program, which tolls drivers entering the busiest section of Manhattan in an effort to reduce gridlock. Taxi rides are also subject to tolls, which are tacked on to passengers’ fares. For the first time, paper receipts in Mr. Chin’s cab showed a 75-cent fee marked “CRZ,” for “congestion reduction zone.”

“I have no comprehension on how it’s going to turn out,” he said.

But Mr. Chin, 57, is worried about how the new tolls might affect his profession. When traffic resurged as the coronavirus pandemic waned, cab ridership didn’t. During the 12-hour shifts he works Monday through Saturday, he previously averaged 20 to 25 fares. Now it is 15 to 20. Worse, his rides tend to be shorter — blocks, not miles, with charges of $20 instead of $40.

With an estimated 80 percent of his work in the tolling zone — below 60th Street — Mr. Chin worries that the additional fee will deter future riders, especially those going short distances.

Even marginal losses could be meaningful for Mr. Chin. A married father of three sons, he still owes about half a million dollars for the taxi medallion he inherited from his father. (He is trying to refinance.)

“We’re concerned for our survival,” said Mr. Chin, a Burmese immigrant who has driven a cab for nearly 30 years and is a member of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

Any time of day, he noted, riders south of 96th Street in Manhattan start out paying $7.75 — $4.75 in fees, $3 to the taxi driver. During evening weekday rush hours, the starting price jumps to $10.25. How much more, Mr. Chin wonders, will riders take?

“We don’t know how it’s going to affect us,” he said. “We’re going to find out in a few weeks.”

He is, however, sympathetic to the needs of the city’s public transit system, which is in dire need of repairs and upgrades that will be financed with revenue from congestion pricing tolls. Cruising past the heavily guarded Trump Tower, he mused on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s promise to end congestion pricing.

“It would be great for us,” he said. “But who’s going to pay for the subway then? The federal government?”