NYC Already Hates Congestion Pricing, Poll Shows

NEW YORK — The ink on the state budget is barely dry, but one of its key planks is already drawing backlash. A solid majority of New York City voters oppose the landmark congestion pricing plan meant to fund mass transit and assuage Manhattan's horrific traffic, a new poll shows.

Some 54 percent of New Yorkers are against the scheme to toll drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street, while just 41 percent support it, says the Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday. More than half the voters in each borough oppose congestion pricing, from 51 percent in Manhattan to 64 percent in The Bronx, the survey shows.

"New Yorkers give a Bronx cheer to congestion pricing," Quinnipiac polling analyst Mary Snow said in a news release. "Lawmakers in Albany approved the plan, but city voters aren't in favor even if it means revenue raised will help fix mass transit."

The public opposition to congestion pricing comes despite Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo's push for it as part of their plan to overhaul the MTA. The tolls are expected to help raise $15 billion for MTA capital projects, the governor's office has said.

New Yorkers seem to agree that the city's mass transit and traffic woes need to be addressed. More than 60 percent say subway service is "not so good" or "poor," and 55 percent called traffic congestion a "very serious" problem, the poll shows.

But more than half — 52 percent — say congestion pricing won't reduce traffic, while just 40 percent say the policy will be effective to that end, the survey found.

Congestion pricing found the strongest support in Manhattan, where 48 percent backed it and 51 percent opposed it, the poll shows. But The Bronx was a hotbed of resistance, with 64 percent of voters opposing the policy and just 30 percent supporting it, according to the survey.

Many details about congestion pricing have yet to be worked out, as the $175.5 billion state budget tasked a new six-member board with making recommendations about how much the tolls should cost and what exemptions the policy should make.

But the poll suggests the officials and advocates who championed the proposal have their work cut out for them when it comes to getting the public on board.

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,077 city voters from March 27 to April 1, a period that includes the final days leading up to the state budget's passage early Monday morning. The poll has a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.