Skip to main content

New Yorkers split on congestion pricing, tolling plan

In a recently published Quinnipiac University poll, 49 per cent of voters on New York opposed a proposal to toll the East River bridges and at the same time reduce tolls on the ‘outer borough’ bridges between the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island and use the money for mass transit. Forty-four per cent backed the plan. Opposition to just setting tolls on the free East River bridges remains strong at 69 per cent, with just 27 per cent in favour, the independent poll finds. There is no group that co
May 18, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
In a recently published Quinnipiac University poll, 49 per cent of voters on New York opposed a proposal to toll the East River bridges and at the same time reduce tolls on the ‘outer borough’ bridges between the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island and use the money for mass transit. Forty-four per cent backed the plan.

Opposition to just setting tolls on the free East River bridges remains strong at 69 per cent, with just 27 per cent in favour, the independent poll finds. There is no group that comes close to 50 per cent support for tolls, except Staten Island at 43 per cent.

"East River bridge tolls? New Yorkers have been saying no for years," said Quinnipiac University Poll assistant director Maurice Carroll. "But the people pushing the idea this time are savvy. They'd marry new tolls to toll reductions elsewhere. And they tie it to mass transit improvements. In response to that idea, the level of opposition shrinks.

"Whatever their views on what should be done, 88 per cent of voters agree that traffic congestion is a serious problem."

Related Content

  • Enforcement a key part of the road safety solution
    January 31, 2012
    The Partnership for Advancing Road Safety is a new organisation set up in the US to push the national debate on speed and intersection safety, something which hitherto has been absent. Here, executive director David Kelly explains the organisation's work. With moves to address drink/drug driving and the wearing of seatbelts starting to prove successful in the US, the use of inappropriate speed and poor driving at intersections have become responsible for a proportionately greater number of the deaths and in
  • ITS World Congress debates perceptions of enforcement
    December 4, 2012
    The technical programme of this year’s ITS World Congress in Vienna includes a special session on the image of enforcement. ITS International examines the scale of the problem and what can be done about it. Debate on the merits and difficulties of enforcing speed limits appears centred on a conflict of principles. Put very simply, local communities, people living close to busy or hazardous roads, want to see traffic speeds calmed. Drivers on those roads, on the whole, want their principle of freedom to be m
  • Brooklyn eyes Bogota’s BRT system
    June 17, 2016
    David Crawford considers the increased interest in bus rapid transit and looks that the latest trends. Bus rapid transit (BRT) is gaining an increasingly high profile in the US public transport agenda, for two main reasons. One is the potential for ‘trains on wheels’ to save substantially on installation costs as compared with other modes such as underground metros or light-rail transit. Another, highlighted in the case of New York City, is the value of having a rapid surface-based alternative available whe
  • US economic stimulus package highlights ITS technology
    July 17, 2012
    US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood talks to ITS International about economic stimulus funding and the absolute need to maintain and increase the use of technology in transportation. Of the total of $787 billion of funding announced under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the economic stimulus package which was signed into law by US President Barack Obama on 17 February 2009, $48.1 billion will go to the US Department of Transportation (USDOT). Of that, $27.5 billion is for highway in