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

  • EU urged to fast-track revised cross-border enforcement law
    July 21, 2014
    TISPOL and its road safety partners across Europe are urging the EU to fast-track the adoption of a modified law on cross-border enforcement of traffic offences such as speeding. The modified rules, published by the European Commission, come in response to a European Court of Justice ruling in May that said the existing law, which came into force in November last year, had been adopted on an incorrect legal basis. The ECJ has said the current rules could remain in effect until May 2015 while new legisla
  • Harmonisation of Europe's ITS deployment still unbalanced
    January 31, 2012
    Dean Herenda, Chairman of the EasyWay project, talks about the progress made and the progress still to be made in harmonising ITS deployment across the European Union. "The deployment and use of ITS in road transport across Europe was and still is unbalanced" Although Europe can be proud of being home to some of the world's most advanced ITS solutions, the relative disparities between Member States of the European Union (EU) in terms of the extent and technological sophistication of deployments actually sta
  • Global toll revenues $8.5bn while technology ‘battles’ continue
    April 9, 2014
    ABI Research’s Dominique Bonte talks to Jason Barnes about trends in tolling and how a wider appreciation of technology options is sorely needed. Global Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) solution revenues will grow to $8.5bn by 2018, with ETC becoming a main source of funding for both Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and Vehicle-to-X (V2X) cooperative infrastructures, according to a new report from ABI Research (Chart 1). But, says the report’s author, ABI Research vice president and practice director Dom
  • Danish study shows higher speed limits are safer
    February 25, 2014
    A two-year experiment by the Danish road directorate shows accidents have fallen on single-carriageway rural roads and motorways where the speed limit was raised. Since the speed limit on some stretches of two-way rural roads was increased from 80 to 90 km/h, accidents have decreased due to a reduction in the speed differential between the slowest and fastest cars, resulting in less overtaking. The slowest drivers have increased their speeds, but the fastest 15 per cent drive one km/h slower on average