More New Yorkers than ever despise the Big Apple’s proposed congestion-pricing toll — but Gov. Kathy Hochul’s move to indefinitely halt the plan hasn’t meant any popularity boost for her, a new poll shows.
According to the statewide Siena College poll, 59% of New York voters want to scrap the congestion pricing scheme for Manhattan entirely.
Broken down by party, “Republicans (68%), Democrats (56%) and independents (54%) also all support scrapping the proposed congestion pricing plan for Manhattan,” Siena College poll spokesman Steve Greenberg wrote in the survey’s release.
“It is opposed in every region and with every demographic group,” he said.
The new poll, conducted between July 28 and Aug. 1, shows opposition to the $15 congestion toll is growing — even as groups including mass-transit advocates continue to rip Hochul and sue to kick off the program.
Hochul famously abruptly pulled the plug on the plan in June, stunning even her own mass-transit chief, Janno Lieber.
In a poll conducted in June – shortly after she paused the program – 45% of those surveyed said they supported the decision and another 23% opposed it, with the remaining 33% in the middle or “didn’t know.”
Those in the middle seem to have now broken toward opposing the plan: According to the August poll, 59% support ending the scheme entirely and 22% want it restarted immediately, with just 19% in the middle or “didn’t know.”
But despite the growing support for Hochul’s decision to indefinitely scrap the toll, her low favorability numbers are still hovering around where they were in June.
According to the latest survey, 39% of respondents view the governor favorably and 50% unfavorably, compared with a 38% to 49% split in June – then her lowest ever.
Hochul’s numbers drag below those of Democratic presidential nominee and Veep Kamala Harris, who is boasting a 53% favorable to 43% unfavorable rating statewide.
The new opposition to congestion pricing in New York came from every region broken down by Siena: New York City, suburbia and upstate. The biggest shift occurred in the suburbs – defined as Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties – with 56% of those respondents opposing the toll in June compared with 68% in August.
Asked separately what they thought of how the cost of living has changed over the last year, respondents overwhelmingly said things are getting more expensive. A massive 82% say costs have gone up.
Hochul has said she at least paused the toll plan because of concerns about the rising cost of living.
“People in the city of New York, many of them, are struggling,” Hochul said at the Aspen Institute in Colorado last week. “And the cost of $15 starting right out of the block to be able to drive into the city, or come in from the suburbs of New York City — that’s almost $4,000 dollars a year if you work five days a week.
“So our firefighters, our police officers, our teachers, our hospital workers — as the date got closer to implementing this June 30, the anxiety level started getting higher,” Hochul said — while maintaining the pause to the program is temporary.
“It was not the right price at the right time at this moment. I really believe that. But I didn’t end it, I paused it because I do believe in it,” she added.
Pro-congestion-pricing activists are calling the poll numbers a response to a “disinformation campaign” by Hochul.
“The governor has spent two months spinning yarns about congestion pricing and making her job of funding transit, cutting traffic and saving lives lost to climate change, collisions and air pollution much harder,” Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director at the pro-congestion pricing Riders Alliance, wrote to the Post in a statement.
“It’s no surprise New Yorkers are responding to such a powerful disinformation campaign,” he said. “For her own sake, Governor Hochul needs to flip the switch today and prove that public policy can reduce the cost of living.”
But Corey Bearak of the group New Yorkers Against Congestion Pricing Tax told the Post in a statement, “This economy-killing toll-tax scheme not only increases the operating costs and incomes of small businesses, it increases the costs of goods and services to everyone, not just residents of the toll-tax scheme zone, but everyone whether they remain a hermit where they live, are a pedestrian, biker, public transit user, ride in FHVs and/or yellow taxis, or drive their own car.”
