City Poll Shows Divide In Support for Drive Tax

About 67% of Manhattan voters said they support congestion pricing, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday.

While 90% of voters citywide agreed that traffic is a "very serious" problem, opinion on Mayor Bloomberg's plan to charge drivers $8 to enter Manhattan below 86th Street was split between Manhattan and the other boroughs. The majority of voters in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island said they opposed congestion pricing.

"Mayor Bloomberg will need every ounce of support from his 74% approval rating to convince New York City voters that congestion pricing is the answer," the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Maurice Carroll, said in a statement.

Initial concerns over congestion pricing were transformed into broad support after the scheme was implemented in cities such as London and Stockholm, proponents of Mr. Bloomberg's plan said yesterday. They said that the poll, which surveyed 1,108 New York City registered voters last week, failed to inform voters that any bridge and tunnel tolls would offset the $8 fee, or that the money would be used to fund $31 billion in expansion and upkeep of the mass transit system.