Poll: New Yorkers don't want tolls
There ya have it, voters instinctively know the best deal, and that’s raise the gas tax rather than pay tolls to build and maintain our road and bridges. Tolls are prohibitively expensive compared to a gas tax system and particularly detested when imposing tolls on something that is already traveled for free now. No tolls on existing free infrastructure.
Quinnipiac: Voters say no to East River tolls
By Celeste Katz
New York Daily News
June 16, 2014
New Yorkers think slapping a toll on the East River bridges is an incredibly bad idea, a poll released Monday finds -- unless the cost of crossing other interborough spans falls at the same time.
By a margin of 71% to 23%, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll, city voters slam on the brakes when asked if the currently free bridges should be taxed.
Voters buck the idea 49% to 41% if bridges outside Manhattan were to be tolled at a lower rate at the same time.
Opposition to the idea stretches across all five boroughs and extends to both drivers and mass-transit users, Quinnipiac found.
Whether they use their cars or ride the rails, voters overwhelmingly agree traffic is a serious city problem.
When it comes to how to pay for maintaining roads, bridge, and public transportation, 26% prefer hiking the state gas tax, 23% suggest adding tolls to bridges into Manhattan, and 18% think an increase in the city sales tax would be best.
Quinnipiac polled 1,033 city voters from June 5-9. The survey has an error margin of 3.1 percentage points.