A plurality of NYC residents want congestion pricing to stay as the Trump administration moves to end the toll, according to a Siena College poll released Monday.
The poll, which surveyed New York City registered voters, found that 42% said they wanted the toll — which costs most drivers $9 a day to drive on surface streets in Midtown and lower Manhattan — to remain in place. By contrast, 35% said they wanted the toll removed.
The remaining 23% said they were either “in the middle” or didn’t know how they felt about the toll.
That reflects a more positive attitude on the toll than a Quinnipiac University poll taken at the end of February, which showed 41% of city voters supported the poll while 54% opposed it.
Statewide, New Yorkers questioned last week as part of Monday’s Siena poll were cooler on the toll, which is meant to both reduce vehicular congestion and improve public transit primarily within the five boroughs.
Suburban respondents were most strongly against the toll, with 48% in favor of its elimination and 30% saying it should stay in place. Upstate voters rejected the toll by 40% to 25%.
The polling comes less than two weeks before an arbitrary March 21 deadline set by the Trump administration for ending the program, which was approved by federal regulators last year and went into effect in January.
Gov. Hochul has vowed to fight the federal order to end congestion pricing, calling it part of an “existential threat” to public transit from the Trump regime in a speech to the MTA’s board last month.
The MTA for its part has said the tolling system will remain absent a court order. The transit agency has sued Trump’s DOT in federal court, calling the move to renege federal approval of the toll and end a program mandated by state law unconstitutional.
Siena pollsters did not ask New Yorkers their opinion on Trump’s move to end the toll. Forty-nine percent of last month’s Quinnipiac respondents, however, expressed disapproval of Trump’s order to end the toll, with 45% approving of the legally dubious move.