Congestion Pricing Poll

The mayor's favorite pollsters, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, have come up with some good news for him on congestion pricing.

New Yorkers support congestion pricing 81 to 12 percent "after learning of the myriad benefits of the mayor’s plan," according to a public statement about the poll results. Before hearing about those benefits, according to the same poll, support for the plan was at 41 to 13 percent.

Opponents of congestion pricing will almost certainly dismiss this as a push-poll, since its findings are pretty starkly at odds with an ostensibly more neutral poll that recently showed city residents more or less evenly divided on the issue.

But the real lesson here may be that if you're a person with limitless resources, you can prevail simply by being able to talk about the presumed benefits of congestion pricing to enough people. Expect mailers, television ads and highly favorable poll results.

Here is the public statement about the poll.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG’S ‘PLANNYC’ PROVES OVERWHELMINGLY POPULAR WITH NEW YORKERS

New poll shows support for widespread sustainability plan running better than 3-to-1 in favor

Respondents cite global warming, alarmingly high asthma rates and availability of federal funding for mass-transit as main reasons for their support

(NEW YORK): New Yorkers overwhelmingly support Mayor Bloomberg’s PlanNYC sustainability initiative and give similarly high marks to the mayor’s plan to reduce traffic congestion, a new poll released today shows.

Among the key findings of the survey:

Respondents initially approve of PlanNYC 41-to-13;
After learning of the myriad benefits of the mayor’s plan, New Yorkers’ support soars to 81-to-12; When congestion pricing is included in PlanNYC, support still runs better than 2-to-1 with 6 in 10 New Yorkers still approving of the plan.

“This poll proves that the more New Yorkers learn about the benefits of Mayor’ Bloomberg’s sustainability plan, the more they like it,” said Michael O’Loughlin, Director of the Campaign for New York's Future. “Albany should listen to New Yorkers and act without delay to secure federal transit money we need, while reducing asthma attacks and global warming pollution.”

Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates conducted 617 telephone interviews among residents of New York City, Long Island, Westchester and Rockland between the dates of June 8 – 10, 2007. The margin of error for the entire sample is ±3.9%