AQute Congestion Skepticism

The Daily Politics blog is reporting that the Q-Poll on congestion taxing is out, and lo and behold, the public's getting even more skeptical about the merits of the plan. As Liz tells us: "Today’s Q poll finds that Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan continues has fallen further out of favor among New York City voters - even those in Manhattan, who used to support the pay-to-drive proposal. Overall, opposition has grown to 61-33 from 52-41 in July and 57-36 in August."
So we're guessing here that the proponents of the plan were dead wrong when they opined that the reason the folks were opposed was because they didn't understand all of the scheme's benefits-Not! It now turns out that the more the public found out about the plan, the more they have begun to detest it.

And one of the big reasons-no surprise to us-is that people don't trust the MTA. You see, most of the folks would support the tax if the money were used to keep the fare hike away. Not many of these folks, however, believe that even if the plan were passed that the money would be utilized for this purpose by the transit agency. "As Q's Mickey Carrol says: "Big problem: New Yorkers don't trust the MTA. Two thirds doubt that, whatever is promised, the money really will keep transit fares from rising. More than half want an MTA guarantee to hold fares down for a specific length of time."

So all of the elites and enviros are way off base on this, and once again the people are exhibiting a great deal more sense. It is now time to inter this bad experiment and figure out some better ways to deal with congestion.

Update

The NY Times' City Room blog takes note of the Q Poll as well-with the following appropriate headline: Is Manhattan Turning Against Congestion Pricing? Apparently, even in Manhattan, familiarity's breeding contempt: "Manhattan voters, who supported congestion pricing by a margin of 54 percent to 36 percent in Quinnipiac’s last such poll, in August, are just about evenly split, with 46 percent supporting it and 47 percent opposed."