A new poll has found that a majority of New York City voters oppose the idea of congestion pricing to fund the subways, while a huge majority favors the mayor's idea for a millionaire's tax to act as a dedicated funding source for the MTA.

The Quinnipiac poll published today found that by a 72 percent to 24 percent margin, New York City voters said they favored "a plan to raise taxes on people who earn more than one million dollars a year to help fund mass transit." As far as congestion pricing, 52 percent of city voters opposed and 40 percent supported "a plan called 'congestion pricing' that would charge motorists an additional toll to drive into downtown and midtown Manhattan, while reducing tolls on bridges that don't connect to Manhattan," with the money going to mass transit upgrades.

When considering the proposals side-by-side, voters say they prefer the millionaire's tax over congestion pricing by 64 percent to 21 percent, while 15 percent remain undecided. Manhattan was the only borough where a majority of residents favored congestion pricing, by a 58 percent to 37 percent margin. But even in Manhattan, more voters supported the millionaire's tax over congestion pricing when the two options were pitted against each other, by a 57 percent to 33 percent margin.

The poll results come just a day after Governor Andrew Cuomo put together a "Fix NYC" panel with the stated goal of determining the best way to deal with the city's traffic congestion and how to better fund our tire fire of a subway system. The panel seems tilted towards the idea of instituting a congestion pricing plan, given the presence of traffic pricing advocate Sam Schwartz and supportive statements from both the Riders Alliance and Move NY campaign director Alex Matthiessen, who said "many of the experts [Governor Cuomo] appointed have voiced support for the Move NY Fair Plan."

Mayor Bill de Blasio has called the idea of congestion pricing "a regressive tax" and has pushed the millionaire's tax as a more equitable way to fix the transit system. Austin Finan, a spokesperson for the mayor, greeted the poll results positively, telling Gothamist "riders want real solutions and that's why they're rallying around the mayor's plan to ask the wealthiest 1% to chip in a little extra. The state has failed city straphangers—it can start to right its wrongs by supporting the common sense plan its constituents are calling for."

Transit reporter David Meyer noted that the opposition to congestion pricing today is higher than it was in 2015, and called the millionaire's tax a "wedge into efforts to limit congestion & fund transit."

Meanwhile, support for congestion pricing has gone from 44% in 2015 to 40% today. Opposed up to 52%, compared to 49% in 2015. https://t.co/cWhpSpWBO0 — David J Meyer 🎃 (@dahvnyc) October 6, 2017

Dani Lever, a spokesperson for Governor Cuomo, brought up the mayor's previous attempt to institute a millionaire's tax, which requires legislation at the state level, while downplaying the poll.

"Everyone knows the millionaire's tax is politically popular and that's why the Mayor raises it as a solution for everything. Everyone also knows the millionaires tax is a nonstarter with the Senate—the lesson learned from the Mayor’s pre-k proposal when the Governor had to make it happen with state revenues. The Governor is focused on actually getting things done, so with the idea of a millionaires tax still DOA, we refuse to play politics with subway funding."