Those seeking solutions for San Francisco’s gridlocked streets may be looking east toward New York, where officials plan to charge a toll to drive the busiest streets of Manhattan.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo added the toll into his proposed budget, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed on, and this week a state legislator said he had the votes to finally allow “congestion pricing.” If a spending plan is approved, New York City will become the nation’s first to impose electronic tolls in its bustling core, raising enough money to secure $15 billion in bonds over five years. The funds would help fix the city’s deteriorating subway.

But as tempting as that kind of money is to some California politicians and traffic experts, congestion pricing is likely to be a tough sell in San Francisco, Los Angeles or elsewhere in the state anytime soon, even though those cities are considering such proposals.

Currently, it’s illegal for California cities to tack fees onto busy public roads to generate money for mass transit. And politicians who have tried to change those laws in recent years have failed.

“There’s just this natural tendency not to like it,” said Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica. He introduced a bill last year that would have authorized two congestion-pricing test runs in Northern California, and two in Southern California. The idea: to unclog traffic-snarled streets, reduce air pollution and encourage motorists to spend less time on the road.

The bill died before its first hearing, hobbled by opposition from the Automobile Club of Southern California and the California Trucking Association, among other business and labor groups.

Eric Sauer, senior vice president of government affairs at the trucking association, said truckers would have passed the added fees along to consumers.

“So the price of everything would go up, from gasoline, to clothing, to food,” Sauer said. He chided the politicians who favor congestion pricing, saying they haven’t engaged trucking or shipping industries when creating their legislation.

Proposals to use fees to discourage driving get a lot of pushback, even among residents who care about climate change and hate sitting in traffic. In New York City, critics said the fees — which would be charged through FasTrak-type readers, not toll booths — would hurt suburban commuters and unfairly burden workers who need their vehicles.

It’s hard for people to fathom the benefits they’d see once the system is in place, said transportation policy advocate Stuart Cohen, who applauds the toll strategy. He acknowledges that it’s politically unpopular because people “can picture the price, can calculate how much more it will cost per year to drive to work, but they can’t picture how much it will improve their quality of life,” until tolls are in place.

That’s what happened in cities like Stockholm, where pricing has eased traffic and apparently made drivers happier. At first, people were skeptical, Cohen said. Once the fees were in place, he said, public support soared.

San Francisco is contemplating tolls in four areas: downtown, the entry and exit points to Treasure Island, the 500-foot curvy stretch of Lombard Street, and a set of proposed express lanes connecting the city to San Mateo County. Each of these proposals has drawn opposition. A recent poll by the Chamber of Commerce showed that residents have little appetite for the added expense: 65 percent of people surveyed opposed the idea of a $3 toll to drive into the northeastern part of the city; 30 percent approved of it; and 5 percent were undecided.

“It’s challenging,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who cosponsored Bloom’s bill last year. “People just aren’t used to paying for the cost of driving,” he added, referring to what it costs to build and maintain roads, not for gas and tuneups.

Wiener said he’s committed to carrying a new congestion-pricing bill next year that would generate money for public transit and infrastructure.

“Sustainable transportation can’t just be about torturing people out of their cars,” he said. “It has to be about giving them other great options.”

In Los Angeles, officials are studying various toll models. Some options include charging motorists for the number of miles their cars travel, or cordoning off zones of the city and adding a fee to enter.

Los Angeles faces unique difficulties in winning support from residents because people there are so dependent on cars. Los Angeles County is a collection of suburbs and urban pockets, and has upward of 10 million people. Many — particularly people in low-income communities — lack convenient public transit.

Yet the city officials want to finish a number of major transportation projects before the 2028 Summer Olympics are held there, said Cohen, the transportation advocate. Those projects are expected to cost $26 billion, and congestion pricing would help generate the funds, he said.

New York, the leader of the pack, has been bandying the toll concept around since then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg first pressed it in 2008. He wanted to add fares on the East River bridges, a prospect that irked state legislators at the time.

Cuomo revived the pricing concept last year to a more receptive audience. In February, New York City exacted a $2.50 surcharge on taxis driving on the jammed roads south of 96th Street and a $2.75 surcharge on ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. It was the first decisive step toward a toll plan that the state will likely approve in its budget.

Officials hope it will untangle traffic in Midtown while generating enough funds to modernize the subway and regional rail lines. They say the urgency of crowded streets and a beleaguered rail system caused the political winds to shift.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @rachelswan