Keep Hope Alive?

7:00 PM EDT on April 7, 2008

Over at the Daily Politics, Liz Benjamin reports that state leaders are negotiating behind closed doors and congestion pricing is still on the table. City Room is also reporting that Governor Paterson called an emergency meeting and the plan was still under discussion as of 5:45 pm.

Streetsblog readers will recall that congestion pricing looked to be dead and gone last July 17 and then a couple of days later, after the federal deadline had been missed, the mayor's political people pulled off the deal that created the Congestion Mitigation Commission process. A dig through Streetsblog's July 2007 archives tells the story.

So, who knows? The state Legislature still has to produce a budget. They still need to address a multi-billion dollar transit deficit. They still want pay raises.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

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