The King of Albany Gridlock Breaks His Silence

10:55 AM EDT on June 12, 2007

As reported by WNYC:

NEW YORK, NY June 11, 2007 - As the mayor continues to push for a congestion pricing scheme for midtown Manhattan, the focus of the debate has shifted to --- you guessed it -- Albany.
REPORTER: Assembly members had many questions for the mayor on Friday, and Speaker Sheldon Silver said today he had issues of his own.
SILVER: Will mass transit be ready to handle the overage? What's the significance? So these are all questions that hopefully good minds will get to work on answering and we'll have a comprehensive plan that makes sense.
REPORTER: Speaking to reporter's upstate, Silver said there would be no decision made before the legislative session ends later this month. But he held out hope that something could be voted on later this summer. City officials are urging action by august so the plan can qualify for federal grant money.

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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