Mayor Speaks at Times Square Pricing Rally

rally.jpg

Supporters of congestion pricing rallied yesterday in Times Square, urging state lawmakers to act by July 16 on Mayor Bloomberg’s initiative or risk losing $500 million in federal funds. "The time is now," said the mayor, according to the New York Post. "We cannot walk away from this opportunity." 

Shouting out to tourists in a passing bus, the Mayor also suggested a new slogan for the Big Apple, according to the Daily News: "Welcome to New York. We have cars clogging our street. We have trucks
polluting our air. We have traffic holding back business."

  • gecko

    On the current onslaught of environmental devastation caused by humans, great quote from EO Wilson on PBS last night with Bill Moyers that: “When nothing else works reason prevails!”

    With Australia in dire straights devastated by drought and the same for the West, and future 110 degree summers predicted for Washington DC and Atlanta, the climate change crisis mandates that our leaders get educated and initiate action to adapt and slow it down as much as possible.

    We need many thousands more Bloombergs and right now!

  • Bob

    Bloomie’s putting the cart before the horse.
    Mass transit in this town sucks.
    It truly hasn’t been updated for 40 years, for the most part. There are so many authorities, and subsets within those authorities, clamoring for the same money.
    New York is NOT London which has a comprehensive mass transit system that people actually do use, and alternatives if one part of the system is stoppered up.
    The New York metro area doesn’t have that.
    The proposed congestion fee is a tax on everyone — especially the outer borough folks, who in most places have NO RELIABLE public transportation at all —
    Yeah you go tell someone to take two buses and two trains home every night. They’ll probably go bankrupt and get mugged before they get home.
    Look, the mayor has his heart in the right place. Bust, as it typical with this mayor, he’s got his hands in our pockets first.
    Fix mass transit. Make it easy for me to get from southern Brooklyn to northern New Jersey with one pass … if not one ride.

  • Bill

    Bob:
    1. We have a system that people DO use. Millions every day. How could you not know that?
    2. The horse is going before the cart – Bloomberg’s plan calls for $200+ million to be spent on expanding transit in underserved areas before implementing the congestion fee.
    3. If you are going from southern Brooklyn to northern New Jersey by car, you would NOT pay under the proposed congestion pricing plan – it would not cost anything to drive on the FDR and West Side Highway.

  • Spud Spudly

    Is this another rally where people are getting paid to attend? What a PR scam. And also a waste of time and money since it looks like it’s wait-until-next-year for congestion pricing. No matter how much money the Mayor gives to the campaign funds of Republican state senators (who are willing to scurry back to Albany at a moment’s notice to vote on the plan) the Assembly isn’t coming back this summer to vote on anything.

    Which puts Bloomberg right where he should have been in the first place: taking the time to work out ALL the details and to explain them to everyone without bullying people into thinking that everything needs to get done in the next two minutes, and the details can come later. I can’t believe that even the strongest CP supporters would give the government a blank check to just wing it on some of the most important details.

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