Queens Pols Rally to Keep Using Gioia’s District as Their Doormat

Gioia_Headshot3.jpgTony Avella, Leroy Comrie, Melinda Katz, David Weprin "and other possible members of the Queens Delegation" are holding an anti-congestion pricing rally tomorrow morning at 8:00 on the Queens side of the 59th Street Bridge, according to an e-mail from the Queens Civic Congress.

Notably, Eric Gioia (right), who represents the traffic-burdened district where the rally will be taking place, is not listed as a participant. Perhaps he realizes that standing in front of a backdrop of rush hour traffic, yelling, "We need to keep this as is!" isn’t going to play all that well with his constituents.

But who knows. Maybe he’ll show up. Despite the clear benefit to his district (only 3.2% of his constituents regularly commute by car into the pricing zone), Gioia has yet to come out in support of congestion pricing. You can be sure that the car commuting Council members to his east are happy about that. For them, Gioia’s district is little more than a highway on-ramp that helps them avoid the toll at the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.

  • ddartley

    They’ll be waving “We [heart] Asthma!” signs as they stand in front of the subsidized housing in Queensbridge, I suppose?

  • mike

    oh geez, that’s pretty funny. I’m sure they’ll be cheering, “We WANT this traffic! No to express buses!”

  • Geck

    Even in the car commuting districts out east, I am sure it is still a small minority who actually drive into the CBD and a majority who would benefit from improved mass-transit and a cleaner less congested City. Even if they went on pure self-interest, what are those Pol’s thinking?

  • Roboto

    Will there be any robots besides Weprin there? The press release promises a private viewing when the parking garage owners recharges his batteries with large doses of hundred dollar bills.

  • Mark

    Geck, some suburban commuters do use mass transit — my parents’ home in NJ is 90 minutes from Port Authority by bus. If I still lived there, I’d probably want to see some CP revenues shared with NJ Transit to reduce the cost of my commute. CP boosters may have missed the bus, so to speak, in failing to seek support from suburban commuters who uses buses and trains. There are lots of them!

  • Steve

    Im sorry to tell you guys this, but there no way congestion pricing is gonna happen. The votes arent there in the council or in albany. Sorry.

  • Felix

    Gore’s boy is afraid to take a stand against global warming?

  • Ultimate Insider

    I’m sorry to tell you, Edward, that you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. Pricing definitely passes Council. And Albany is looking pretty good as well.

  • Lew from Brooklyn

    Pricing might pass the concil guys, but DEFINITELY is not a word I would use, especially since rioght now there are 30 votes against it.
    Lew from Brooklyn

  • jacknyc

    CONGESTION PRICING IS DOA IN THE COUNCIL… THE RECENT MTA CUTBACK ON ALREADY COMMITTED IMPROVEMENTS TOOK AWAY ANY PROMISES THAT ARE GIVEN TO COUNCIL MEMBERS!

  • rlb

    Gioia was listed as opposed to pricing in that poll the Times released a couple weeks ago. Has his position changed?

  • Weprin and Avella were the only two elected officials to show up. Weprin suggested to one of the TA Queens Committee volunteers that she was being paid by Bloomberg, which I can assure you is not the case, we are all unpaid volunteers for TA. And with the money he takes from parking garages, he really shouldn’t be accusing anyone.

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