Today’s Headlines

Clinton Would Consider Gas Tax Holiday; Obama Opposes (WSJ)
Bloomberg: Biofuel-Friendly Energy Bill Is a Disgrace (Sun)
Roger Cohen: Blaming Biofuels Is ‘Hogwash’ (NYT)
Feds Offer LA County $213M to Implement Pricing on Freeways (LAT)
Times Profiles Brodsky
Council Considers Bill to Change Parade Rules (Gotham Gazette)
Queens Bus Riders Get Their Chance to Grade Service (NY1)
In Newark, 50 Percent of Devils Fans Take the Train to the Game (NYT)
Bike Theft on Earth Day (Bike Blog)
Dutch Cyclists Request External Air Bags (Jalopnik)

JF

Park Avenue co-op owners could easily have absorbed the $8 fee. But it would have been tougher for the Flatbush carpenter who does not want to schlep his toolbox on the subway so he can renovate a Tribeca kitchen or the Queens home care attendant who might have to take a bus to a subway to care for an elderly woman in Gramercy Park but is lucky enough to have a husband who can drop her off on his way to work.

You can say this about congestion pricing opponents: they have active imaginations. Never mind that the Flatbush carpenter now wastes a lot more than $8 sitting in traffic, or that the Queens home care attendant and her husband would pay $4 each – and how much does he make if he drives to work in Manhattan? It’d be nice to hear from an actual person, not some made-up character.

If Brodsky really did oppose this on principle, he must feel horrible about all the real-life poor people who are going to be stuck with shitty subway service or gigantic fare hikes in order to spare those imaginary people from their imaginary ordeal. I know, he promised us money for the MTA capital plan, but I don’t see any sign of it yet…
Carm

The Times’ article on Brodsky is moronic and once again perpetuates the myth of the poor and working class driver commuting to Manhattan. No mention of who actually drives — and who takes the bus and subway. Once again driving is made equivalent to walking or bicycling. Once again the real costs imposed by driving are ignored. It’s as if the editors for this slop didnt bother reading the Times’ own coverage of the issue (or its editorials.) A total load of shit. Hurray for Brodsky, liar and distorter. Progressive my ass.
drose

Well, now we know where most of NYC’s congestion pricing money went; to LA to help maintain freeways!

I’m sure Brodsky, Weprin, Weiner and others will be happy that their car-owning brethren on the Left Coast will have to pay tolls to drive on clogged freeways, whereas they won’t have to on our clogged highways. Great work by our elected officials!
Spud Spudly

Ahhhh, that Brodsky story warms my heart. It makes me want to illegally register to vote in his district.
Car Free Nation

I have to hand it to Obama for resisting calls to give the gas tax holiday. I was sure all candidates would succumb.
Mark Walker

Richard Brodsky: “I don’t believe public places should be distributed based on an ability to pay.” If he means it, then he should get behind the Kheel plan for free transit. Let’s see how “progressive” he really is.
Competitive Primaries

Too bad the city Assembly delegation got completely whipped by Brodsky in this debate. They blame Bloomberg, but he wasn’t in the closed, secret meeting where Brodsky’s distortions held sway. Shame on the Manhattan and the rest of the city’s Assemblymembers for not even making this much of a debate with Brodsky. Just sit back and keep getting elected for doing nothing…
Spud Spudly

Good yet brief story from Business Week Online about declining car use, gas prices and mass transit:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/0818b4082000518114;_ylt=AkWZ3NKdMuNjW8W6jgoJJ4gDW7oF
J. Mork

My theory is that while the editorial boards saw the wisdom in pricing, a lot of reporters have a windshield perspective and were happy to see CP go down. That’s why now we’re seeing “Polls say Ding! Dong! the witch is dead” articles now.
ALERT

Chris Ward, head of the General Contractors, is being considered as new head of the Port Authority. While Ward has worked hard to ingratiate himself with the civic organizations, supporting congestion pricing and Moynihan Station, he should be VERY carefully vetted. The Croton Filtration Plant is HIS boondoggle, as head of DEP. This could be dangerous indeed.
Spud Spudly

That Croton plant was in the works long before Ward was ever in charge over there. That was something kicking around since Giuliani’s administration and it would have gone forward much sooner at a much lower cost if not for a failed lawsuit from local NIMBY heads who were going to get cleaner drinking water as a result of the plant. You’re probably one of those NIMBY heads.
Spud Spudly

I should say the lawsuit was successful in delaying the project until the city could go to Albany and get some park legislation passed. But ultimately it got built in the same spot that the prior administration recommended, only at a much higher cost.
Davis

Good news. Chris Ward is outstanding.
Spartiacque

Get your facts straight. The Croton Plant was around since 1917, but there was not one Mayor stupid enough to listen to the water company or DEP until Bloomberg. Guiliani took it off, as did every other Mayor.

Bloomberg’s boondoggle will be this floating plant monumnet deep in the ground, chosen only to satisfy contractor bosses who promised the worker’s unions raises. It was never about clean water.

Clean water means protecting the watershed.
Spartiacque

Moreover, tt will be dangerous if Ward is chosen. Under his reign, DEP mismanagement exploded as did its capital budget. Ward did this withoug regard to the ratepayer/taxpayer. That is why everyone is paying more on the water bill. One can only imagine what would happen at the PA!
Spud Spudly

That’s totally untrue. There’s never been any “Croton Plant” before, so I guess you’re talking about the Croton water system(???). I have no idea what “water company” you’re talking about as the system has never been privately owned — it was built by the city and has always been owned by the city. Bloomberg had nothing to do with choosing to build the filtration plant and Giuliani never “took it off,” whatever that means. And finally, the City never wanted to build the plant at all. It was forced to by the federal government as part of the agreement that allowed it to continue to not filter the rest of the water system.

I’m sure you have lots of other fascinating pieces of fiction to discuss but this isn’t the forum. You’ll have a hard time convincing the hardcore Streetsbloggers to dislike Chris Ward because he was one of the prime movers in support of congestion pricing and public transit improvement projects. I don’t know his personal views on congestion pricing but he of course supported it since the money for the MTA’s capital budget mostly winds up in the pockets of the General Contractors Association members. I doubt his main purpose for supporting it had to do with trying to “ingratiate himself with civic organizations” as someone (probably you) implied above.
Shemp

Chris was a top official in the Port Authority when it had the guts to start charging more for its rush hour tolls and the brains to get enviro backing for it from the get-go, back in 2001.