Wednesday’s Headlines: Now Come the Lawsuits Edition
Comptroller Brad Lander and a band of legal eagles will rally at noon today to announce a lawsuit to compel Gov. Hochul to advance congestion pricing, Politico and the Times reported. It’s unclear right now on what grounds Lander can sue — though Rick Hills, a member of his team, offered an interesting legal analysis here.
And don’t forget, our own David Meyer has dug into this legal conundrum already and determined that a legal strategy remains unclear until we learn more about the Biden administration’s position on the delay, and whether the U.S. DOT plans to issue the necessary documents and approvals for tolling to move forward.
A lot of people want answers, and many will start their day by flooding the White House with calls (the switchboard number, as anyone who’s seen “All the Presidents Men” knows, is 202-456-1111):
Other people are focusing their attention on Sen. Charles Schumer, whose D.C. office is accepting comments at (202) 224-6542. And obviously, Mayor Adams’s support for the governor’s possibly illegal move is interesting, as amNY reported.
In addition to Lander’s presser at his Lower Manhattan office, there will also be a massive protest at Hochul’s Midtown office at 633 Third Ave. at 5:30 p.m. Details here.
In the congestion pricing news roundup:
- Friend of Streetsblog Charles Komanoff offered a broad roundup of the “Hochul Murder Mystery” that’s played out over the last week. (Washington Spectator)
- State pols are gambling that gambling could bail out the MTA after Gov. Hochul killed the already-agreed upon funding plan known as congestion pricing. (NY Post, Crain’s)
- Like Streetsblog, the Sunnyside Post covered yesterday’s pro-congestion pricing rally.
- It was nice to see a city Department of Health commissioner finally connect the dots between unhealthy (Politico, scroll down to “In other news”). We long pestered Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan’s predecessors to make car-reduction strategies a key part of the city’s health agenda … to no avail.
- QNS printed a fact-averse anti-congestion pricing op-ed from Assembly Member David Weprin, but AFAIC, our own Dave Colon had the best take on Weprin from last week in Albany, consigning him to the dustbin of history:
- Subway problems are on the rise. Blame #CongestionKathy. (Gothamist)
- And delays are coming to accessibility improvements. Blame #CongestionKathy. (The City)
- Continuing the Times’s solid toll coverage, critic Michael Kimmelman slammed #CongestionKathy for “poor leadership.”
- I was looking sharp — and talking tart — on NY1 yesterday, espousing my “class war” theory.
In other news:
- Bad vegan: Here’s the only story that can get congestion pricing off the Post front page and page 3. But in a demonstration of just how big the Joey Chestnut news is, the Times covered it, too (but missed the obvious headline: “Dog Daze”).
- And finally, the always-on-fleek Department of Sanitation social media account raised a good question here: How do you throw away a kayak (an agency spokesperson said that if it’s plastic, it can be put out with the plastic recycling — stripped of non-plastic items, of course):
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