Aaron Naparstek

City Council Member David Yassky has come out in favor of congestion pricing, with the caveat that "many features of the Mayor's proposal will need to be reworked." Yassky's Brooklyn district, it's worth noting, encompasses three East River bridges, the Battery Tunnel and a seemingly endless number of of honking, spewing, frustrated motorists. Until last week, Yassky had been a long-time fence-sitter on the congestion pricing issue. Why did he finally commit? Last week Mayor Bloomberg announced that New York City's taxi fleet would be converted to all-hybrid vehicles by 2012. The Mayor was notably generous in crediting Yassky (twice, on national television, in the presence of Al Roker, no less) for conceiving of and fighting for the hybrid taxi initiative in City Council. Here's what Yassky wrote in an e-mail announcement to constituents:

If you are planning to write a letter urging your local City Council Member to support Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal, the chart below will be useful to you. Based on 2000 census data, it shows the percentage of New York City workers who commute to work by car into Manhattan south of 60th Street (also known as the region's Central Business District or CBD).

Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson was in Portland recently where he caught up with a neighborhood "Intersection Repair" project.

If you noticed an increase in the quality, depth and number of my Streetsblog posts in recent weeks, it's not because I suddenly got smarter or started working harder. Some of the savviest and most interesting items that we have published in recent days had my byline on them but were, in fact, ghost-written by John Kaehny, the former executive director of Transportation Alternatives.

Mark Gorton, founder and executive director of the Open Planning Project, the publisher of Streetsblog, has agreed to match up to $250,000 in donations to a Transportation Alternatives campaign promoting Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030. Today's Crain's Insider reports:

Quinnipiac has a new survey out this morning showing that 90 percent of New Yorkers feel that traffic is a "serious problem" but a majority of voters, by a 56 to 37 percent margin, oppose Mayor Bloomberg's plan to charge $8 to drive in to Manhattan south of 86th Street. The poll also shows a significant gap between Manhattan voters, who support the Mayor's plan by a margin of 62 percent, and survey respondents in the other four boroughs. 

State Assembly Member Joan Millman's Downtown and brownstone Brooklyn district includes some of the most politically progressive, environmentally-conscious and traffic-choked neighborhoods of New York City -- neighborhoods that have been clamoring for traffic relief for years. Yet, Millman is, for now, opposed to Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. In a letter sent to constituents who contacted her office Millman cites five concerns, summed up as follows:

As The Politicker's Azi Paybarah reported yesterday, the anti-traffic relief group, "Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free" re-released its report, "Congestion Pricing in the Central Business District: Let's Look Hard Before We Leap." Commissioned by the Queens Chamber of Commerce, the study calls into doubt the benefits of Mayor Bloomberg's proposed congestion pricing scheme, with some revised numbers from an earlier version they put out a few weeks ago. 

At a City Council transportation hearing yesterday Manhattan City Council Member Jessica Lappin expressed anxiety about the effects of congestion pricing on her Upper East Side district. The ill-informed Lappin, who clearly has not read Donald Shoup's 750-page masterwork, The High Cost of Free Parking, asked DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan if the city would be building new municipal parking garages to accompany Mayor Bloomberg's traffic-reduction plan. Metro reports:

The Today Show cast, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Yahoo! executive and Council Member David Yassky stand with a gas-electric hybrid Ford Escape SUV taxi this morning.