Congestion Pricing

From The Daily Politics: Mayor Bloomberg hosted members of the Brooklyn Assembly delegation at Gracie Mansion this morning as part of his ongoing lobbying effort on congestion pricing, which the Legislature must sign off on by the end of next month in order to land the full $354 million pledged by the US DOT. About … Continued

His license plate rationing scheme beloved by none, this afternoon Assemblyman Richard Brodsky offered his second congestion pricing alternative: raising the $2.50 taxi "drop charge" to $6.50, increasing fines for illegal parking and blocking the box, and further cutting the number of parking placards issued to government employees.

We linked to it from Today's Headlines a few weeks ago, but this Metro op-ed from City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito is worth a repeat. Viverito, the first Puerto Rican council member to be elected in Manhattan's District 8, writes that, contrary to claims from "suburban elected officials from wealthy areas," congestion pricing "could provide immediate and measurable relief of traffic congestion while improving the air that all of my constituents breathe and the buses and subways that they ride daily."

 

Following our post yesterday about a newspaper article in which Andrew Hevesi was quoted as calling congestion pricing "a money grab to pay for mass transit," Streetsblog got a call from the Queens assemblyman's office.

Here's one for the anti-pricing populists. 

 With the March 31 deadline to qualify for $354M in federal transit funds approaching, the Campaign for New York's Future and the Empire State Transportation Alliance have rolled out an ad campaign to get the public behind congestion pricing.

The Daily Politics reports that Congressman Anthony Weiner is ramping up for an imminent mayoral bid by crediting Michael Bloomberg with "put[ting] the last nail in the coffin to the notion that New York City is ungovernable." But at the same time, during an appearance at Kingsborough Community College today, Weiner tried to score points off congestion pricing by framing it as a plan that an experienced politician like himself would steer clear of.

At a Queens Community Board 5 meeting earlier this month, Assembly Member Andrew Hevesi made what may be the first attack against congestion pricing based on one of its primary selling points.