Congestion Pricing

One of the most destructive pieces of misinformation currently floating around the New York State Assembly is this oft-repeated line from Richard Brodsky's newly released report:

Here is a complete copy of Assembly Member Richard Brodsky's "Interim Report and Inquiry" into New York City's long-term planning and congestion pricing proposals. Brodsky, you may recall, is the powerful state lawmaker with the moneybag full of parking industry contributions.

Walter McCaffrey's Committee to Keep New York City Congestion Tax Free has torn a page from StreetFilms' book and put out its very own propaganda video.

Assembly Member Rory Lancman from Fresh Meadows, Queens has sent a three-page letter to his fellow legislators soliciting their support for a legislative alternate to Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal and long-term planning ominbus bill, Sewell Chan reports. 

Then: "Honk No" to Mayor Bloomberg's plan. Now: Stop honking and pay $8. Bloomberg's West Side stadium foes are now his congestion pricing friends.

Sounding frustrated, Mayor Bloomberg said in his radio address this weekend that it would be "absolutely ridiculous" for state lawmakers to leave hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds to another city by rejecting New York City's congestion pricing plan.

Westchester Democrat Richard Brodsky has emerged as the State Assembly's leading critic of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. Later today Brodsky will release a report on the steps of City Hall characterizing the Mayor's congestion pricing plan as a regressive tax that puts most of the burden on poor and middle-income drivers (and ignoring the fact that only 4.6% of New York City residents drive to work in Manhattan's Central Business District and most poor and middle-income New Yorkers use transit).

City Hall and the New York State Assembly may be headed to the biggest showdown since Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton met on the dueling grounds at Weehawken (crossing the river back then was free but you had to use a row boat). Erik Engquist and Anne Michaud report in today's Crain's Insider:

State Assembly Member Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester) is releasing his report on Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal on the steps of City Hall today at 2:00 pm. Billed as "the first thorough, independent, and fair-minded" analysis (Apparently, the Partnership for New York's two-year study wasn't thorough and Bruce Schaller's massive body of research wasn't independent enough for Brodsky).