Richard Brodsky

The Queens lawmaker foolishly said he agreed with former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky's flawed argument that fees on drivers are "elitist."

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones,” wrote John Maynard Keynes in his ground-breaking 1935 treatise, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money."

The Westchester Democrat who carried the banner for congestion pricing foes in Albany two years ago is grabbing attention with another anti-transit stance. Posing as a defender of New York City school children, Assembly member Richard Brodsky sent a letter to the MTA this week claiming that "the actual cost of free and discounted student fares is close to zero." Twenty-three of his Assembly colleagues, including New York City Democrats Jeffrey Dinowitz and Linda Rosenthal, have signed on.

Biggest Setback: After being approved by an unprecedented civic coalition, the mayor and New York City Council, congestion pricing -- the one policy measure that simultaneously reduces traffic congestion while raising money for mass transit and livable streets -- died in an Albany backroom without even a vote.

Not that we need more evidence that the Yankee Stadium parking deal was rancid to the core, but a Saturday story in the Times reveals the sad details of the Bloomberg administration's push for luxury game day digs -- a 12-seat suite in left field -- for which it traded 250 spots to the team.

Last week we e-mailed a short list of questions about the MTA financial crisis to Assembly Member Richard Brodsky. Here are his responses, received yesterday, shortly after we posted our "doomsday" scorecard.

In today's Times, Richard Brodsky weighs in on the pitfalls of shortchanging capital needs in the face of the immediate MTA budget crisis.

A short item in yesterday's Crain's Insider notes that the hiring of 100 additional traffic agents is on hold due to belt-tightening in the city budget: