http://newyorkmetro.com/news/features/18862/index.html

and for Doc Barnett above, there is no finer political writer in the city than Chris Smith, say what you will about New York Magazine, at least it isn’t the NY Times.

I re-read Chris’s piece after reading the comments, and I still think his point is being misconstrued. I think he’s saying: “Mr. Mayor, don’t let the Lew Fidlers get in the way of this.” I think he supports smart growth. And congestion pricing. But he’s hoping that when all is said and done, the score is: real estate developers 50, liveable streets idealists 50, not Trump and Ratner 95, the rest of us 5. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how I read it.

As for Sam Schwartz, yikes. If he hadn’t already lost all credibility when he signed on as a consultant to “Atlantic Yards,” that surely was the final stake.

Bloomberg let the political moment for this pass when he opened up the bridges to single occupancy vehicles after 911. It might be noted that he did so after the loud urging of Sam Schwartz who was “consulting” for the restaurant and parking industries at the time. Schwartz came out with a lunatic piece today in the Daily News that will again help doom congestion pricing and then went on WNYC to hype it.

But, as I said originally, a NIMBY is “not just against badly designed development but against smart growth in general.”

Add the transit union and construction trades to your list of congestion pricing supporters. These interests have deduced that billions for transit improvements are to their benefit. We need to hear more from labor and construction interests ASAP.

This official, who has briefed Bloomberg several times on various policy proposals, says the mayor is chiefly concerned with two things on any given issue: the incentives a policy creates, and how stakeholders will respond to an initiative.

Bloomberg’s reputation as a pragmatic technocrat is well established. Rohit Aggarwala openly says PlaNYC began as a strategic planning exercise for longterm land use. A real estate agenda at work? Perhaps. Land use lead to considering transportation, which lead to considering air quality, which lead to considering energy, and thus PlaNYC was born.

The constituency supporting PlaNYC is a coalition of idealists and business. The idealists recognize in the plan many ways to finally address environmental injustice, end pro-auto transportation, improve air quality, etc. Business interests recognize it as vital to their longterm financial health.

Idealists (I’m one of them) are critical in ensuring the plan achieves its social promise. But idealists should not profess shock or cynicism that business is a driving interest in the plan, either. We know this about Bloomberg: he is market friendly and ultimately views government’s responsibility as one of configuring incentives so that business and other actors in society will produce a socially optimal result.

What’s the easy alternative again? Add-ons to the byzantine city building code? That is not saving the world, or even improving our lives. That is progressive bullshit. Maybe next week Mr. Smith will demand more “affordable housing” to go with his regulations that make it more expensive to build. Meanwhile, we have a decent, unexpected shot at the most promising livable streets reform of our time. We see who is willing to make sacrifices for conservation, and for whom it’s never going to be exactly the right time, the right mayor, or the right set of progressive adjectives. May the doers win.

And don’t give me any whining about transit-oriented development and density. The act of building highrises and an arena over a transit hub does not in itself make it “transit-oriented,” especially when it includes 3,800 parking spaces, the hub is already near capacity, and there’s no real plan for managing traffic (let’s not forget that massive “interim surface parking lot.” Not to mention the most f***ed up “public” process ever.

So forgive Mr. Smith if he’s just a little bit skeptical. The proof will be in the pudding — not the plan.

The clock is ticking and the legislature is expert at killing time. For opponents of congestion pricing to win, they simply have to not lose (an Albany specialty is delaying votes) and the clock will run out on the mayor.

Savvy political reporters like Chris Smith (who has been on the beat for 20 years) understand this and are focused on the things in the plan the mayor has control over.

“It would be truly depressing if the primary result of the Olympics bid and PlaNYC turns out to be the same: lots of big new buildings, only this time with Bloomberg’s million new trees growing in the shadows.”

I tend to suspect that they are not just against badly designed development but against smart growth in general.

Bloomberg is talking about building more housing near transit stations, and this sort of smart growth is good for the environment AND is good for real estate developers.

I also don’t think Chris Smith supported his claim that the hidden agenda behind congestion charging is to benefit developers. But let’s say this is in fact the motive. Then I think it would be fair to say, “If there is congestion pricing, it will improve the quality of life in the city. This might lead to development. If nothing worthwhile is done about traffic, quality of life will be degraded and there will be less development because fewer people will want to live in NYC.” So what’s the problem?

Isn’t a cleaner, more sustainable city likely to result in more real estate development? If it’s easier to get around, if mass-transit is improved, if more neighborhoods get parks…won’t all of those things make city life more attractive? How is this prospect depressing?

Even if PLANYC is a “fig leaf” for creating favorable development conditions, so what? Would it be better for those buildings to be built anyway (as a growing NYC population will likely necessitate) without the trees in their shadows? I’m not sure what the writer wants or expects.

The proof that Bloomberg means it, is that he will continue to push this in the budget and with the new transportation commish.

The real risk is not that Bloomberg is insincere, it’s that he’s too much of a political oddity for his successor to carry much of this through…900 days is not a long time in politics.