Comments on: Bloomberg: NYC is Poorer Today Thanks to Albany Inaction

By: Congestion Pricing? No, not yet

Congestion Pricing? No, not yet — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:56:35 +0000

Under Bloomberg's watch, NYC has lost $46-million a year for the past 5-6 years due to illegal placard parking abuse, specifically parking meter abuses [Bruce Schaller report 2006 - go ahead, Google it]. This is the elephant parked in the meter spot that Bloomberg only gives lip service to. Congestion pricing is a scheme to raise money, but in the meantime Bloomberg lets $46-million a year slip away to 150,000 parking placarded vehicles (Transportation Alternatives study). The way I figure, NYC has lost $250-million in the last 5-6 years because of illegal parking which Bloomberg will not clamp down on. We don't need this driving tax called congestion pricing, we need Bloomberg to enforce aleady existing laws and stop illegal parking placard abuse.

By: rex

rex — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:38:21 +0000

Jake wrote: "Reliable Senate Democratic liberals"

Ba Haa Haa, there is an oxymoron. If this journey proved anything it proved that the aboved referenced do not exist. How many of the above pretended that poor people drive in NYC, and that they would burdened by CP. Ha hha ha ha ahahah ahahaha

By: Angus Grieve-Smith

Angus Grieve-Smith — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:32:44 +0000

Interesting you would say that, T. Yesterday when I was looking for documentation about the Murray Hill/Park Avenue ex-streetcar tunnel, I came across Joe Brennan's fascinating history of the Beach Pneumatic Railway. Talk about the political will! People were trying to construct subways for at least forty years before August Belmont finally got the IRT built in 1904.

http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/beach/index.html

Bonus: how'd you like to have one of these running up the Bowery?

By: t

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 02:55:56 +0000

Yeah, it seems unlikely that whoever becomes the next mayor will make this happen. While people like Quinn eventually supported congestion pricing, the initial reluctance seems to indicate that this will not be an issue taken up in a future administration, especially not without $500 million in free money.

One wonders: if the subways and commuter rail lines hadn't been constructed when they were, would we have the political will to get them built today?

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 02:13:23 +0000

Gary is completely in lala land...Yeah, lets hold our breath for Albany to take action on congestion pricing now that the Mayor's plan is out of the way. PLEASE! The ONLY reason the governor, the speaker, and certainly Bruno even tolerated the discussion was because of the Mayor's muscle.

If the Mayor goes away on this, so goes congestion pricing. Let's not fool ourselves here.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:59:41 +0000

Jake,

I agree that the mayor did a poor job selling the plan but the true shame lies in the degree to which the legislators demanded that he get down on bended knee in front of them. Now, surely nobody wants to be made to look weak in politics and the Democrats, facing a strong mayor from the opposition party, didn't just want to look like they take their marching orders from Bloomberg, and yet, the idea that nobody could figure out a way to save face AND pass this legislation speaks volumes about the nature of NY politics. For far too long the state has wielded it's power freely over the city and now that the Mayor is presiding, with high approval ratings, over a resurgent city he wanted to assert some authority.

The thing that bothers me though about this is the degree to which the issue was always framed as a matter of power sharing and politics rather than doing what's right. Let's have a debate on the merits. Let's talk about congestion. But instead the state's representatives demanded more respect from the Mayor and more details and studies. The legislature had a tough issue to debate and they ducked it so they could accuse the mayor of not being nice to them.

http://dencity.wordpress.com

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:59:05 +0000

Jake, I agree that the mayor did a poor job selling the plan but the true shame lies in the degree to which the legislators demanded that he get down on bended knee in front of them. Now, surely nobody wants to be made to look weak in politics and the Democrats, facing a strong mayor from the opposition party, didn't just want to look like they take their marching orders from Bloomberg, and yet, the idea that nobody could figure out a way to save face AND pass this legislation speaks volumes about the nature of NY politics. For far too long the state has wielded it's power freely over the city and now that the Mayor is presiding, with high approval ratings, over a resurgent city he wanted to assert some authority. The thing that bothers me though about this is the degree to which the issue was always framed as a matter of power sharing and politics rather than doing what's right. Let's have a debate on the merits. Let's talk about congestion. But instead the state's representatives demanded more respect from the Mayor and more details and studies. The legislature had a tough issue to debate and they ducked it so they could accuse the mayor of not being nice to them.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:41:26 +0000

Transportation and environmental advocates need to take off their rose shaded glasses.. congestion pricing is a great idea and many legislators wanted to do all they could. Reliable Senate Democratic liberals weren't supporting yesterday's legislation, which says more about how clueless the Mayor and the advocates were than about the dysfunctional legislature.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 22:22:58 +0000

Today, I am ashamed to be a Democrat. No more fundraising from me for local Democrats.

By: Niccolo Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:24:34 +0000

Thats rich jmnyc.
And as for the City Council, the Mayor's plan wouldn't have passed the City Council in its My Way or the Highway form. But we'll never know now.

By: jmnyc

jmnyc — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 19:21:15 +0000

NYC needs real home rule. We are forced to get approval from Albany for Congestion Pricing and Commuter Taxes which is ridiculous. The NY City Council should have been able to address both these issues. It is really unfortunate and hopefully this will be an impetus to get these types of changes made.

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:40:56 +0000

Congestion pricing is not dead.

What took a beating is Mayor Bloomberg's colossal ego.

There's no reason that the legislature can't pass a plan, one better thought out than the Mayor's.

The $500MM federal funds and the $3 MTA fare amounted to bullying and fearmongering. These can be effective political tools, but the gambit failed here.

We need congestion pricing and we need it done well. Let's stay on the legislature to get a bill passed, and get it passed right.

By: Jason Varone

Jason Varone — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:33:11 +0000

Aaron, did you hear the mayor say this at the press conference?

“Remember, congestion pricing is something the city has the authorization to do,” the mayor said. “The only thing we can’t do is we can’t institute fines or fees. That’s what we went to Albany for permission to do so, that’s what they didn’t give us.”

What does that mean exactly? The city doesn't need Albany to authorize the charge, but they are needed when the city attempts to enforce the charge? I don't understand what the mayor was eluding to there.

By: Mark Fleischmann

Mark Fleischmann — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:28:10 +0000

Unfortunately seceding from NY State would not be a good idea because our water supply is controlled by people upstate. What we need to do is get the voters of the Lower East Side to give Sheldon Silver the pink slip. This is the same guy who torpedoed the renovation of Penn Station. For the transit-conscious, he is public enemy number one.

By: greg

greg — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:11:29 +0000

time to secede from the state
heck maybe even the union