Puh-leeeeze.

You give the man way too much credit.

Bloomberg made some political mistakes on Congestiopn Pricing but my big problem with the whole thing is that people like Brodsky have been blocking the city's ability to control its own destiny. He has been a major opponent of both a commuter tax and more educating funding as mandated by the CFE suit.

NYC needs real home rule so the City Council can make decisions on taxes and fees and get out from under the thumb of Albany.

Please don't call this a personal attack! I don't even think Cheney said anything like this about all the Halliburton allegations (although I guess he fees no need to communicate with the public anyway).

Not so. We wealthy people are quick to hop a cab for short distances -- yet we'll take the subway if it's convenient and practically free (as in monthly pass). Price elasticity doesn't apply..

Anecdote: I was leaving an evening NY Philharmonic concert at Cunnigham Park with the crowd streaming out onto the residential streets with folding chairs and blankets. Cars occupied by other concertgoers could mingle with crowd but just slowly for a block or three. Sure enough a 20 something in a new SUV yells in frustration to no one in particular, "Get on the sidewalk!" All the parking restrictions and congestion charging and luxury express buses on 5 minute headways won't tame these ignorant brats, these voters, these... but how different are all of us from him. He's as frustrated as we are, a victim of the same money based 'way of life'. He's a bit less aware of environmental and transportation issues and we know that by his station and misdirected anger. He identifies himself to me as a jerk by bellowing out of car window, but we both vote with our dollars for globalized clothing and food. Oil exports (to us) are about to fall off a cliff. That will soon result in massive and permanent economic and social disruption. As I see it, we are all up the same creek - together. Someday that SUV driver will be competing with me for something a lot more dear than 3 sq ft of space in Bayside. And he won't be safely contained in his car.

PS: Bloomberg is no dummy. At least he will be able to claim he tried to get folks to change. More than the Honorable Dinosaur.

But anyone who follows the budget (including, surprise surprise, the legislature) knows it's BS.

I hold no brief for Brodsky, and I hold him accountable for taking the wrong position on this. But Bloomberg bears as much credit for the failure as he gets for raising the issue to prominence.

This is a sad day for common sense.

Though it also seems from a lot of the complaints about "process" and "timing" that a leader proposing anything bold within what seems like a reasonable time frame to an ordinary person cuts against every fiber of these politicians' beings.

And, I think the "blood on his hands" hyperbole works against a resolution with powerful people almost giving them an excuse to deny your appeal. The complexity of the issue makes the denial all the more acceptable in the face of resort to that sort of rhetoric.

Shelly and his conference really challenged the Mayor to go ahead and hang the $500 Million around their necks. We'll see how much that albatross really weighs. The Mayor is a media genius and one of maybe the three most politically powerful media tycoons in the world (the others being Berlusconi and Murdock). Now he is in a position of claiming that $500 million had to be received from the Feds for 2nd Avenue and East Side Access to go forward. He has to make that claim while sitting on a $5 Billion surplus.

Conversely, Albany is in the position of having to come up with the State portions for those same projects. Brodsky has already said he supports full funding from other sources. It gets to be an interesting game of chess, though I am unsure of whose move is next, the Mayor handing out the blame for blowing the Federal money, or the Legislature finally identifying the state portion of the MTA Capital plan? All of the parties have already taken credit for 2nd Ave and LIRR-ESA. They took credit when they passed the Transportation Bond Act and they all cut the ribbons in front of the cameras. Who is going to run out there now and tie the ribbons back up?

But "blood on his hands" won't get us where we want to be. It will only continue to piss these powerful people off.

CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW CLEANER THE AIR WOULD HAVE BEEN! THEREFORE HOW MANY LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED????

We've offered many non ad-hominem critiques of Brodsky's ideas about congestion pricing, but he has chosen to focus on the personal criticism. It's hard for me to believe that he's sincere if he hasn't addressed any of the substantive criticism.

What does everyone think the real reason is? Not enough control over the funds it'll generate? Afraid of the political repercussions in their home districts?