He says it like its a bad thing....

How about: "I think you New Yorkers should keep subsidizing Upstate Hicks while they cram your streets, pollute your air and kill your neighbors"

I'm sure that would play much better in The Post.

Ironically, or perhaps cynically, much of the jeremiad concerning the lock box is driven by the politicians in the City and State who stood by and watched as Pataki and a collection of Mayors drained the MTA of tax funding. Congestion Pricing will provide the MTA with resources in much the same way that the TBTA presently provides the MTA with resources.

The oppositionist position is really that they won't be able to cutoff funding in the future in the way they have in the past, exactly the opposite of what they now say. The budget support that the State and City were giving to the MTA was diverted to other needs (among them tax cuts) over the course of the last decade. Now they want a Congestion Pricing system that precludes doing exactly what they have done.

The funny thing is that the horse is out of the barn on this, you can't put the genie back in the bottle, oh there must be more metaphors for this. The commission has presented a system to preclude future governments from refusing the MTA needed funds. Now the same people responsible for the denials that got us to this point want "guarantees" that they won't do it again. This is a guarantee that cannot be delivered simply because there is no guarantee of any future tax funding apart and separate from congestion pricing.

Even with congestion pricing the MTA will still have needs given the extensive and aggressive system expansion they are proposing. Now the politicians who applaud the expansions want to refuse support for a dedicated stream of money by positing that they will fail to provide any other resources.

Or, you could look at it like Lew Fidler that it is all easily resolved by a payroll tax that the City Council doesn't have control over either. (congestion can be solved in his world by enforcement heretofor not forthcoming).

It is, Marie, but Hevesi's ability to spin a rousing borough warfare story doesn't mean he's acting your interests. Consider Deborah Glick, a representative for lower Manhattan. Hers is a neighborhood Hevesi claims would benefit from pricing at the cost of his own, and he's half right: it would benefit greatly. The car owning percentage there is extremely low, and yet Glick has opposed pricing. Why is this? (It isn't outer-borough gentillesse, I can promise you that.) It's because the real issues of congestion and pollution are not divided by borough lines. Anti-pricing pols across the city are motivated by a mix of car and parking interests, political alliances, resentment for the Bloomberg administration, and who knows what else. (As a former constituent of Glick's, I really was befuddled.)

You should understand that if fewer cars are driving into lower Manhattan from all parts, fewer will be driving through or from Queens. This will improve your air quality and express bus times. Some suburban cheapskates may try to find parking near subway stations, but they'll quickly be thwarted by either residential parking permits or the popularity of the very spots they crave. (I highly doubt such well placed unmetered spots are open as it is.) In a fundamental way it does not make sense to get off the expressway in Queens, tool around surface streets, search for an open parking space, walk, and then take the NYC subway (which car commuters not-so-secretly loathe anyway). I would worry about an asteroid hitting Queens before I would worry about this convenient nonsense of a disaster scenario.

As long as we have upstate leeching off of and controlling the city we will never be able to move forward on any major problems.

...would NOT have citywide environmental implications......

You can also point out that Jim Brennan is calling for a tax increase "for education" since most of the increase in funding for education is going for pensions. Isn't that another tax increase for richer pensions and earlier retirement?

Lew from Brooklyn

Bravo, Mr. Hevesi. Clearly he understands that his constituents are being treated unfairly in this plan ...

Which of his constuents would that be? The 2/3 who take transit, and would not have to pay the money? The ones who take express buses, and would travel faster on less-crowded roads? The ones who breathe, and would have cleaner air? The ones who have to deal with Queens Boulevard, and would be safer?

Out of the 4.2% of his constituents who drive to the CBD every day, is Hevesi fighting for the ones who wouldn't pay anything extra, because they take the tunnel? Or for the ones who would see a significant time savings due to decreased congestion, well worth $8? I'm really trying to figure out who in his district would lose under this plan.

Why can't we just have the EIS? He's not asking for anything outrageous. It will probably find, much like the Cross Harbor Study, that pollution in Manhattan will decrease to the detriment of western Queens.

He needs some very elementary education about the connection between mass transit, automobiles, and the environment.

He can just bill the taxpayers for congestion charges racked up for personal expenditures!