“This is the way the world ends …
… Not with a bang but a whimper.”*
I revisited congestion pricing in New York City recently. (See Congestion Pricing Redux from April 1 below.)
Well, after having been recommended by the NY City Council, with the support of scores of municipal good government, environmental, labor and business groups, it sailed up the Hudson River to Albany - where it died. (Albany is not the Valhalla of the Norse myths, I can assure you.) This is the lead story in today’s “NY Times” - $8 Traffic Fee for Manhattan Gets Nowhere. Whose fault is it? Many of the state legislators are pointing their fingers at Mayor Bloomberg for some sort of “arrogant elitism,” while others think that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Bloomberg adversary in almost all things, killed it because he could. (“I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”) The “NY Times” editorial board certainly is in the latter camp. See Mr. Silver Does It Again in which they say of him: “He failed to put New Yorkers’ needs before his personal agenda. That makes him unworthy of his office.” Nuff said.
*(“The Hollow Men”- T. S. Eliot)
April 14th, 2008 at 5:30 am
I think Mayor Bloomberg´s effort to solve the traffic situation in New York is clever. Mayor Bloomberg is setting up arguments that points in direction of what he want. He want Manhatten to be free from heavy traffic. In his effort to make this happen he has set a $8 fee for entering Manhatten. This is have we solve our problems, namely by saying what we want. The things that we want allways happens eventough some laws has to be adjusted to take all the different needs in to account.
Mayor Bloomberg is doing the right things. He is saying what he want for the city. This is how real change comes about.