The Story Behind The Death Of Congestion Pricing (For Now)

I am still learning about the dysfunction of New York politics. I know it's bad, but learning the intricacies can take a while. Thankfully I have Jacob Gershman from the Sun to straighten me out (for the most part) on how the whole congestion pricing deal went down and failed because the proponents did not play the game that reformers want to get rid of. Basically Spitzer came in to clear things up in Albany and now he is trying to find his way through the jungle with a pair of snippers instead of his old machete. Bloomberg apparently still needs to learn this lesson.

From The New York Sun:

"Don't push Shelly too hard," Mr. Spitzer cautioned Mr. Bloomberg on how to handle the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver. The mayor was exasperated: "It's always the same thing. What does Shelly want? How the f--- should I know?" he said, according to an observer.

Mr. Bloomberg and his team of lobbyists proceeded with a do-it-or-else strategy. He presented lawmakers with a message of urgency: If they didn't approve congestion pricing by July 16, New York would forfeit $500 million. He didn't offer a back-up plan for relieving congestion that would enable New York to pocket the federal money even if congestion pricing wasn't approved.

The problem for Mr. Bloomberg was that Mr. Silver didn't buy the story. He sensed the deadline was an arbitrary date chosen by the mayor and Ms. Peters and that the $500 million figure was an inflated estimate. The mayor had put the figure at $400 million last month, and officials in the Spitzer administration are now privately saying available federal funds may be closer to $300 million. Mr. Silver figures it is not in the interest of Ms. Peters to exclude the nation's largest city from her anti-congestion initiative. The transportation department needs to unload the $1.2 billion before Congress returns from its summer recess in September and re-appropriates everything that wasn't given away. The most likely scenario is that Mr. Silver will find a way to secure the money without the Legislature committing itself to congestion pricing. If New York misses out on the grants, he'll just blame the mayor for not coming up with a Plan B.

I personally find this insane, but it is business-as-usual up in Albany. It was wrong for Bloomberg to inflate the importance of the deadline especially since Silver knew he was bluffing. The state government currently is set up based on feudalism with many different fiefdoms. If you don't appease the key players you will end up getting burned and that is exactly what happened. Today will pass with no deal and no money for congestion pricing, dealing Bloomberg a huge political loss of capital.

Meanwhile Silver has the possibility of looking good in the end if he helps appropriate the money for the plan down the road. He'll be the hero and Bloomberg will look weak. It wasn't how the Mayor saw this going down, but he didn't play the game. He probably hates the current system and that his large contributions to the state Republican party backfired. But he doesn't despise it as much as I do. This is why we need to elect representatives that will make the best decisions for New Yorkers and not their personal fiefs.