Congestion Pricing May Be Dead, But Our Problems Live On

Thanks to the Assembly Democrats, congestion pricing died a slow death yesterday and boy oh boy did that make the Mayor mad. He heaped tons of scorn on the Assembly and called them all sorts of names. Meanwhile the retort was that because of the Mayor's "high-handed" they decided not to go with him on this one. As The Albany Project points out, there were all sorts of winners and losers on this one, but the most important was New York City and the people that live here and rely on mass transit. Due to political games, we are now $17 billion in the hole for the MTA Capital budget. Where will this money come from? Most likely nowhere.

Bloomberg had his faults on the issue for sure, but most importantly Albany did not like the way he approached them and because of that, they punished all of us for it. That goes especially for Speaker Sheldon Silver. He certainly has his history of playing games with the Mayor and now we lose out even more than that West side stadium deal a few years back, despite those that say it isn't personal. Perhaps not, but it was personal to the millions that need a better funded mass transit system as our city continues to grow.

Now the Mayor is lame duck and congestion pricing advocates are pissed at Speaker Silver. While Bloomberg is finished with his term in less than two years from now, Silver can keep going on indefinitely as long as he keeps getting re-elected. Now that is something we can change. Paul Newell and Luke Henry are running against the shady Silver in the primary this fall and if you want to see a change in Albany, helping to get either into Silver's seat would go a long way to cleaning up that stench in the State House. Both men denounced Silver's tactics in regard to the congestion pricing debacle.