… 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)
