So, on Monday state legislators killed the congestion-pricing plan proposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
This, Bloomberg said Tuesday, is bad news for New York City -- costing New Yorkers both time and money. The money being the $354 million the city would have received in federal funding. The time, Bloomberg insists, being the hours spent in bumper-to-bumper traffic as our cars, trucks, SUVs and other vehicles needlessly pollute the atmosphere and wreak havoc on our health.
It all sounds so ominous.
But,.in all honesty, the real deal is it's not as ominous as Mayor Mike has made it out to be -- and congestion pricing wasn't the saving grace he made it out to be.
Sure, it's a reasonable idea. One that could provide some real pluses for New Yorkers. But, as we said from Day One: Only -- and we mean "only" -- once the mass transit infrastructure has been improved enough to make the system usuable for all metro-area New Yorkers, not just those who live in Manhattan.
Under the congestion-pricing plan proposed by Bloomberg, drivers would have had to pay a fee of between $8 and $21 per day to access Manhattan below 86th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. The Mayor later revised this proposal to include only traffic heading below 60th Street. Still, it would be too much of a burden for drivers who have few other options but to drive into New York.
Sure, groups like the "Straphangers" embraced congestion pricing, singing its praises and talking about the wonders it would do for Manhattan. And the Mayor touted it as a god-send, as well. But, the truth is people who don't drive didn't understand the burden it would place on folks who do. I mean, let's be honest: No one drives into midtown or lower Manhattan on a week day because they want to. They do it out of necessity. It's not about money, either. It's about the ability to get there from here -- wherever that may be.
That isn't always possible for Long Islanders. And it isn't always possible for commuters living in the outlying boroughs -- or, New Jersey -- either. Which is why people drive.
What the now-dead proposal did was place the cart before the horse. And when New York State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver said Monday that the plan didn't have enough support -- and that Democrats "overwhelmingly" opposed the bid -- he was just being honest. Politics aside, the proposal needs to be re-considered -- but only if the Mayor and his staff can resolve some of the shortcomings. Find alternative funding for the Second Aevnue subway, build East Side Access for the Long Island Rail Road into grand Central Terminal and make public transportation more reliable -- and then we can talk. Until then?
It's a dead issue. And, it should be.
City officials were less-than-genuine about what congestion-pricing could accomplish -- and not honest at all about what it wouldn't/ They tried to sell New Yorkers a bill of goods in hopes of landing a fat surplus in federal funding that, in all honesty, would not have gone half as far as they claimed it would. Congestion pricing has worked -- to a degree -- in some European cities, mostly because the infrastructure was in place to afford it some success. But, even then, there were huge growing pains to overcome. City officials need to be realistic about this. They need to examine real-world solutions -- instead of just claiming, without merit, it will be wonderful for New Yorkers. Believe it or not, we're all just a little too saavy to take all the hype at face value. Now that the public has spoken it's time for city officials to find a better solution.