Small-time response
Myopic reaction to congestion pricing
Editorial
May 17, 2007
 
The contrast could not be sharper between the sweeping, even global way that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to plan a greener future for New York City, and the myopic tunnel vision of a pair of state senators who spoke out this week in response to a key element of the mayor's plan.
 
That idea is congestion pricing, an $8 fee for driving into Manhattan below 86th Street on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Only 5 percent of Manhattan workers drive to work. But it's perhaps the toughest sell among the 127 initiatives in PlaNYC, the plan for a sustainable, more environmentally sound city leading up to 2030.
 
If New York is to accommodate an expected million new residents, someone must do something about the choking Manhattan traffic, which has a huge negative economic impact on the whole region. Congestion pricing has worked in London, and with some intelligence, it can work here.
 
But not if a bipartisan duo of normally intelligent officials from both major parties, the veteran Sen. Charles Fuschillo (R-Merrick) and the rookie Sen. Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington), keep mouthing simplistic opposition. If this proposal is to go anywhere in the vision-challenged State Legislature, they and many others will have to step up.
 
Their response would seem provincial at any time, but it's particularly so this week, when Bloomberg has hosted mayors from the world's largest cities, plus corporate CEOs, to work together on global warming. Right now, the mayor looks big, but his critics look positively Lilliputian.
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.
 
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