Yesterday’s post on the fall of Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion fee left many feeling raw about the way Albany mistreats New York. Today, the finger-pointing reined supreme.

But no matter how the state Assembly members tried to spin, the blame ultimately rests on their shoulders. It’s their fault that Bloomberg’s plan didn’t pass. It’s their fault New York is stuck with no solution to its congestion problem and no solution to the looming financial problems that could plague the MTA for years.

The New York Times noted that Mayor Bloomberg was not happy at all with the state legislature but may have to shoulder some of the blame. While SUBWAYblogger noted that Bloomberg knew his plan was the right one, Diane Cardwell of The Times explained how Bloomberg didn’t adequately convince the state legislature of this fact:

At a news conference in Brooklyn yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg denounced lawmakers for failing to even take up his plan, suggesting that they lacked “guts” and that their inaction would result in children being exposed to polluted air. “Albany just does not seem to get it,” he said …

[But] Rather than engaging either Gov. Eliot Spitzer or legislative leaders from the beginning, they said, Mr. Bloomberg and his aides sprang a complex proposal on the Legislature at the end of its session, seemed unprepared to answer questions or revise details, missed opportunities to sway legislators, and then used the deadline to apply for federal financing as a bludgeon to shove the plan through.

“The constant drumbeat of the deadline may have done more harm than good — people got their backs up,” said Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried, who favored the plan. “People don’t like to have a gun to their head.”

While The Daily News came down more firmly on the side of Mayor Bloomberg, they too noted that political machinations doomed the congestion pricing plan. Republican Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, who couldn’t muster all of his troops behind the plan, blamed Gov. Eliot Spitzer for a failure of leadership, and The News noted that the Assembly has grown tired of caving to a powerful executive (in this case, Bloomberg).

While the state missed the July 16th deadline that would have ensured over $500 million in federal funds for the implementation of the congestion fee, not everyone is ready to declare the plan dead forever. Sewell Chan at the CityRoom blog notes that the Straphangers have urged the state to continue work on a congestion fee plan. Other are using this opportunity to push other ideas — such as bike sharing — that would hopefully get cars off the road.

The Streetsblog advocates, major proponents of the congestion fee, responded yesterday as well. In fact, they went so far as to print a letter from the man who killed the congestion fee. Richard Brodsky, an Assembly representative from Westchester whose constituents would have the most to lose from the plan, work tirelessly to fight the pricing plan. Earlier this month, Streetsblog noted that Brodsky took in more from the parking industry than any other representative. Brodsky claims he was working for the democratic process and that the parking industry money he takes in had nothing to do with his stance on the congestion fee. And I have a bridge to sell you.

No matter where everything stands today, though, we have to remember that the congestion fee isn’t dead forever. It’s just dead for now and no longer can enjoy the possibility of a $500 million federal grant. A reader of mine — an ex-pat Jerry living in Prague — says he visits London frequently and notes that the congestion fee works in reducing traffic. One day, New York will take some responsibility for its transportation and environmental future and become like London. We lost this round, but we can’t give up this fight. The congestion fee in New York will happen, and it will happen soon.

As I sit in a house in Los Angeles for a week away from New York, I know that New York City is unique among all of this country’s urban areas. The Big Apple does not need cars to survive. The Big Apple lives and dies on its public transportation network.

Last night was a sad one for the City as the cars ruled and the public transportation network, facing a financial crisis, received what could become its death blow. In a day that could be worse for New York City than when Robert Moses and his short-sighted, automobile-centric, neighborhood-destroying ego came to power, Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion fee plan died in Albany tonight.

It died in the arms of people who think they know what’s best for New York City and people who are beholden to special interests. It died in the arms of residents of the Outer Boroughs who live far beyond the subway in Eastern Queens. It died in the arms of suburban residents who travel into the city every day, polluting with their cars and not giving back to the city in the form of taxes or other fees. It died in the arms of those who feel a sense of entitlement because they ride around in cars that affect our environment while they go back to their whitewashed suburbs with cleaner air and more trees.

The Times gives us the bleak details:

Lawmakers on Monday shelved Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to charge a fee to drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan, dealing a setback to the mayor as he tries to raise his national profile and promote his environmental initiatives.

The State Senate, which had convened in a special session, adjourned without taking up the plan after it became apparent that the votes for passage were not there.

Meanwhile, the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, proposed sending the issue to a study commission that would also consider other ways to reduce traffic, and giving the Legislature until next March to act.

While Bloomberg’s plan, one that would guarantee a steady source of income for the MTA to provide for better public transportation options, has been rejected by the apparently All-Knowing Sheldon Silver, the fate of the $576 million grant that the federal government had planned to award New York City is unknown. The State Assembly is attempting to set up some bureaucratic commission to further study the long-term social, environmental, health and economics effects of the congestion fee plan an in effort to secure the money the city would have received had Bloomberg’s plan passed.

So now, we in New York City stand neglected. Those of us who live in subway-accessible areas and rely on subways and buses for our transportation could face a bleak future thanks to a bunch of suburban people too impressed with themselves to ride mass transit and residents in faraway Queens and the Bronx who don’t realize that the congestion fee would bring them more reliable and faster public transportation.

Today is a sad day for New York politics. It is a sad message sent to the City. Get a car, the pols tell us. Well, I say, New York was built by the subways. Where the subways ran, people followed. No one likes to drive in New York, and no one should drive in New York. Commuter rail, subway lines and buses could get more people all over the city with fewer environmental consequences than cars do now. This isn’t hard to understand if you live in the city. But apparently our Albany overlords, many of whom live in areas that we as New Yorkers wouldn’t even recognize as New York, think they know what’s right.

Today, I’m bitter. I’m bitter that New York won’t follow London’s lead and become a model for a more efficient approach to traffic problems in the 21st century. I’m bitter that our wonderful public transportation network could be facing an uphill battle to maintain even its current levels of service. I’m bitter that politicians couldn’t get this deal finished.

Tomorrow, we’ll move on. We’ll go back to the drawing board and attempt to get this plan back on track. Tomorrow, we’ll pick up the wacky stories and ongoing subplots of the MTA’s coping with its second hundred years. But today, we can be mad that the congestion fee did not pass and hope that we can drop a “yet” into this sentence too. Today, we can mourn a bold idea turned away and complain about people from “upstate.” Today we can think of what could have been and hope that one day it still might be.

There is still no word yet on the future of the congestion fee in New York or on that $500 million boon from the federal government. I’ll have more tonight if news breaks. In the meantime, Sewell Chan at The New York Times has numerous updates (with more still to come) at this post on the Cityroom blog. There’s hope yet.

Five hundred million dollars. Roll that number around your head. This whole thing, this weekend of congestion pricing battles, it’s really all about the $500 million, and today, we will find out the future of that large sum the federal government is dangling in front of New York City.

For the last week, I’ve been silent on the issue of the congestion fee, but over the last few months, I’ve been an outspoken advocate of the congestion fee plan. Any plan that reduces traffic in New York City while finding money for our cash-strapped public transportation system will get my blessing.

Now, things are coming to a head. The federal government has seemingly set a July 16th deadline for New York to pass the congestion pricing fee if the city is to be awarded a $500-million grant to implement this groundbreaking plan. Furthermore, Mayor Bloomberg’s political future is seemingly entwined with the success or failure of the plan. His Independent star will rise with a victory and fall with a defeat.

It’s been, in other words, a very active weekend on the congestion fee plan. So let’s see where this plan — one that would benefit all New Yorkers, drivers and non-drivers alike — stands as we enter the 11th Hour in Albany.

Read More→