Discussion about Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal has been clogging the pipes of the internet for days now. Have you registered to attend the Drum Major Institute’s morning forum at NYU’s Kimmel Center? It features London Deputy Mayor
Nicky Gavron and a home-team of thoughtful New Yorkers: Kathryn Wylde, Partnership for NYC, President; Ed Ott of the Central Labor Council; and Queens NYC Council Members Eric Gioia and (Transportation Committee Chair) John C. Liu

FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2007 8:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Kimmel Center at New York University
Rosenthal Pavilion
60 Washington Square South, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10012

RSVP required: dmi@drummajorinstitute.org

There's also a Queens meeting Tues. night with Bruce Schaller long after the jump. Those of you who want to prepare have time to read studies, polls and commentaries by the dozen.

I wish New York City :

1. Only allowed residents and business owners to park in the streets of Manhattan.
   If it were up to me, I would issue special EZ-Pass-like permit readers good for a 10 block perimeter from where people lived --so that it would discourage car owners from using their cars to move from one end of the island to another and instead force people to use mass transit.

   It's ridiculous to hear Manhattanites bitch and moan about traffic problems when they insist in driving in the city instead of using mass transit.

2. Banned suburban buses from NYC streets.
   Why in the world are we allowing buses from Long Island or Yonkers on our city streets? Get suburbanites to walk from drop-off garages instead of having their "I want my oil from Iraq" boxes clog our city streets and pollute our air.

3. Turned whole avenues into pedestrian, bike and pedicap traffic only.
   Broadway is impossible to close because it goes all the way up to Yonkers but if it where up to me, I'd nominate First, Park, 6th and 9th as the avenues most like to benefit from having no cars, trucks or any other kind of motorized vehicles entering them.

It’s been so widely reported, I hesitate to write about it, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the mayor I mostly prefer to hate, with much fanfare, proposed an interesting “congestion pricing plan” to charge autos and trucks for entering Manhattan below 86th Street during the hours 6AM to 6PM. The prize for clearest outline of the plan goes to Daily Politics newcomer Elizabeth Benjamin here. . Thanks.

See also this from the News print edition and this and this Monday Editorial from the NY Times as well as this Editorial from Monday's Daily News. In her comments (below) Ann Seligman of Environmental Defense, wisely suggests you & I review the Gotham Gazette article by Bruce Schaller . It's a good article with even better links; click away. Sewall Chan has a story at Empire Zone about a coalition of 70 groups -- including the NYC Central Labor Council supporting the proposal.

While I will write about my views of the plan after I understand it more, others (either quicker studies, more glib, more thoughtful) have written about it already at Empire Zone and here and here at Politiker.

The text of the Mayor’s plan is here .

Transportation Alternatives, my favorite transit advocacy group

I was surprisingly inspired by John and Teresa Heinz Kerry’s new book, This Moment on Earth, coming out March 26th, 2007. This inspiration snuck up on me around the third chapter. Prior to that, I found the book good, well worth reading, but a little bit like just one more book outlining what humans are doing wrong. Starting around the third chapter I realized I was referring to the book in several conversations and several blog diaries and that several of the people and organizations featured in the book I mentally filed away as worth looking into for future political connections, diaries and general research.

In short, almost without my realizing it, John Kerry’s book was getting into my brain and inspiring me. The book starts a bit dull but by the end is excellent.

My earliest impression, from the press material that arrived with the book and from the introduction, was that this book promised something really new and welcome. The book was billed as the next step in the evolution of the environmental debate. I was ready for a book that took as given the problems and focused primarily on solutions. Having been through way too many “debates” online where I yet again outlined the very clear scientific evidence for global warming only to have yet the same false claims that global warming was some kind of scam or myth (these claims are never backed up by scientific evidence of any substance), I really was ready to have a book that moved beyond that.

Several of the key words missing from Mayor Bloomberg’s State of the City address this past Tuesday were “traffic” “congestion” “ sustainability.” Streetsblog noticed and also that the only mass transit reference was to the extension of the #7, a project the City is said to see as key to the development of the far West side – especially to the Javits Center and the former Stadium site.

Although the Mayor seems to have lost some interest in transportation, congestion and sustainability issues, the NYC Council, plans to move forward next week on legislation which, if enacted, would require NYC’s Department of Transportation to consider factors other than cars and trucks when it decides on projects. At present, DOT getting its marching orders from the Mayor, evaluates proposed transit projects from the point of view of moving more vehicles faster. The proposed law, Intro 199 of 2006 was introduced principally by Council Member Gail Brewer. Drafted in conjunction with Transportation Alternatives, it has collected 20 co-sponsors and has been endorsed by a number of community boards. See a Transportation Alternatives description of Intro 199 here.

The Council’s Transportation Committee will hold a first hearing on the bill. At present it's scheduled for Thursday, Jan 25, 2007 at 10AM in the Council Chamber