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Current News |
City Council Approves Fee
to Drive Below 60th
By DIANE CARDWELL
Published: April 1, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/
The controversial proposal to charge
drivers in the busiest parts of
Manhattan took a major step forward on
Monday, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
and Speaker Christine C. Quinn wrenching
approval from the City Council by an
unusually slim margin.
Under intense pressure from the mayor,
Ms. Quinn and their allies that
continued almost until the voting began,
council members approved the plan to
charge most drivers $8 to enter a zone
below 60th Street by a vote of 30 to 20,
with no abstentions and one absence.
At a news conference after the vote,
where Mr. Bloomberg made a rare
appearance on the speaker’s side of City
Hall, officials sought to play down the
narrowness of their hard-won victory,
among the closest of this administration
in a body that typically votes in near
unanimity.
Approving the proposal, Ms. Quinn said,
would send a message to the Legislature
that the “people who were elected to
represent the New Yorkers who live in
our five boroughs are sick and tired of
our streets being clogged with traffic,
we’re sick and tired of the children who
live in our city literally having to
fight to be able to breathe, and that we
see congestion pricing as a solution to
this problem.”
But the ultimate fate of the proposal
now resides in Albany, where the
intentions of lawmakers whose approval
is needed remained unclear. Gov. David
A. Paterson and the Senate majority
leader, Joseph L. Bruno, have expressed
their support. But Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver, who has derailed Mr.
Bloomberg’s ambitions in the past,
remained noncommittal, telling members
of the Democratic conference on Sunday
night that he would not take the issue
up until the state budget was completed.
If the Assembly waits to act until after
the budget, it could threaten the bill’s
chances in the Senate, because it would
come before the Legislature as a
stand-alone item, making approval more
elusive. Several council members
complained as they voted that the mayor
had reneged on a promise that they would
not be asked to take up the measure
until the State Legislature had agreed
to support the proposal.
But other council members took the vote
as a sign that Mr. Silver would
ultimately back the plan, since Ms.
Quinn had said privately that she would
not call for a vote until she had an
indication that it would gain approval
from the state.
But Mr. Silver said that he had made no
such assurance.
“I told her it’s not before us until
they vote on it,” he said. “And we will
deal with the issue after we pass a
budget.”
Speaking to reporters with Ms. Quinn,
Mr. Bloomberg seemed particularly
defensive about Mr. Silver. Asked if
they had any indication that leaders in
Albany would approve the proposal, Ms.
Quinn said that she had received calls
from Mr. Paterson and Mr. Bruno urging
that the Council “move as quickly as
possible and do what we did today, so I
thought that was a very good sign.”
In response to a question about Mr.
Silver, though, Mr. Bloomberg approached
the lectern, sidestepped the question
and then cut off the line of inquiry,
saying they could not speak for Albany
leaders.
Technically, the Council approved a
measure known as a home rule message,
which is a request for the State
Legislature to pass the plan as outlined
in a bill introduced into the Senate.
The Legislature has until April 7 to
approve the program or risk losing
roughly $350 million in federal money to
help offset the costs of starting the
plan. Mr. Bloomberg has said that much
of that money would go toward increasing
bus service in underserved areas.
Although the administration and the
Council’s leadership were able to gain
support with promises of programs,
projects and political aid in upcoming
campaigns — as well as threats of taking
those things away — opposition remained
strong. Several council members argued
that it was unfair to essentially tax
residents to move around their own city,
that even after they voted to support
the proposal, the Legislature could
approve a different version, and that
revenues would not necessarily go toward
the promised transit improvements.
“This plan, while wrapped up in three
incredibly important and laudable
goals,” including cleaning the air,
reducing traffic and paying for mass
transit, said Lewis A. Fidler, a
Brooklyn councilman who strongly opposed
the plan, “is designed to deter people
from coming into a part of the city if
they can’t afford it.”
He added: “What’s next? We’re going to
charge a user fee to come into Central
Park because it’s crowded?”
Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting. |
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