On Demand
Pricing Passes
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Tony Avella, New York City Council Member (D-19th District), discusses the approval of the congestion pricing bill, and his bid for Mayor in 2009.
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Congestion Pricing is just another corrupt way to fleece New Yorkers.
All this will do is make a temporary bridge in the budget gap.
The MTA WILL NOT IMPROVE.
This city is incapable of improving anything.
The mismanagement by Lee Sander and corruption make it impossible to improve any aspect of the MTA.
We're already seeing examples of this when the MTA promised improvements with the fare increase and now has reneged.
This plan is a fraud. People who drive to Manhattan do so because they have no choice. They do it for work ususally. Under this plan a person who lives in brooklyn and want to drive out of town to say PA. will have to pay too, even though all they are trying to do is flee a city run by fraudlent government rats. This will NOT reduce traffic. It has not worked in London, whihc BUMberg touts as template for his "plan" in fact it has gotten WORSE in Loondon. What, cabs are going to stop driving, delivery trucks are not going to come in? What a delivery tuck is going to take the subway? This is retarded. All it will do is raise prices on people, and the money will go to some sinkhole and never be seen again. Christine Quinn should be impeeched. This is a Joke.
Cmon u whiner...u lost Cong. pricing is good...lets make it work
Why is there no incentive for electric cars, scooter, motorcycles?
"Plan went through with cajoling." Isn't this how anything gets done?
Who are we kidding here? This is what it takes to get ANYTHING done.
We need a way to make the MTA more transparent. We need to have the finances open to the public.
While I think there are reasonable arguments against congestion pricing, but this guy sounds like a sore loser. If the bill was defeated by the same kind of wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, and if tax payer dollars were being promised to people to vote against it, I doubt we'd be hearing a peep from this man.
Councilwoman Quinn says that the council did not go for the easy answer : That is TRUE - The EASY thing for raising revenues would have been to place an $8 tax add-on for cars parking in garages in Manhattan - NO NEW Bureocracies and no additional Waste. One has to question the insistence on creating this authority and the project to create this infraestructure for tagging cars as they pass the zone.
The EASY Answer to addressing congestion would be to reduce the number of taxis operating in Manhattan, increasing parking facilities next to train/subway stations in the suburbs and outer boroughs
This legislator... Who says he WANTS to become the MAYOR..
has the balls to say HE's for GOOD government
and yet has the audacity
to say HE wants to file a Freedom of Info act
to see whose vote was changed to vote against him??
This is a crock of bull....
I am quite offended by this CANDIDATE saying
he wants a list of who changed their vote.
Very strange... and quite a crock. here
New York has the 2nd dirtiest air in the U.S. (after L.A.!), our transit system is maxed out, we need $30b to upgrade it and 1 million more people are expected to move to New York City in the next 2 decades.
The federal government wants to give us $354m to add subways and buses in the next year, before congestion pricing starts. This will buy over 300 new buses and add subway service on over a half-dozen lines across all five boroughs. Then, congestion pricing will bring in almost a half-billion dollars annually for transit improvements. In the face of these challenges, how can we say no? How can we let our city get worse? Our air dirtier? Our hundred year old transportation systems grind to a halt?
With one decisive action we can reduce traffic, clean the air, fund mass transit, improve public health and street safety, strengthen the economy and better the quality of life for the super majority of New Yorkers who take mass transit every single day.
New York is a transit city, and the less money you make the more likely you are to really on transit. Low income people don't drive to Manhattan's Central Business District. They take transit like th 95% of us who already do (or don't work in the CBD). Households that own cars make twice as much as those that don't. Things aren't fair now, and it's time to add some equity to how people get around, who pollutes, who causes traffic and who pays.
Can you please ask Councilman Avella if there is a process for initiating a recall of these corrupt weasles. I agree with him, we need to pursue the corruption and need to make an example of 5 or 6 of these council people
Congestion pricing has worked in London to reduce traffic. Period. Here is an abstract from an academic article (thougu no access to full text unfortunately)http://pwm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/2/164
As user or mass transit, a driver, and a resident of Brooklyn, I unnecessarily drive in Manhattan often just for the convenience, not because I have a dire need. When I do drive, I'm willing to pay a toll (I take the Battery rather than the Bridges because its faster).
It has been repeatedly shown that those who choose to drive are generally more well-off. Otherwise how would they afford the tolls, and more importantly the cost of parking!
Avella thinks that congestion pricing is a tax on his district, but what it's really doing is asking his people to park-and-ride just like other commuters.
If we want to solve the congestion problem, we *all* have to get out of our cars and onto mass transit. Even people from Queens.
CARPOOL! If everyone in Eastern Queens needs to drive, surely your neighbors can join a carpool. 4 in a car equals $2 per person. That's the same as the subway fare.
Does this mean i get charged 8 bucks everytime i take the car to go to the grocery store???any allowance for residents of the zone? How do we intend on pushing more people onto a train #4 for example during rush hour. As it is it is nose to nose..Fix the transportation first..
oh and you know those lovely toll lines at places like the holland tunnel? Well guess what now you will get to wait in another of those lines, thus creating GASP!! more traffic congestion.
Those who do not support congestion pricing are just foolish!
Beyond traffic or any current reason for instating an online sales tax, we need to consider the future of commerce, which is looking more and more like it will be virtual. So to that end, this sales tax makes sense as an early move to ensure taxation in the future.
For those of you who actually think that people will use the park-and-ride method (and I assume many of you live in Manhattan), just where the heck do you think these people are going to park? The neighborhoods in the outer boroughs closest to Manhattan already have an incredibly frustrating parking problem. To think that you expect these "new" parkers and us residence to deal with this problem is ignorant and selfish. Did you even READ the permit parking section of this legislation? It's an absolutely unintelligible mess. We in Western Queens are about to be skahrewed, big time!
We need to eliminate cars from 60th to 30th streets from 8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. That would leave the trucks, buses and taxi's allowed in midtown. This would substantially reduce congestion. This way the businesses won't be hindered from receiving deliveries they need.
How do we initiate a recall of city council members? They were already an embarrassment for the most part, but this is now just too much to take. Let's call this what it is a tax (and I don't even drive because I live in the zone). We have the dubious distinction of having the most punitive and highest taxes in the nation. It makes everything more expensive from food to housing, you name it - and now they ram another tax down the people throat under the guise of environmentalism and you know as well as I do, transportation will not improve. Subways already are backed up and run slowly - you couldn't add more capacity if you wanted to. On top of that they already said the fare increase will not go to service improvements as promised. This is sickening, especially after you look at your taxes and see how much money gets squandered directly by NYC.
I am a man my youngest daughter is 20. I sayed at home with her the first two years and it was the best thing for both of us. we have a special bond.
I have always worked because it was financially necessary. We used day care, a Nanny, and then when my husband was layed off, he was home, self-employed or looking for work, and watching the kids because by then they were in school most of the day. I now work from home. I do think that people overestimate the postive effect of being the care giver. I have seen many kids, who for lack of exposure to other caregivers, have absorbed their mother's fears, timidity, respect for name brands etc, and other nonsense. So, unless you are a perfect parent, and if you can afford high quality child care, I think it is better for kids to have exposure to different care givers. I know many childern who would have benefited from more exposure to other adults early in life.
The one thing I think I have learned is that 2 working parents is great, but 2 working parents whose jobs are high-powered and inflexible is a problem for kids.
Given today is April 1st, I think our legs are being pulled.
That alot of stuff for any government to follow up.
Nice try WNYC.
Congestion pricing and Moral rectitude has me moving my libertarian butt outta here.
This is really fascism. Who is the mayor to suggest to check my medical records. How about just checking your bank account if you haven't been paying child support. Plain stupid.
I'm surprised at how little attention the Republican Convention arrests part of the moral rectum list.
"If you WEREN'T ARRESTED at the Convention you get $1 off"? What kind of garbage is that? That truly is Fascism, as a previous writer or caller stated. The arrests at the Convention are highly questionable in terms of moral rectitude AND constitutionality. Bloomberg has a scary side. I AM pro Congestion Pricing, however, but this list is absurd (by the way, were hybrid cars included in the rectitded list?).
A 'moral rectitude' pricing scheme for congestion pricing!? I hate it. Moral
rectitude is irrelevant and a dangerous area for governments to venture into.
On the other hand, increased congestion pricing
fees for hummers, vans and private cars of any
size having only 1 passenger, are right. Such
fees would not only raise more money but discourage expanded carbon footprints.
April Fools!!!!!!!
In the city of Santa Monica Prius drivers are allowed to park FREE anywhere - this should be implemented
also, the item about the Republican convention is nonsense, but it's not funny - in many cases the police acted illegally.
Avella is a fool. How much does it cost LIRR riders from his district to get to work? Has to be around $8, maybe more with a bus or subway ride thrown in.
Tony Avella is on a very high, white-painted horse about changing the way government works. The last guy who made claims that he was going to take the politics out of government and save the people from their politicians? He made it all the way to Governor before falling from grace...
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