If I was Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, I wouldn't be concerned by suggestions that I shot and killed congestion pricing.

At best, I'd call it a mercy killing; euthanasia. At worst, justifiable homicide.

Drowned out, as usual, by the shrill tone of editorial boards looking to get a quick rise out of their readers, some columnists took a careful and measured look at congestion pricing and found that its advantages are dubious and its problems multifarious.

And some otherwise ludicrous proposals put forward to rebut congestion pricing were pregnant with good ideas: an increased no-gridlock enforcement zone in Lower Manhattan; tighter no-cruising enforcement laws for livery cabs. That's not to say there weren't boondoggles mixed in that made discussing them politically impossible. In one case, these simple policy changes were rolled up with the idea, oft-rejected, of a rail tunnel from Brooklyn to New Jersey to cut down on truck traffic.

Bloomberg cannot possibly be this oblivious. From Azi's post here.

"Congestion pricing, said Bloomberg, 'was supported two-to-one in every poll'"

-- Someone give me some of what he's smoking. From a March 24 QPac poll, "New York State voters oppose 50 - 33 percent a proposal to reduce New York City traffic by charging a fee for vehicles driven south of 60th Street in Manhattan." The 2-1 number is if there were a guarantee that the proceeds would be used for mass transit, but 50% of the same people polled did NOT believe it would be used solely for mass transit. (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1318.xml?ReleaseID=1162)

"'There were 40-odd Republicans,' he went on. "Their leader said he could deliver those votes."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's politically convenient concern for the law has been bothering me for days now.

This topic that has caused my mind to fester is delicately referred to in the Gotham Gazette as "The Jersey Inequity." Most often raised by outer-borough politicians — especially state Assembly members, who not coincidentally are in a period of enhanced civic-mindedness, it being just a few months until November — this particular injustice concerns New Jersey drivers, who must pay $8 when they enter the city via the Holland Tunnel, for example.