Congestion Pricing All But Dead
Federal deadline missed, but compromise may come anyway

AN Albany bureau reporting.

The New York Times tells a harrowing story of Mayor Michael Bloomberg loosing his cool not to mention his backing before the State Senate on Monday as he attempted to pass his congestion pricing plan. Yesterday was the deadline to receive a portion of federal funds meant to address traffic issues, money that could have amounted to $500 million. According to the Times, Bloomberg managed to disenfranchise what Democratic support he had in the Republican-led Senate, thereby losing that house. Meanwhile, the Democratic-run Assembly did not even venture to Albany, instead convening in Manhattan, where the leadership proposed a commission to consider the mayor’s plan as well as other forms of traffic mitigation.

The AP (via the Post) says the mayor, along with Governor Eliot Spitzer, Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno, and Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, created a tentative compromise agreement after 2 a.m. this morning, some hours after the apparent federal deadline of midnight. The hope is to pass the bill in the Assembly as soon as possible, thereby appeasing Washington. Details have not yet been disclosed. Silver, however, said that a letter written yesterday by fellow Assembly Democrats and himself in Manhattan and signed by Bruno and Spitzer should be enough to satisfy federal officials.

Our colleague Nicholas Confessore at the Times had an amusing account on the new City Room blog describing yesterday's contentious deliberations along with an account of the tete-a-tete between Bloomberg and the Post’s Albany bureau chief.

The mayor’s office has yet to make any public statements on the issue.

MATT CHABAN

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