Congestion tax: Here we go again...

From the Daily News:

...with the MTA facing an unexpected budget hole of up to $700 million, Bloomberg said, the revenue from a toll could be irresistible to Albany lawmakers - while also cutting traffic and pollution in Manhattan.

Yes: Cutting traffic and pollution in Manhattan, while sending it everywhere else. That's the Bloomberg way. In case he hasn't noticed, fewer people are already taking mass transit and driving. So how will this plan pay off?

From Neighborhood Retail Alliance:

[Our] own fabled chief executive...on the issue of environmental purity, is fully unclothed. And while he prattles on about the need for another tax on cars going in to Manhattan, he is supporting the dumping of 70,000 tons of CO2 from the proposed Willets Point development. While at the same time we may add, he is bemoaning the defeat of the Kingsbridge Armory project that will also threaten the health and safety of the residents of that local Bronx neighborhood by dramatically increasing the vehicular traffic in a community already overwhelmed by too many cars and trucks.

But there's more - and it takes the wisdom of Speaker Silver to point out further hypocrisies in the mayor's effort to green the city. As the Observer points out: "On NY1 last night, Silver said, "[T]he mayor has added congestion by narrowing streets, by putting benches in the middle of the city — and this was the same mayor who talked about congestion when he was going to build a football stadium in the middle of the most congested part of the city. They've now put park benches in the middle of Times Square, reduced Broadway traffic up and downtown from four lanes down to one or two, and lower Broadway down to one lane. So, he's created congestion just in these traffic patterns that have taken place."

Ah, the sheer nakedness is truly embarrassing.