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CAMPRIELLO:
The Congestion Pricing Plan calls for an eight dollar fee for vehicles driving in Manhattan anywhere below 60th Street. Mayor Bloomberg hopes the plan will reduce the number of cars driven into and around Manhattan.
Councilman Tony Avella, who opposes the plan, disagrees.
AX AVELLA: (7.4 seconds)
People don't drive, as you see here, into Manhattan for the pleasure of it. They drive because they have to.
CAMPRIELLO:
Avella says that the proposal for congestion pricing would be a new tax on the most heavily taxed people in the country. He says that drivers in his district in Northeast Queens, and drivers from Brooklyn and the Bronx will be unfairly targeted by the plan. Drivers who enter Manhattan via toll bridges and tunnels will pay less.
Avella's colleague, David Weprin, isn't won over by the fact that the fees will support the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Queens Chamber of Commerce President Albert Pennisi, was one those standing against the plan who held up signs asking passing motorists to weigh in.
AX PENNISI: (3.0 seconds)
Honk if you're against the congestion pricing.
CAMPRIELLO:
Motorists responded to the signs while Avella, Weprin and Pennisi and other spoke.
Supporters of Bloomberg's plan showed up, too. Yating Liu, of the Campaign for New York's Future, thinks the plan will reduce the number of vehicles driven in Midtown Manhattan. Stockholm and London have implemented similar plans and have seen a drop in traffic. To Liu, getting vehicles off the road is what is most important.
AX LIU: (6.8 seconds)
At the end of the day, traffic is taking a toll on the city from an economic perspective, a health perspective and a quality of life perspective.
CAMPRIELLO:
Plan supporter Edward Burgess, from the Environmental Defense Fund, operated an air quality monitor which measures soot and carbon from vehicle exhaust in terms of parts per million.
AX BURGESS: (9.5 seconds)
You can see the reading here, it's about eighty-thousand or so. Just to put that in perspective, I took a reading in my office yesterday, it was around eight thousand.
CAMPRIELLO:
The City Council vote next week will be close, the Councilmen say. But even if the measure does pass the City Council, it faces strong opposition in the State Legislature.
Susan Campriello, Columbia Radio News.