Assembly Sinks NYC Congestion Pricing Measure

New York state legislators today killed a plan that would have brought congestion pricing—higher fees at peak traffic hours—to parts of Manhattan, a major defeat for Mike Bloomberg, the Times reports. The mayor and a coalition of environmental groups backed the idea, but legislators from the city's outer boroughs and elsewhere opposed the fees, which would have been as high as $8, as regressive.

A Bloomberg rep derided the vote, taken in secret in Albany by members of the state legislature's Democratic majority, as “one of the biggest cop-outs in New York’s history." Approval of congestion pricing—already in effect in London, among other cities—could have made New York eligible for $354 million in federal funds for mass transit and other improvements. (More congestion pricing stories.)