Bloomberg has bigger balls than Miller

A lot of people are congratulating Michael Bloomberg for his plan to use congestion pricing in Manhattan.

Here the Real Estate Board of New York claims that the New York Times, the Daily News and the New York Post, News Day, the Staten Island Advance as well as Gore and Clinton love the idea (as does the REBNY, of course).

Swartznegger says he likes it.

Tony Blair says he likes it.

But Bob Friedrich doesn’t like it.

Here Bloomberg explains the full mind-numbing complexity of the problem, very neatly: “The incredible number of cars and trucks that flood our streets each day is the primary reason for congestion...”

Here is the Quinnipiac University result of polling people on the street in New York. The overall result is 37% “for” and 56% “against”. This is the usual pre-pricing result – the same numbers appeared in London and Stockholm prior to the charges being put in place. What is unusual is the 62% “for” in Manhattan. It is not surprising that there is less hostility, but this strong “for” is a first.

Where Bloomberg really gets my vote however is when he said at the end of this clip: “City Government is supposed to lead, State Government is supposed to lead, Federal Government is supposed to lead, not do polls and do just the popular thing.”

Why can’t our Mayor Miller find his way?

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New York is not the only place with the problem. Here is the Leeds conversation. The nice thing about this video clip is that many of the people on the street in Leeds seem to understand how and why congestion pricing works.