The TU today has an article about some state legislators downstate joining a federal lawsuit against New York’s congestion pricing plan for Manhattan.
I hardly know where to begin. I completely expect this kind of behavior from a Republican. But James Skoufis is a Democrat, and a millennial one at that. He ought to know better.
On the one hand, this feels like just another case of motonormativity on the part of an elected official. On the other hand, looking through Sen. Skoufis’s official website and the list of legislation he’s sponsored over the last few sessions, there’s no environmental or climate legislation on the list, despite his position on the Environmental Conservation Committee.
Congestion pricing is an absolute necessity for any coherent environmental policy (and we should be considering it, on much smaller scales in some form or other, in many many more of our local communities). It has been a tremendous success in other major cities that have tried it (London being a great example), and it seems like the sort of thing that a municipality should be able to enact if its citizens feel it’s in their best interest. If it’s truly the financial burden that Mr. Skoufis claims it is, I’m sure he would be glad to put forward legislation supporting the creation of more robust public transportation in his district. But he hasn’t done that.