By Jeffrey Dinowitz

When Mayor Michael Bloomberg put forth his congestion pricing proposal my initial reaction was positive. How could anyone be against a plan that would reduce traffic and pollution? It was only when I started to examine its details that I realized its many problems. I raised a number of issues with the mayor's staff and with advocates of the plan. At no time was I given satisfactory responses to my concerns, nor have I seen any effort on the part of the mayor to address some of these very serious issues.

I have been very troubled by the efforts of the mayor and supporters of congestion pricing to ram it through with as little discussion as possible. Something which involves such an important change in the way New York operates should have been brought up much earlier than nine or 10 weeks before the end of the legislative session.

In addition, I was outraged by those who insisted that the Legislature should pass congestion pricing by July 16 so that we can get up to $500 million in federal funding. We shouldn't pass legislation with a gun held to our heads. As it turned out, the July 16 threat was a lie. Congestion pricing wasn't passed by July 16, yet, federal funding will still be available if we pass it at a later date.

If one of the goals of congestion pricing is to encourage mass transit use, then I believe that mass transit must be improved and made more appealing before congestion pricing would take effect. Currently, if I were to travel from my home to the City Hall area, it would take me about half an hour (not during rush hour) by car. It would take an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half by public transportation - each way. That's up to two hours extra, a lot of time to waste. I would love to see major improvements in bus service.