Bob Yaro

Over the weekend, City Council Member David Weprin and "Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free" spokesman Walter McCaffrey got a lot of press by casting doubt on whether congestion pricing revenues would, as promised, be invested in transit. It looks like a plan was already in the works to allay that fear.

Map from the city's PlaNYC web site. See more maps at Gothamist.

It includes some leading members of the congestion charging brainstrust and some big MTA reformers. Via Chuck Bennett at AMNY:

As we reported this morning, Mayor Bloomberg is in California with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to make a major policy announcement on a major, long-term, environmental sustainability initiative. The key components of the Mayor's plan include:

Last night's public hearing on the proposed NASCAR track on Staten Island turned into a melee. Union members, many of whom were apparently shipped in by the developer, shouted down and physically intimidated community people who had come out to voice concerns about the project. New York 1 showed video last night of one particularly huge union guy throwing Staten Island Councilmember Andrew Lanza into a headlock and wrestling the microphone out of his hands. The scene looked more like a drunken bar fight than a community meeting. NY1 hasn't put the video on its web site [Update: Here is the NY1 footage. Pretty incredible], but ABC 7 caught some of the action and put it online. The NYPD rolled in and shut down the meeting after just a half an hour.