Christine Quinn

Forty-eight hours in, here is what some elected officials are saying about PlaNYC and congestion pricing.

On Monday, April 23, the day after Earth Day and the Mayor's Long-Term Sustainability speech, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn plans to hold a decisive vote on Intro. 331-A, a law limiting and restricting pedicabs. Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the bill but rather than going back and trying to improve the legislation by, say, simply increasing the cap on the number of pedicab licenses, Quinn has been twisting Council members arms to override the Mayor's veto.

This NY Sun editorial weighs in on the proposed pedicab restrictions:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is reportedly pressuring -- some might say coercing -- council members into backing her effort to override of Mayor Bloomberg's veto of stringent pedicab restrictions. Tony Avella of Queens talked to the Sun about Quinn's anti-pedicab campaign among council members.

More on tomorrow's rally and press conference on the city's proposed pedicab regulations: Chad Marlow of the Public Advocacy Group, the pedicab industry's lobbyist, sends along this press release arguing that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Speaker Christine Quinn's proposal to put a cap on the number of pedicabs and ban electric-assist technology harms the industry and compromises safety while, really, helping no one in particular. We don't like publishing press releases verbatim, but this one is really pretty good reading. You get the sense that these new pedicab regs were designed with the same level of sensitivity and awareness as the city's new school bus system. Here's what the pedicab industry has to say:

The New York Sun has the first of what will be a littany of congestion pricing stories coming out in the next few months. Finally, with city and state elections out of the way, New York City is about to embark on a substantive discussion of its transportation, traffic congestion and long-term sustainability issues. Some excerpts below:

November 7, 2006

Despite being slapped down in court a couple of times now, the NYPD is proposing yet another set of rules to restrict public gatherings aimed primarily at the bicyclists who meet for the monthly Critical Mass ride. According to yesterday's Times: