Jason Varone

Critics of congestion pricing often claim that small businesses will bear an unfair burden if the Mayor is successful in implementing his plan. But yesterday, a diverse group of small business leaders from throughout the five boroughs gathered on the steps of City Hall yesterday to voice their support for the Mayor's PlaNYC initiative. From The Campiagn for New York Future's press release:

A delegation of approximately 30 members of the Campaign for New York's Future are traveling to Albany today to meet with more than two dozen state legislators and other public officials. Today's trip follows a series of meetings on Monday in which key coalition leaders joined Mayor Bloomberg to call for urgent State action on the Mayor's key PlaNYC initiatives. Today's press release (care of Howard Rubenstein) lays out some of Bloomberg's key legislative goals up in Albany:

From a press release that just came across the Streetsblog transom:

The Financial Times reports that China's cities will participate in this year's World Car Free Day. These actions have a measureable effect. A recent study found that when Beijing ordered 800,000 cars off the roads for three days last year, local nitrogen oxide air pollution fell by 40 per cent.

Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the outstanding Field Notes From a Catastrophe, covers climate change for the New Yorker. In this week's issue, she takes up congestion pricing and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2030 plan:

The balloon says: Drive one day less and look how much carbon dioxide you'll keep out of the air we breathe.

One interesting case study in the mayor's plan is the real-time pricing of electricity. According to research done at Carnegie Mellon University, Americans would save nearly $23 billion a year if they shifted just 7% of their usage during peak hours to less expensive times - the equivalent of the whole nation getting a free month of power every year.