Silver Hints at Working Summer Vacation

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, this morning on New York Post columnist Fred Dicker’s radio show, showed an opening for the Mayor’s congestion pricing plan. He discounted the chance of its passage in time for the Legislature's scheduled June 21 recess, but when asked whether he would be willing to come back over the summer in a special session in order to qualify for a major federal grant, Mr. Silver said, “If need be, absolutely.”

Then he went on about all the problems with the Mayor’s proposal. At some points, he sounded like he was willing to work out a deal: he quibbled, for example, with the idea that the congestion zone should cover the entire area of Manhattan south of 86th Street, saying that areas along the island’s edges were not that congested. In the end, he would only commit himself to take action on traffic, but he suggested there might be other ways of doing that.

“I would hope … we can come up with a plan that seriously reduces the detriment to the environment in New York City,” he said. “At this point there may be some impact on congestion. There are a lot of ways to do congestion.”