Bold Leadership: Adams Administration Sends Muted and Mixed Signals on Congestion Pricing

Ingrid Lewis-Martin is doing an end-zone dance over Governor Kathy Hochul's flip flop on congestion pricing. Lewis-Martin, the chief advisor to the mayor who said she hasn't taken the subway since the '80s, told Politico that “God answered my prayers by way of Kathy Hochul.”

That's a lot more explicit than Mayor Adams's response of mealy-mouthed support for the "indefinite pause," saying vaguely that a congestion pricing plan would have to wait until they "get it right," whenever that might be. 

This isn't the first time Lewis-Martin has jitterbugged on congestion pricing's grave. "In a magazine profile, Lewis-Martin even took credit for killing then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal in 2008, when she was working for Adams in the state Senate,” Politico noted.

Others in the Adams administration are not as happy as Lewis-Martin. Deputy Mayor of Operations Meera Joshi gave a speech at Transportation Alternatives’ gala on Wednesday and insisted that congestion pricing “needs to happen now.”

"I voted for congestion pricing in 2008 and still support it today," Dan Garodnick, who chairs the City's Planning Commission, said in a post on X, "but even those who don’t should be very worried about the significant—really significant—hole in the MTA 2020-2024 capital budget created by changing course right now."

Both Garodnick and Joshi are mayoral appointees to the MTA’s board, which might have the final say over Hochul’s decision to delay congestion pricing if the state legislature can’t come up with a different way to replace the $15 billion in bonds that the tolls were supposed to raise for improvements to mass transit.

And so far, state legislators are out any viable ideas to replace the money:

And get this—Albany is supposed to end its legislative session today. Steamy! 

Here are some equally steamy links:

• NYC's local chapter of the Audobon Society is renaming itself "NYC Bird Alliance.” Okay!
• Revel's new/old business plan: Become Uber.
• The City Council passed, in an overwhelming majority and against protestation by the Adams administration, an "Advice and Consent" bill that would give them more power to scrutinize mayoral appointees.
• A parrot living alone in a Bay Ridge smoke shop has been "rescued."
• Musicians are competing for coveted (official) spots busking in the subway system.
• The Working Families Party has launched a new website tracking spending by AIPAC in New York's 16th District.
• New York Focus has a new story tracking a pro-Israel group's enormous spending in New York races this election season.
• When NYPD Lieutenant George Huang gave his account of sexual harassment by top cop Tim Pearson, Huang says the then-Deputy Inspector Joseph Profeta pounded a table and yelled: "That did not happen." Now Huang is suing.
• Some cops snuck into the VIP section at Electric Zoo and stole $2,900 worth of Ace of Spades champagne, according to charges filed against them by the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
• Why did Mayor Adams's aide Rana Abbasova fly to Turkey for free?
• Rich people are fighting over abstract paintings.
• You'll be able to get a license plate with your zodiac sign on it.
• Oh god, not the bees.