A more peaceful New York? Photo from https://wwp.new-york-usa.com/

The New York Times reports today that Mayor Bloomberg will announce on Sunday an ambitious proposal to give New York City a much needed face lift. Among the undertakings included in the Mayor’s proposal is — drum roll, please — congestion pricing! As the Times reports:

What will almost certainly be the most contentious idea, however, involves charging drivers to enter the busiest sections of Manhattan. The proposal being formulated calls for money raised from congestion pricing, which could reach hundreds of millions of dollars a year, to go into a fund for large-scale transportation investments. Those would include projects for the boroughs outside Manhattan, where drivers would be most affected by new fees that could reach $8, minus a credit for any tolls already in effect.

Cities like London, Stockholm, and Singapore have already experimented with congestion pricing with varying degrees of success. Now, if the mayor gets his way, New York will be added to a growing list of cities bent on making downtown areas less congested. One can only imagine Robert Moses, New York’s late planning czar who advocated ripping a freeway through Greenwich Village, turning in his grave.