Weiner Sees Stacked Deck on Congestion Pricing Plan

Rep. Anthony Weiner is accusing the state commission on congestion pricing of being biased in favor of Mayor Bloomberg's traffic mitigation plan.

"This commission has been stacked in favor of the mayor," Mr. Weiner told The New York Sun yesterday, two days before the 17-member panel is set to propose plans in one of its final meetings. "I mean the commissioner is a former deputy mayor," he said, referring to the commission's chairman, Marc Shaw.

Mr. Weiner will debate advocates of the mayor's plan tonight in a forum at the Museum of the City of New York. A former City Council member who represented an area of Queens, Walter McCaffrey, will also oppose congestion pricing, while the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, and the director of Campaign for New York's Future, Michael O'Loughlin, will defend the plan, which would charge drivers about $8 to enter and drive in most of Manhattan during peak hours.

Mr. Shaw said he is an appointee of Governor Spitzer, not Mr. Bloomberg. "From the beginning, I made it clear my desire to reach a goal that gets implemented," Mr. Shaw said in a telephone interview. "It doesn't matter who appointed who."

Mr. Weiner, a candidate to replace Mr. Bloomberg in 2009, has been an outspoken opponent of the traffic plan, which he says will unfairly affect residents in boroughs outside Manhattan.

"I think the proposal is an expensive, big-government expenditure that probably won't even be able to achieve the objectives it's supposed to," he said.

Mr. Weiner said the city should invest federal funds in new ferries, grant tax incentives to companies that deliver during off-peak hours, and build the proposed Cross Harbor Tunnel between New Jersey and Long Island.

The commission on congestion pricing will present a series of proposals tomorrow at a public meeting. Plans range from a modification of the mayor's original plan to a strategy that has no congestion pricing at all, according to officials familiar with the report.

The commission will send its final recommendation to the mayor's office on January 31. Any plan must be approved by the state Legislature, the governor, and the City Council.