Mayor Bloomberg, after squeaking out a win in the City Council for his congestion pricing plan, will face his next big test in Albany, where state lawmakers have the final say on whether drivers will be charged a fee to enter parts of Manhattan.

A sharply divided council approved the traffic measure by a vote of 30–20, in what many members said was one of the closest votes in council history. The vote was the culmination of a feverish lobbying effort by Mr. Bloomberg and top aides that swayed lawmakers, some of them just hours before the vote, with offers of political support and promises of transportation improvements, council members said.

Mr. Bloomberg defended his outreach effort, telling reporters last night that he will “support people that help the city.”

Speaker Christine Quinn, who helped secure the passage of congestion pricing in the council, said yesterday’s vote sends a message that the city’s elected representatives are sick and tired of city streets being clogged with traffic and of children in New York “literally having to fight to be able to breathe.”

“We see congestion pricing as a solution to this problem,” she said. “These home-rule messages urge Albany not to miss this opportunity.”

Critics of the plan said it is far from certain congestion pricing will win approval in Albany, where Governor Paterson and the majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno, have endorsed the traffic plan but the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, has offered little support for it.

An assemblyman who is opposed to congestion pricing, Richard Brodsky, said that as of last night, there weren’t enough votes lined up for it to pass in Albany. Mr. Bloomberg is racing to win approval for congestion pricing before April 7, the deadline for the city to receive $354 million in federal transportation funding. A spokesman for Mr. Silver said the Assembly would discuss congestion pricing only after the state budget is approved.

The apparent vote shortfall among state legislators seemed clear yesterday, as Ms. Quinn called the council vote before a plan for its approval was in place in Albany.

Some council members said they were galled that they were forced to take a public stand on congestion pricing before a deal had been cut with state lawmakers, something Mr. Bloomberg had promised them wouldn’t happen.

“The mayor sat next to me at a dinner and said he would never put us in a predicament where he would not know whether or not Albany was going to vote in favor or against this. That he would not leave us out there alone,” a council member who represents parts of Brooklyn and voted against congestion pricing, Diana Reyna, said.

Council members gave impassioned speeches in the Council Chambers defending their votes as way to tackle the city’s traffic gridlock and improve public transportation, with opponents arguing that it was an unfair tax that would lead to deeper class divisions.

When asked if he set aside funding for transportation projects in council districts that supported congestion pricing, the mayor said his administration sat with officials from across the city to ask what they needed from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s capital plan budget.

A council member of Lower Manhattan who voted in favor of the plan, Alan Gerson, said he had been talking to Bloomberg aides about his demands until just before the vote. He said he had been assured that the administration would add traffic enforcement agents to his district, fund a study

examining the Holland Tunnel corridor, and require new commuter buses to meet high environmental standards.

On Sunday, the Bloomberg administration announced several amendments to its plan to charge drivers $8-$9 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street on weekdays between the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., changes seen as making it easier for the proposal to win approval in the council and in Albany.

The revisions called for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to contribute $1 billion to the MTA’s capital plan and would allow commuters who qualify for the earned income tax credit to claim a refund on congestion pricing fees that go beyond the cost of a monthly MetroCard.

Environmental groups praised the council for putting its stamp of approval on the project yesterday. The council technically did not approve congestion pricing, but sent a message to the state Legislature that it is in favor of the measure.