It is an idea that has been successful in London, and is now being whispered in the ears of City Hall officials after months of behind-the-scenes work by the Partnership for New York City, the city's major business association: congestion pricing.

Congestion pricing is the focus of a nine-month study by the Partnership, a group with great influence at City Hall, and participants have provided the first rough outlines of how such a plan might work.

But Bloomberg's press secretary was quoted in the article as saying:

"Although we're always open to ideas from the business community, this isn't on the mayor's second-term agenda," said Edward Skyler, a spokesman for the mayor.

I just saw the evening news report on this, which had Bloomberg basically saying the same thing himself. They also asked people in traffic whether they supported the idea - no surprise it didn't get much support. They'd rather have the traffic than pay a toll.

I have some thoughts on how to build a more successful campaign for congestion pricing which I will post later this weekend. But I think two important points need to be emphasized.

1. This is about improving access to the city for necessary traffic only during peak hours eliminating unnecessary traffic that makes it harder for business to be transacted in the central business district.

2. The money collected should be earmarked to pay for the upkeep of the bridges and roads, which now is subsidized by the 80% of New Yorkers who don't own cars. In fact most of the cars that use the bridges are from Long Island and Connecticut.