So, congestion pricing--the plan to charge drivers $8 for entering Manhattan during peak hours--is dead. Back in the summer of 2007, here's what two Indypendent writers had to say about Mayor Mike's plan.

Arun Gupta wrote: "Now, some sort of levy on rush-hour traffic should be implemented, but Bloomberg's proposal is full of bad ideas.

Foremost, Bloomberg is plotting to incorporate the license-plate readers used to track cars in a smothering security grid known as a "Ring of Steel" to track the daily activities of New Yorkers. Congestion pricing advocates such as Transportation Alternatives have been unconscionably silent about the dual-use nature of these cameras."

But Julie Raskin fired back: "When you look at those numbers it becomes hard to see congestion pricing as unfairly targeting the lower and middle classes, as its critics claim. That false assertion is perhaps the biggest piece of misinformation circulated by critics."