After helping to kill the most promising transit proposal New York has seen in years, Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr., son of State Senator Ruben Diaz, had the gall to suggest that Bloomberg's proposed congestion pricing measure was "morally unconscionable." That's right. He described a fee designed to price a scarce resource more intelligently -- and create room to maneuver in Lower and Midtown Manhattan, some of the densest real estate in North America -- in terms usually reserved for the wanton murder of beloved house pets.

Diaz went on to explain that the congestion charge was wrong because it failed to guarantee that Bronx residents "will not be subject to yet another transit fare hike in the near future," and because it didn't addres "traffic congestion concerns in any of the four boroughs outside of Manhattan." But of course by defeating a proposal explicitly dedicated to funding traffic-mitigation projects throughout the boroughs of New York and beyond, Diaz himself has all but guaranteed ... a transit fare hike and continued congestion.

Keep in mind that congestion pricing has been used with great success in Singapore, Norway, and London. And of course the putatively "populist" objection to the plan is a flat-out canard. As Transportation Alternatives notes, only five percent of outer-borough commuters travel by private car. The vast majority spends its commute pressed like canned hams on overcrowded trains and buses. Moreover, workers making less than $25,000 are three times as likely to use public transportation than to drive. This makes sense, given that, well, cars are expensive, and so is gas. Evidently Diaz hasn't heard the news. Among workers earning between $25,000 and $50,000, transit remains three times as popular as driving. As for those making more than $50,000, transit still beats private automobile use. Given that all revenues from the congestion charge will go to improve the transit options used by New York's working and middle class, the proposal should be a no-brainer.

Which is why the New York City Council approved the congestion charge in the first place. Now a coalition of suburbanites and treacherous blowhards like Diaz has essentially joined hands to steal money from the pockets of New York's overtaxed, overcharged masses, all so devoted friends in the delivery business and car-mad out-of-towners can crush our streets under the weight of their gas-guzzling metal monstrosities. (Could it be that Diaz is a simpleton? Almost certainly not. It takes brains, grit, and determination to have the exact same name as your father, and to inherit public office in a one-party borough.) Meanwhile, the social costs of traffic congestion will continue to be borne by asthmatic children living in Inwood, Washington Heights, and Harlem, by people waiting desperately for an ambulance or the police, and of course the suffering straphangers who ride the bus.

There is only one real solution to this problem long-term, a solution proposed by the late Norman Mailer during his mayoral run in 1969: New York city needs to secede from New York state and take its fate in its own hands. Let this be the last time New Yorkers are robbed blind by the wretched and corrupt gang in Albany.