UN Diplomats Contest Congestion Pricing, Cuba Out of Princeton, Ticket Number Down

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Off the Racks

UNITED NATIONS, November 8 -- If New York drivers find themselves paying tolls to enter midtown Manhattan, under Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing scheme, guess who will not pay them? UN diplomats. A little-noticed section of the barely-read "Report of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country," recounts that the representatives of Indonesia, Malaysia and Russia all expressed "concerns" about "the 'congestion tax' plan recently announced by the Mayor and whether it was intended to apply to the diplomatic community." The representative of the United States replied that "the actual wording was 'congestion pricing'... it was too early to discuss the matter as it was unclear whether the plan, which had yet to be finalized, would receive approval in Albany."

            Forget for a moment the centrality of Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver. The U.S. representative's deferral on the question does not take into account that the U.S. State Department, in London where congestion pricing is already in place, argues not to pay it.

Bloomberg and Ban Ki-moon, congestion pricing and exemptions not shown

            So here in New York, Ambassadors and their staffs even from oil rich countries will cross on bridges and in tunnels without paying. But only from some countries -- the report also contains the complaints of delegations from Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Sudan and Russia, about being barred from traveling more than 25 miles away from Columbus Circle.  Wanting to attend a meeting at Princeton about the UN International Criminal Court, two delegates from Cuba were refused permission to travel that far south, whether by car or New Jersey Transit. The U.S. responded that its "obligations as host country" of the UN "arose only in respect of official UN meetings." Sometimes restrictions are tighter than 25 miles. When Radovan Karadzic came to the UN, he was limited to 42nd Street, between First Avenue and the Grand Hyatt on Lexington. No need to pay congestion pricing for that commute...

  On parking tickets, the one topic in the Host Country Report that is periodically covered, Mayor Bloomberg's sister Marjorie Tiven, NYC Commissioner for the UN, recounted that "between October 2006 and January 2007, 2400 civilian vehicles had been summoned and 79 towed... Civilian vehicles received seven times more summonses than those of diplomats." The report says Ms. Tiven "announced that... a new telephone line had been established which was available 24 hours a day, 7 days a wekk, for diplomats to address their parking problems: 718-383-7596." There's only one problem: the number has been disconnected, and no further information is available about it...

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Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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