As several outer borough politicians knock each other over en route to the podium to protest the mayor’s congestion pricing proposal, one former Queens Council member is helping craft a strategy to defeat the plan.

 

Walter McCaffrey, term limited out of the Council in 2001, has been working as advisor and strategist to Keep New York City Congestion Tax Free, committed to blocking Bloomberg’s plan. He said his opposition to a similar proposal in the 1990s while on the Council helped win him the job now.

 

McCaffrey’s group argues that the congestion pricing plan would constitute an extra tax on the backs of residents who cannot afford to pay, arguing that some drivers could face up to $5,000 annually in new fees. Emphasizing senior citizens as the hardest hit, McCaffrey also singled out those seeking medical treatment as being hit hard. He said that two thirds of Queens residents see doctors in Manhattan and many cannot use public transportation because of the effects of the treatment.

 

“Those folks who have to take their cars into Manhattan are those who have incomes of 40,000 to $45,000 a year,” he said.

 

He is not just leading the opposition, though. He is also working with the group to create alternative congestion elimination proposals. These include having Manhattan construction sites make entrances that take up less street room, putting parking notches in the sidewalk for buildings and building more rapid bus lanes.

 

McCaffrey notes that while these proposals have not been endorsed by Bloomberg, the mayor has agreed with the group in ramping up enforcement of cars “blocking the box” and creating gridlock.

 

Started by the Queens Chamber of Commerce last year, Keep New York City Congestion Tax Free is currently funded by private contributors. He declined to specify who they were, but a consortium of Manhattan garage owners is believed to be putting up at least some of the money.

 

A former zoning subcommittee chair on the Council, McCaffrey held the seat representing Woodside, Sunnyside, Long Island City and Maspeth now occupied by Eric Gioia (D). He has not sought elective office since leaving City Hall, instead focusing on congestion pricing and advising several nationwide corporations in addition to lobbying work. He would not disclose his client list.

 

McCaffrey said he is done with elective politics, whether it be for some new office or an attempt to return to his old seat once Gioia is term-limited out of it himself in 2009.

 

“Thank you, been there, done that,” he said.

 

He is hoping his lobbying skills and knowledge of the legislative process pays off to block the congestion pricing plan. The plan is gaining substantial opposition in the public sector, with polls showing most city residents being against it.

 

McCaffrey said he is beginning to see more city and state legislators leaning toward opposing the proposal, and not just in Queens, where the opposition first sprouted more than a year ago, and remains strongest today.

 

“The Queens community was involved at the early stage,” he said. “This is now broad-based geographically.”