The mayor is stuck

No matter your route, it’s a slog to traverse the most crowded part of the most crowded city in the U.S. It’s even tougher to map the route from Mayor de Blasio’s words on combating crippling traffic congestion to his proposed weak-tea actions. Words, standing at Third Ave. and 54th St. on Sunday: “Here is the epicenter,” where Midtown speeds have fallen 23%, to 4.7 mph, since 2010.

More words: “We know the human price of congestion. It means people miss job interviews. It means they’re late for doctor’s appointments. It means they have less time with their families.”

Still more words: “There are many solutions. We have to apply them all.”

But de Blasio’s actions unveiled that day, his version of “them all” amounted to small-bore ideas like enforcing anti-gridlock laws against blocking the box. He left out the big concept that everyone with a pulse and a brain knows will work: bringing bridge and tunnel tolling into the 21st century.

Listen to one expert: “Other global cities like New York experiencing record growth while facing finite street capacity — including London, L.A., Paris, and Stockholm — are deploying two major responses to reduce congestion and keep people and goods moving. The first is road pricing and the second is major investment in transit expansion.”

That was Polly Trottenberg, de Blasio’s transportation commissioner, in June. She added that while “pricing has proven to be an effective tool to reduce traffic congestion,” no plan had “thus far gained traction in Albany.”

That was then. Gov. Cuomo has since taken it up, building on plans put forward by Mayors Dinkins and Bloomberg. The idea now: toll the East River bridges, cut the price on other tolled crossings and plow the money into the subways.

Peddling the myth that low-income New Yorkers will be hit, de Blasio balks. And the distance between his complaints and his solutions grows, and grows, and grows. Where it stops, nobody knows.