[Insert Fancy New Program] Is The Most Powerful Policy Tool At The Hands Of City Officials To Improve [Insert Intractable Problem Here], And Protect Our Quality Of Life By Reducing [Insert Unwanted Behavior Here], Promoting [Insert Adverbally Positive Attribute Here], And Financing 21st Century Improvements To Our [Insert Vitally Important Infrastructure Here]

The fact is, there are many ways to fritter away $354 million:

Champions of congestion pricing wonder why any politician would turn down $354 million. The feds have offered just that to implement Mayor Bloomberg’s traffic fee.

But the city and the state already spend that kind of dough on projects that don’t seem as vital as mass transit.

They’ve committed $403 million to the Yankee Stadium project, for example, and just one city program granted $409 million in property tax breaks last year to Midtown office towers like the MetLife Building and such fast-food outlets as McDonald’s.

City workers have staged protests against a $410 million payroll system that uses biometric devices, including palm scanners. “They say it will reduce ‘buddy punching,'” said a union spokesman, “but we’ve not had one case of that in ten years.”

“While $354 million sounds like a huge amount of money, it will be almost gone before you start congestion pricing,” said Brooklyn Councilman Lewis Fidler.

The MTA puts its necessary upgrades at $767 million. The tolling system would take $73 million, and the operating cost is $62 annually.