The holidays bring out the best in New York City - with one very notable exception. As shoppers descend on Manhattan in droves, traffic grinds to a maddening halt. Every year, the Department of Transportation designates several gridlock alert days from Thanksgiving to New Years in anticipation of the holiday rush. It's meant to encourage us to use public transportation, but that advisory often falls on deaf ears. If anything, traffic delays both above and below ground reduce even the most punctual among us into being embarrassingly late, and during the holidays, this is especially the case.

New Yorkers spend an average of one week a year getting to and from work, giving us some of the longest commute times in the nation. Rates of childhood asthma and other respiratory ailments are alarmingly high in our neighborhoods, especially those near congested roadways. The subways and buses are absurdly underfunded and global warming is a threat we can no longer ignore. To compound the problem, New York is expected to grow to 9 million people by 2030.

With all these problems, the status quo is simply not an option. That's why we should all be pressing the City Council and the state Legislature to approve congestion pricing.

Some critics try to argue that the fee to enter Manhattan's central business district will harm the poor and hurt commuters from the boroughs. That rationale is completely bogus: most working-class residents can't afford to drive and are at the mercy of public transit. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island residents don't even work in the central business district - they work in the borough where they live.

The truth is that all New Yorkers will benefit from having more money go into mass transit, and most wouldn't have to shell out an extra dime. With the revenue congestion pricing will bring the MTA, we could finally see faster, better-maintained subways that break down less and arrive more often. We'd finally get some more buses and new routes where they are most needed. And let's not forget that the streets would be less congested and our air cleaner.

Shoppers are snapping up the most expensive gifts on Fifth Avenue this holiday season, but the best gift of all can be found at City Hall and the state Capitol instead: a healthier, less congested and more livable New York.