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Defending New York City’s new congestion pricing fees imposed as of January 5th on most drivers entering a large designated area of Manhattan, Chairman and CEO of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), Janno Lieber, demonstrated how progressive elitists like him roll. He dismissed the legitimate criticisms of congestion pricing as “grievance politics” and claimed that surging violent crime in the subways on his watch is simply “in people’s heads” rather than actual fact.
Mr. Lieber (pictured above) is touting the $9 daily fee that most drivers now have to pay for the privilege of entering below 60th Street in Manhattan as accomplishing several key objectives close to his heart. These include raising billions of dollars more to pour into the profligate MTA’s money pit, incentivizing drivers to switch to mass transit, and protecting the environment by reducing the amount of vehicular traffic.
Janno Lieber and his fellow congestive pricing boosters have callously ignored the burden their woke social engineering scheme will impose, especially on middle and lower income individuals with jobs or other life circumstances requiring them to drive. Compelling drivers to pay the congestion pricing fee is literally highway robbery committed by a fiscally irresponsible bureaucratic agency. The alternative that the pro-congestive pricing elites are promoting – using mass transit – means riding in crime-infested subway trains and paying even more to do so starting later this year.
Adding insult to injury, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Comptroller Brad Lander, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams – all big supporters of congestion pricing – are chauffeured in and out of Manhattan’s congestion zone in NYPD vehicles. These vehicles are exempted from having to pay the congestion pricing fee. This is a classic example of the limousine liberals’ “rules for thee but not for me” attitude.
With a whopping operating budget for 2025 of $19.9 billion that includes plans for an August fare increase of 4%, the MTA’s spending remains way out of control. It has shelled out scandalously exorbitant overtime payments alone of more than $1 billion annually for its employees since 2018. Its pension and other labor costs are also inordinately expensive. And on top of its high in-house labor costs, the MTA loves spending money on pricey outside consultants.
The MTA has dug itself deeper and deeper into debt – exceeding the debts of nearly 80% of the states- with bloated capital projects plagued by budget overruns and costly delays. For example, the price tag for completing the next phase of the much delayed white elephant known as the Second Avenue Subway has jumped another $4 billion. The planned renovation of Penn Station is now estimated to cost 35% more than the $6 billion initially estimated.
New York Republican Representative Mike Lawler was right on point when he wrote:“The MTA is spending itself into oblivion, New York State is along for the ride, and commuters and taxpayers are suffering the consequences.”
Consumers will also suffer the consequences to the extent that businesses paying congestion pricing fees try to pass on some or all of what they have paid to their customers.
In addition to raising money to pay for the MTA’s outrageous boondoggles, congestion pricing is being promoted as an effective way to nudge more people to use mass transit and thereby help unclog New York City’s most congested streets. To those who worry about violent subway crime, MTA’s honcho Lieber presents statistics showing a 12.5% reduction in transit crime last year compared to 2019, which was the last full year before the Covid-19 pandemic shut the city down.
“The overall stats are positive,” he said during a press conference.
Never mind the ten murders that occurred last year within New York City’s subway system that matched the 25-year high set in 2022. Never mind the grisly image of the sleeping woman in a subway car set on fire and burned to death allegedly by an illegal immigrant as well as the rash of stabbings, some of which proved to be fatal.
The head of the Transport Workers Union, John Samuelson, summed up Lieber’s cavalier, out of touch attitude perfectly with this post: “If MTA CEO Janno Lieber was routinely assaulted like hundreds of @transportworker members have been under his tenure, or shoved in front of an oncoming train, or lit on fire by a crazed lunatic, he’d be far less snarky and indifferent to the tribulations of working New Yorkers.”
Finally, there is still an open question regarding the potential adverse impact of congestion pricing on air quality in surrounding areas, including in neighborhoods close to the congestion zone entry points where commuters may park their vehicles and in New Jersey.
New York City is the first city in the United States to institute congestion pricing. If President-elect Trump succeeds in killing the regressive congestion pricing tax as he has promised to do, New York will hopefully also be the last.
New York City once a place where everybody wanted to go but now thanks to the Open Borers Welcome Migrants crowd its becoming a Crime ridden mess
Yeah, I’m going to take mass transit. If I’m lucky I won’t get robbed or burned to death.
What a pompous fool Janno Lieber is.
I will never pay a congestion fee because I will never be caught dead in NYC. I haven’t been there since 1980. It was s-hole then and it’s an s-hole now. Thanks to the progressive failed mayors.
Here’s a hint…….deport the illegals and get rid of the homeless and guess what, your little congestion problem will disappear.
I feel the same about Chicago. The kids and I used to take the train to the city.
That was 30 years ago. We have not visited since.
BTW, His Honor, Mayor Johnson would like a congestion pricing tax in Chicago. He wants the revenue.
It’s not that far a stretch to envision some ordinary person with
a huge bite out of his weekly budget thanks to the daily
congestion fee – having to make the choice between eating
lunch or paying the fee.
It’s also not hard to envision Janno Lieber in another time in a
powdered wig and ruffled shirt concurring cavalierly with –
“Let them eat cake.” That is exactly who that oppressive, elitist
scumbag is.
The elites don’t want to look at or be inconvenienced by traffic while peering out from their million dollar views or sitting in their limos in midtown traffic. Mass transit for peons, clear streets for the elites.
Do the math for those who commute: $9x5x4 = $180 more a month on top of bridge tolls, etc. I Love NY days are over.
In the days of Stalin when the Bolsheviks over ran a country, the first thing they would do was release all the criminals from prison and tell them to go rob the rich. Then the prisons would have enough space to incarcerate any ordinary citizens who were foolish enough to try and defend themselves. Daniel Penny comes to mind. Notice that nobody has since tried to interfere with any robbery, assault or passenger burning. That’s the idea.
The “congestion pricing” is just a way to stuff more New Yorkers into the maw of rabid criminals acting as the unpaid storm troopers of the state.
Force us into Large Cities living in Beehive Apartments Buildings force us into Mass Transit and EV,s force us to eat Plant Based Junk the World under the Eco-Nazis/Watermelons(Green on the Outside Red on the Inside)and a seasonal Sacrifice just like all the Bloodthristy Pagans did
Yeah, I’ll use the NewYork subways! At my age, I need escalators, etc. The vast majority of stations have stairs only.. Too, if any other enterprise were running a deficit, extorting funding from non-users would be unthinkable. Only government okays this mindset.