Free Republic

Stand down — and fix this mess! Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday nixed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s efforts to squeeze a $750,000 toll from the organizers of the New York City Marathon — after The Post highlighted widespread outrage over the “cash grab” move. “I’ve directed the MTA to fix this mess and allow the marathon to move forward as it always has,” Hochul said in a statement to The Post. “The marathon is an iconic symbol of New York City’s tenacity and resilience that unites communities across the five boroughs each fall.” Hochul’s decision to thwart the MTA’s latest...

The MTA’s latest congestion pricing scheme: Charge runners for crossing the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. The transit agency is waging war against the organizers of the New York City Marathon, demanding $750,000 to make up for toll revenue lost during the iconic race. And if New York Road Runners doesn’t pay up, the agency is threatening to restrict use of the bridge, potentially reducing the number of runners who can compete in the wildly popular event each November, the New York Times reported Wednesday, citing internal memos. During hardball negotiations, the MTA initially said runners — who start the marathon on Staten...

Subway service on the A and C lines in both directions are running with severe delays due to a boycott by train crews following several violent attacks on transit workers, according to the Transit Workers Union Local 100. The service disruption left riders scrambling... The stalled service comes hours after a conductor on a Brooklyn A train was slashed in the neck — the latest in a string of high-profile attacks on MTA employees in the subway.

An MTA conductor was slashed in the neck on a subway in Brooklyn early Thursday, police said. The 59-year-old conductor was working the overnight shift on a southbound A train near the Rockaway Station when he was attacked just before 3:40 a.m., according to the NYPD. The MTA worker had stuck his head out the train cab window to look left and right, and that is when he was slashed in the back with an unknown sharp object, police said. The victim was taken to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in stable condition, police said.

NJ Transit wants to hike fares an eye-popping 15% but may still face a massive budget hole in a year – a dire situation that has the head of the MTA mocking the Garden State’s governor. MTA chairman Janno Lieber roasted New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday over his transit budgeting chaos, taking a dig at one of the most vocal critics of the planned congestion toll in Manhattan. “Phil Murphy said he was gonna fix New Jersey Transit if it kills him,” Lieber told New York state lawmakers during a budget hearing in Albany. “I’m not sure. He’s...

MTA police officers fatally shot a parolee armed with a loaded Uzi machine pistol in the head as they tried to arrest him late Friday for groping a 19-year-old woman in Queens, authorities said. The armed parolee, identified by police sources as Bashe McDaniel, had done five stints in prison, mostly for weapons possession and was convicted of manslaughter in 1990, according to court records. The woman entered MTA’s Long Island Rail Road headquarters on 91st St. in Jamaica, next door to Jamaica Station at about 10 p.m. Friday and claimed that McDaniel had groped her, MTA Chief of Police...

Come on and take a free ride! Five Big Apple bus routes will be free starting in late September, in part to monitor ridership numbers on transit lines with high fare evasion. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s troubleshooting plan is part of a $50 million state pilot pushed hard by progressives in Albany. The funding also boosts the number of trains running on the No. 1, No. 6, C, N and R trains by 20 percent during the middays and on weekends. “The MTA is the lifeblood of New York City, and I’m proud of the tremendous progress we’ve made in...

The price of environmentalism has always concerned conservatives, but now even New Jersey Democrats are getting upset about the costs on taxpayers under the guise of helping curb emissions. Federal transportation officials have green lighted New York's plan to charge escalating congestion tolls for drivers entering parts of Manhattan and New Jersey Democrats are "outraged," Politico reported. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., expressed their disappointment the Federal Highway Administration has allowed the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority's congestion pricing to go forward without more review and environmental studies. The MTA is considering...

The federal government granted final approval to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s congestion pricing program on Monday, the final step needed to create the nation’s first system of congestion pricing, including what tolls to charge and which drivers will receive exemptions. The MTA has yet to set the exact amount for the toll, but has signaled it will range between $9 and $23 per day to drive a car into the Central Business District. The agency is considering major discounts for drivers who come in overnight and lower income commuters without easy access to frequent transit service. “Congestion pricing will reduce...

A video captured the moment an New York City MTA worker slapped the phone out of a trans bus driver's hand for recording her in the women's locker room after telling her to use the men's instead. Nana Mangual, who identifies as female but was born biologically male, videoed the alleged assault as she addressed fellow driver, Sonia Rivera, who had been shouting at her through the door of a bathroom stall while on shift at a Bronx bus depot. Mangual claims Rivera berated her for listening to music in the shower before telling her she was in the wrong...

Who first decided to milk a cow? Was it a desire to obtain calcium or was it an act of perversion? We may never know. But from cow's milk came a proliferation of dairy products such as yogurt, butter, ice cream, and cheese. I do not like cottage cheese or sour cream but they derive from cow milk as well. Why are eggs found in the dairy department of supermarkets? Eggs have nothing to do with cow milk. They belong in the meat section. Things are loosening up in NYC with regard to the big COVID scare. Restaurants began taking...

Today in "efficient government spending" news, the NY Times was caught celebrating the fact that President Biden's $1 trillion infrastructure bill will keep MTA fares stable and MTA service "robust".But the punchline is that the NY Times admits that the fares will only stay stable for "at least six months", leaving the door wide open for hikes before the end of 2022. All the result of "receiving billions of dollars" from the infrastructure bill. The Times also celebrated the fact that the bill would "defer drastic service cuts", as if service from the MTA could possibly get any worse.Gov. Kathy...

Brooklyn, we have a problem. The MTA spent $86 million on a state-of-the-art, NASA-like “bus command center” that has gone unused for more than two years because it’s already falling apart, The Post has learned. Transit officials have said the eastern Brooklyn command center, which replaces a smaller facility across the street, will serve as a “war room” for bus dispatchers. But the building has sat empty since former Transit President Andy Byford and other big-wigs held a celebratory ribbon cutting there in June 2019. With the building at Jamaica Avenue and Fanchon Place having suffered leaks, faulty heating and...

Struggling to get its workforce vaccinated, the MTA has pulled a $500,000 death benefit for any unvaccinated employees who succumb to COVID, The City has learned. The MTA this week will extend through the end of the year the lump-sum payment and three years of health insurance to the survivors of vaccinated workers who die from the virus, a senior official said. But workers who opt out of getting their shots could relinquish the rights of their loved ones to secure the benefit should they die — unless they had a “valid documented exception” to vaccination, according to a notice...

Two quarreling city bus drivers locked horns and refused to move their massive rigs in a bizarre stand-off on a narrow two-way avenue in Brooklyn, a video released Friday shows. The B35 buses, each facing the opposite direction, stopped a few feet from each other on 13th Ave. near 39th St. in Borough Park about 6:45 p.m. Thursday, but both drivers refused to budge, sparking some gridlock in the area, the video shows. “Back it up! Back it up!” one of the MTA drivers screamed to the other. “How am I going to back up? Why can’t you back up?”...

New York City residents may be looking at paying a $3 surcharge for online package deliveries to aid the failing Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). In an op-ed for the Daily News, John Samuelsen International President for the Transport Workers Union and Brooklyn Assemblyman Robert Carroll said the MTA’s budget crisis could be resolved with a new measure – a fee that would reportedly raise more than $1 billion a year. “We do not have to accept as inevitable the laying off of thousands of transit workers who have already endured and sacrificed so much keeping NYC moving, and functioning, during...

With the Metropolitan Transportation Authority facing a budget crisis, New Yorkers may have to dig into their pockets to help out. Under a new proposed bill, New York City residents would be required to pay a $3 surcharge on packages they ordered online, with the exception for medicine and food. Assemblyman Robert Carroll, who proposed the bill, says the online shopping fee would raise more than $1 billion a year "to fund the operating costs of buses and subways in the city of New York."

That you’re not supposed to do this should go without saying — but MTA bosses believe they need a rule explicitly banning defecating on the subway. The new rule is on the agenda for an MTA meeting Wednesday. The rule will ban defecating on the city’s subways, buses and transit facilities. Transit rules previously mandated $100 fines for straphangers who "create a nuisance, hazard, or unsanitary condition (including, but not limited to, spitting or urinating).” Creating an “unsanitary condition” surely includes pooping — but MTA officials think they have to be more specific.

NEW YORK (AP) — Ahead of Labor Day, unions representing millions across several working-class sectors are threatening to authorize work stoppages in support of the Black Lives Matter movement amid calls for concrete measures that address racial injustice. In a statement first shared with The Associated Press, labor leaders who represent teachers, autoworkers, truck drivers and clerical staff, among others, signaled a willingness Friday to escalate protest tactics to force local and federal lawmakers to take action on policing reform and systemic racism. They said the walkouts, if they were to move forward with them, would last for as long...

A spate of over 400 smashed subway windows in four months has the MTA on the verge of a glass shortage, transit officials said Friday. “We had a reserve of glass when this wave started in May. We’ve run through the reserve,” MTA spokesman Tim Minton said of the rash of vandalism. Since May 14, transit workers have reported 31 separate instances of broken windows on the 7 train, internal records obtained by The Post show. Smashed windows have also turned up on the 2 and 3 trains, MTA safety exec Pat Warren said — costing the agency more than...