Free Republic

President Trump will have to come up with $15 billion in federal cash to fix New York City’s subway system if he wants to cut congestion pricing, Gov. Kathy Hochul insisted Thursday — as their ongoing spat over the controversial Manhattan toll only continues to escalate. The Democrat said she gave Trump the so-called ultimatum during their White House sit-down late last week, telling him he would need to dip into US coffers to offset the billions the state is estimated to lose if the congestion toll is nixed. “You’re gonna have to give me $15 billion to invest in...

We may need some divine intervention below ground. New York City transit riders say are fearing for their lives and even “asking God” for help after a number of disturbing, violent incidents in subways and train stations that have left people on edge. Philomena Ofosu, a 24-year-old nurse’s aide from the Bronx said she prays for her safety every time she gets on the train. “I am a Christian and I ask God to bring me safe to where I’m supposed to be and back,” she told The Post at Grand Central Terminal on Wednesday — hours after a two...

Jordan Neely’s father is suing Daniel Penny over his son’s chokehold death on a New York City subway car as the jury still deliberates whether or not to convict Penny of manslaughter. The suit, filed in New York Supreme Court on Wednesday, accuses the Long Island Marine veteran of negligent contact, assault and battery that caused injuries and Neely’s death last year. Neely’s father, Andre Zachary, “demands judgment awarding damages in a sum which exceeds the jurisdictional limits of all lower Courts which would otherwise have jurisdiction,” according to the lawsuit. It was filed Wednesday as jurors in Penny’s four-week-long...

The New York City subway incident in which former Marine Daniel Penny, whose chokehold inadvertently killed career criminal and homeless vagrant Jordan Neely quickly became front-page news. Matters exploded when Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s Soros-funded district attorney, charged Penny with second-degree manslaughter. Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis made reference to at a campaign rally, and Penny’s defense fund has thus far raised more than two million dollars from 42,000 contributors Hard to say where it will end, but the incident has obviously touched a public nerve. There’s something about the episode that transcends the simple facts of a good Samaritan’s intervention going...

Lawless NYC Takes First Step Toward Police State With Over 1000 National Guard in Subways

Nearly 1,000 New York National Guardsmen, state police, and MTA cops are being deployed to carry out bag checks in the Big Apple’s crime-ridden subway system, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday. In total, 750 guardsmen and 250 cops will help NYPD officers patrol the “the city’s busiest transit stations,” Hochul said.

Back in October, New York City Mayor Eric Adams made a joint announcement with Governor Kathy Hochul regarding a new public safety plan for the Big Apple. Dubbed the “Cops, Cameras and Care” program, they claimed that they would be adding more than one thousand additional police officers to the MTA force patrolling the subways. More surveillance cameras would be installed and they would begin moving most of the homeless out of the tunnels and into shelters. The state would provide a significant chunk of the money needed to make that happen. I’ll confess to having been a bit dubious...

Mayor Eric Adams said Monday that he is in “constant contact” with Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, declaring he is “fully confident” the city’s top cop will be able to reduce the city’s ever-increasing crime. During an unrelated press conference, Adams also told reporters he tours the subway system “just about every other night.” “It’s no secret to anyone that, just about every other night, I’m in the subway system. Because if you don’t inspect what you expect, it’s all suspect,” he quipped outside City Hall in response to a question from The Post on how he stays updated on subway...

Boston’s police force will increase its presence around subway stations as the city prepares for the Boston Marathon on Monday, following a shooting on a Brooklyn subway train. Boston police Superintendent-In-Chief Gregory Long said at a press conference Tuesday that although there is no credible threat to the city at this point, the police force is closely monitoring any suspicious activity.

Despite the troubling and ever-increasing number of COVID-19 cases in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams is urging corporations and financial institutions to end their reliance on telecommuting and bring their employees back to work. He says the city’s economic health depends on it,

In his State of the State address, Gov. Andrew Cuomo touted the $306 billion in current and proposed infrastructure projects around New York that he said would revitalize the economy after COVID-19 shut down businesses and non-essential construction. In his Jan. 14 speech, the governor said a total $51 billion was being spent for projects to revive Manhattan's Midtown West neighborhoods, citing potential new projects as well as those well into planning. That figure includes the $1.6 billion Moynihan Train Hall, which opened Jan. 1; the $1.5 billion Jacob K. Javits Center expansion, expected to be completed this year; and...

The “Occupy City Hall” protesters turned the city into a literal toilet, using subway grates as makeshift latrines during their month-long encampment in Lower Manhattan, an MTA supervisor revealed Wednesday as workers cleaned the foul mess. “All the people who were here were going to the bathroom in the vents,” the transit boss said. “They were s–tting and pissing in the vents. They were using this as a facility, as a bathroom. It’s unbelievable what’s in there.” The supervisor was overseeing several workers with the unenviable task of using poles to poke disgusting brown sludge from between the bars of...

The relentless march of urbanization, in the United States and around the world, has been coming for a long time. .. America went from 8.8 percent urban in 1830 to 25.7 percent in 1870, then to a majority in 1920, and up to about two-thirds by the mid-1950s. We were 80 percent urban by 2010. North America has the most urban population in the world. But it is not alone in seeing an accelerating trend. The U.N. estimated that, in 2009, half the world’s population lived in urban areas for the first time in human history. Over 4 billion people...

For decades, politicians who propose and promote big government have done all they could to wean Americans off the convenience and freedom of cars and pack them like sardines into subways and buses, .. the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism ... Fortunes in taxpayer monies have been misspent trying to get people to travel in ways they wish not to, sitting or standing in close proximity to perfect strangers instead of in the private company of their own vehicle with their loved...

SEPTA is contending with a new kind of fare evasion, in which enterprising scammers are using Key cards to give cash-paying riders a discounted trip on the Broad Street Line and the El. Because SEPTA does not track or estimate revenue losses due to fare evasion, said Rich Burnfield, deputy general manager and treasurer, the agency can’t say whether more people are dodging fares than usual. Cashiers working on the subway lines, however, insist scofflaws are proliferating. […] The latest trend is made possible by the Key card, which offers a $2-per-ride fare, compared with $2.50 for customers paying cash...

If we ever want to have viable public transportation in New York, it is essential that we get our elected and appointed officials onboard. Not just metaphorically onboard to adequately fund mass transit, but actually onboard the trains and buses that are the lifeblood of the city. Anyone who lives or works here knows the wretched state of New York’s mass transit. In April, there were 74,000 subway delays, up 164% from the average monthly delays in 2012. Talk to a New Yorker and you’ll get a recent subway or commuter rail horror story, or three.

Politics: President Obama removed Cuba as a state sponsor of terror Friday, forgetting the dictatorship's long record of killing, smuggling and, yes, terror. If this is the new standard, why not just scrap the list entirely? The lifting of Cuba from the list of nations that support terrorism was a farce that may well come back to the haunt the United States. After all, the ruling Castro regime that benefits from it in the name of normal relations with the U.S. and new access to World Bank loans is the same regime that once tried the first 9/11, aligning itself...

Iraq’s prime minister says his country’s intelligence operation has uncovered a plot for an attack on subway systems in the United States and Paris. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he was told of the plot by Baghdad, and that it was the work of foreign fighters of the Islamic State group in Iraq. Al-Abadi’s assertion could not be independently confirmed. Asked if the attacks were imminent, he said, “I’m not sure.” Asked if the attacks had been thwarted, he said, “No.” Al-Abadi said the United States had been alerted, and that the suspects included extremists from the United States and...

Like human beings, who use the New York City subway system for transportation between two destinations of an unwalkable distance, the bedbugs found on three N-line subway cars earlier this week were just using the train to get around the city. Their destinations included the lockers of MTA employees and the home of one conductor. Along with fumigating the infested trains, including a fourth train on the N-line, the MTA has sent a bug-sniffing dog to inspect the remaining cars. The most worrying detail about the MTA's bedbug infestation, though, may be that the conductor who found one of the...