🚝SUBWAY INFERNO: How Big Tech Set NYC's Wallet on Fire While Coney Island Actually Burns
Uber and Lyft Spent Millions and Congestion toll takes effect, costing NYC commuters $9 to drive below 60th Street
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
The absolute circus that is New York City reached peak insanity last week when a woman was literally set ablaze at Coney Island station – not from eating too many hot dogs, but because our subway system has devolved into a dystopian nightmare where being stabbed is considered the lucky option.
While New Yorkers are playing a real-life version of "The Floor is Lava" (except now with actual fire) on their morning commute, our city's “brightest minds” have cooked up the perfect solution: make driving so astronomically expensive that you'll have no choice but to face the underground Thunderdome.
It's the kind of logic that only makes sense if you're huffing whatever's wafting through the Times Square station at 3 AM.
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THE $15 SOLUTION TO A BILLION-DOLLAR DUMPSTER FIRE
In what can only be described as a masterclass in missing the point, New York's finest bureaucrats have decided that the best way to fix a city where office buildings are emptier than a vegan steakhouse and subway platforms have become impromptu MMA arenas is to charge people $15 to drive below 60th Street. This stellar piece of policy-making genius comes at a time when subway ridership is down 29% and office occupancy is hovering at a whopping 48.9% – numbers that would make even Bernie blush at their optimism. But hey, nothing says "New York is back, baby!" like making it more expensive to escape being set on fire.
THE REAL WINNERS: SURPRISE, IT'S NOT YOU
While you're busy choosing between getting mugged on the subway or mortgaging your house to drive into Manhattan, Uber, and Lyft have been playing the long game so masterfully it would make Machiavelli look like an amateur. These tech giants, who've never met a regulation they couldn't profit from, poured millions into lobbying for congestion pricing. Uber alone dropped $2 million on lobbying between 2015 and 2019, which in New York political currency is roughly equivalent to a couple of premium MetroCards and a hot dog from that guy outside Penn Station.
The true stroke of genius? While private vehicles get slapped with a $9 fee and subway riders fork over $2.90 to play "dodge the performance artist," ride-share services managed to negotiate themselves a sweetheart deal. It's the kind of corporate sleight-of-hand that makes you wonder if maybe those guys sleeping on the subway platforms aren't the crazy ones after all – they're just the only ones who can see through the BS.
The cherry on top of this sundae of insanity is watching Andrew Cuomo – yes, that Andrew Cuomo – pull a political 180 after signing congestion pricing into law. His campaign got a neat $10,000 from Lyft's campaign contribution cookie jar, he's now suddenly opposed to the very monster he helped create. Meanwhile, Governor Hochul, whose Chief of Staff was a Chinese spy taking the lead with $18,500 in Lyft donations, and is pushing this plan forward with the kind of determination usually reserved for tourists trying to get a picture with the Wall Street bull.
In a city where getting stabbed on your morning commute is becoming as common as overpriced coffee, and where being set on fire at Coney Island station isn't even the craziest thing that happened this week, we're somehow still pretending that making Manhattan more expensive to enter is the solution to... something. It's the kind of backward logic that could only come from a room full of people who've never had to choose between paying their rent and buying groceries.
So here we are, in the greatest city in the world, where the rats are getting bolder, the subway platforms are getting hotter (literally), and the only people getting richer are the same tech companies who convinced us that paying surge pricing during a hurricane was actually doing us a favor. Welcome to New York 2025, where the American Dream is alive and well – it just costs $15 to access it, plus surge pricing during rush hour.
Here's the beautiful thing about democracy in the age of chaos: politicians still need your votes more than they need Uber's money.
While they're all playing musical chairs with our money, you've got Governor Hochul (518-474-8390), Senator Schumer (202-224-6542), and others involved in the debate pretending they can't hear the screams of their constituents over the sound of campaign donations being counted. But guess what? When enough people call, write, and show up – suddenly those deaf ears start working miraculously well.
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