Friday’s Headlines: Hochul’s Fantasy World Edition

Another day, another bald-faced lie about someone approving of Congestion Kathy’s decision to circumvent state law and put congestion pricing on hold.

At a round-table event yesterday, the gridlock gov doubled- and tripled-down her lies about the decision, claiming that hotel workers gave her a standing ovation

That was a doozy that everyone dunked on pretty quickly:

Hochul also claimed that she she has been bemoaning New York City’s $15 congestion charge because London’s initial toll to enter its central business district was just $5. Yes, she said $5 (though later claimed she misspoke, but that’s awfully convenient).

In fact, London’s initial congestion charge was £5, not $5. And that was more than a decade ago. At today’s exchange rate and compensating for inflation, that 5 quid initial charge is the same as $14.09 in New York City today.

As the Streetsblog Business Desk pointed out:

Also, in an interview with Bloomberg’s David Gura, Hochul made up her own facts. blaming congestion pricing advocates for silencing the real New Yorkers who will allegedly be hurt by congestion pricing.

“There has been a strong [negative] reaction by those who have the microphone, the individuals in certain media,” the governor said, clearly referencing us. “But what we’re not hearing [and] others are not listening to are the health care workers who are so grateful. The hotel workers who gave me a standing ovation because they don’t have to pay almost $4,000 a year. The police officers, the firefighters — there are countless — the pizza delivery guy. The owner of Patsy’s Pizza gave me a hug and said, ‘Thank you’ because everyone would get pushed down to the sewer and prices would have gone up.”

Fact one: Anyone who has picked up a New York Post in the last two years has heard from plenty of congestion pricing opponents. They are not being silenced.

Fact two: Pizza delivery guys are simply not driving into the central business district to go to their minimum wage jobs — which they mostly perform on bikes and mopeds anyway.

Fact three: Roughly 90 percent of people who commute to the central business district do so on transit, which is currently melting down because of underinvestment (subway version) and congestion (bus version). As MTA CEO Janno Lieber said:

Fact four: Pasty’s Pizza is nothing special anymore.

No wonder Riders Alliance Policy and Communications Director Danny Pearlstein was frustrated yesterday.

“While Gov. Hochul drives to meet donors in Manhattan’s central business district, millions of riders are suffering another hellish week on the subway she refuses to fund,” he said. “Without congestion pricing, blocked by the governor’s betrayal, our commutes are indefinitely delayed, inaccessible and regularly upended by extreme heat, floods and power failures.

“The governor’s clueless remarks reinforce why New Yorkers have lost confidence in her, especially the transit riders and workers who delivered her thin margin of election victory. After uttering every transit funding falsehood out there, the only way for Governor Hochul to rebuild trust is to start congestion pricing now.”

[Mic drop]

In other news from a slow day:

• The suit by the Transit Workers Union alleging that the MTA has cut service — which MTA spokesman Tim Minton called the “silly season” because the MTA hasn’t actually cut service — won a restraining order from a judge who demanded that the MTA not cut service that they haven’t actually cut. (NYDN)
• Nonetheless, it is increasingly reported that we’re in another Summer of Hell on the subway. (amNY)
• Grub Street bought the DOT’s attempt to spin the demise of outdoor dining … but still concluded what we and Hell Gate long ago concluded. The Council and Mayor Adams have killed the one good thing about Covid.
• Miser’s MicromobilityNYC sub-Reddit gets action on those illegally parked cars on the Queensbridge greenway. All it took was openly shaming the local precinct commander.
• And, finally, who says the Germans don’t have a sense of humor? After Mayor Adams made a big show of putting his trash in a covered container, our Freunde at Der Spiegel really went to town mocking Hizzoner for pretending that New York was at the cutting edge of garbage containerization, given that Europe has been fighting rats in this way for decades. Here’s the video, with a translation under it:

Is this the wonder weapon in New York’s battle against the rat plague?

Mayor Eric Adams didn’t miss the opportunity to personally introduce the advanced product to the amazed press. 

The more than eight million residents of the Big Apple produce more than six billion kilograms of trash a year. Seventy percent of that shall already end in the covered bins beginning in November. 

The hope? That way trash will be better protected from the estimated two to eight million rats in the city. 

The idea to actually introduce real trash bins to New York City apparently came to the mayor on his travels, even as some city residents already thought of it themselves. 

The fight against the pests has occupied Mayor Adams for a while. In 2019, he presented an “innovative” rat trap, wherein the animals drown in an alcoholic solution.

Five years later, however, there are still rats in the metropolis. Maybe the plastic wonder containers will now help reach these ambitious goals. 

By the way, Mayor Adams has had to pay several fines during his crusade against the pesky rodents, because his house was cited repeatedly for rat infestations. 

We’re told the Aussies also had great fun with Adams’s innovative trash bins. But you don’t need us to translate that, do you?