I don’t really get protesting. Do you really think screaming in the street for gay rights, or animal rights, or women’s rights, actually accomplishes anything? At least you can understand the lefty drive to win ground on these issues. One thing I’ll never understand, however, is the drive to secure the right to be taxed more. Huh?
Yet on a cold winter night in New York City, that’s exactly what these protesters were doing.
We did it! After years of organizing, we’ve officially made it to day one of congestion pricing and the brighter future we won together for millions of riders!
A recap of our incredible journey to winning the nation’s first congestion pricing program 🧵 pic.twitter.com/rObX1rN8HN
— 🚇 Riders Alliance (@RidersAlliance) January 5, 2025
It wasn’t even really a protest, but more of a celebration. The activist group known as “Riders Alliance” has been pushing for congestion pricing in New York City, a toll — but really, a tax — on commuters to drive into lower Manhattan. After years of talk and backtracking, New York finally became the first city in America to adopt this model, and this supposedly grassroots organization took to the streets at midnight to usher in the first day of the future.
I can almost get behind congestion pricing for my own personal interests. As a New Yorker who now lives upstate, I don’t mind paying an extra $10 bucks to sit in far less traffic whenever I drive into that crime infested little island. I could certainly get behind it if the new revenue went toward cracking down on crime and cleaning up the city; if we’re going to incentivize people to ride public transport, at least make it safe. But those out in the streets have far loftier goals, or at least they say they do. They want a “more equitable city” and a “sustainable future.” In other words, a green revolution that backhandedly phases out cars in favor of walkable communities and fast public transport that they’ll never actually deliver on.
Not only will the new tax not accomplish any of these BS goals, but I’m fairly confident I’ll be sitting in just as much traffic as I always do. Work commuters, the vast majority of traffic in and out of midtown, will just have to take a little more out of their already deflated budgets just to get to work. At up to $22 for suburbanites to commute in each day, that’s an extra $440 month that could go toward groceries. All for the city to immediately flush it away on whatever bureaucratic boondoggle it cooks up next. But at least these jerks get to feel good about themselves…
And the kicker? Riders Alliance isn’t even the “grassroots” group it claims to be. The group took in over $2 million last year from a who’s who of corporate donors and wealthy philanthropists. It’s all the most powerful players in the country lobbying against the government in the name of the little guy for something that the state and federal government already wants. And then they turn around and say the game isn’t rigged.
