As more and more workers return to offices after the coronavirus pandemic, New York Democrats they are being pushed into the Big Apple’s subway system with policies like a new congestion charge for cars and trucks entering busy parts of Manhattan.
The new charge, criticized as a driving tax on the middle class and businesses, aims to encourage people to use the subway, reducing emissions and raising money for the city’s public transport authority.
It costs drivers $9 to travel south of Central Park or into downtown Manhattan from Brooklyn or New Jersey.
Sebastian Zapeta is arraigned in Brooklyn, NY on January 7, 2025. Zapeta is facing murder and arson charges for allegedly setting Debrina Kawam on fire while she was sleeping on a subway train in New York City. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
Scott LoBaidoa Staten Island artist and frequent critic of New York’s Democratic leaders, protested the move this week with protests at 61st Street and Broadway, the same intersection where supporters of the new fees celebrated when they took effect earlier this week.
He said a passer-by approached him and expressed his support for the new fees because they would be good for the environment.
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“I just said, ‘Sorry, son. Not to set myself on fire. Not to stab myself in the back of the head,'” LoBaido told Fox News Digital Friday.
Police investigate at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn after a woman was set on fire and died in a subway car in New York on December 22, 2024. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
LoBaido was referring to a series of recent subway attacks.
In one, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala is accused of setting a sleeping woman on fire, stoking the fire and watching it burn.
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Sebastian Zapeta was later arrested and allegedly told detectives he didn’t remember what happened because he routinely gets drunk and rides the subway, according to court documents.
In the second case, New York police arrested a man accused of stabbing two strangers from behind inside the subway. On Christmas Eve, another man was arrested in connection with an alleged unprovoked stabbing on a subway platform in Grand Central, a major hub for tourists and commuters.
Two people were injured after a knife-wielding man allegedly went on a Christmas Eve rampage in New York Central Station. (FOX 5 NYC)
“It’s crazy. You listen to someone like Gov. Hochul, who says the subways are safe … The guy who runs the MTA says it’s all in our heads,” LoBaido said.
Mayor Eric Adams this week pledged to send more police officers to patrol the subway, and Hochul sent in the National Guard last year.
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But while the authorities insist crime is downviolence and the fear of violence continue to grow.
Aggravated assaults rose slightly on the transit system in 2024, and subway homicides doubled to 10 last year from five in 2023. Overall subway crime decreased 5.4%, according to the NYPD .
Kamel Hawkins, 23, has been charged with attempted murder for allegedly pushing a 45-year-old man onto subway tracks as a train approached. (MTA)
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Janno Lieber, president of the MTA, told Bloomberg News earlier this week that the idea of crime “has gotten into people’s heads,” but maintains that the trains are safe.
“The overall statistics are positive,” he said he said to the socket. “We actually had 12.5% less crime last year than in 2019, the last year before COVID. But there’s no doubt that some of these high-profile incidents, you know, the terrible attacks, got into people’s heads and made the whole system feels less safe.”
Daniel Penny arrives in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on December 5, 2024. (Adam Gray for Fox News Digital)
On top of the manslaughter and random slashing, the straphangers still face push attacks, many of which have been fatal as victims fall in front of moving trains, and the trial of Daniel Penny, who was arrested and charged with manslaughter and felony manslaughter. after intervening in a man’s violent rant of death threats.
Penny was acquitted of the lesser charge, and prosecutors asked the court to dismiss the more serious charge after jurors deadlocked.
“The Boston Tea Party started the biggest revolution in the history of civilization because of the 2% tax,” LoBaido said. “And this, what’s going on here is pure r—.”
Fox News’ Sophia Compton contributed to this report.
