Is Governor Hochul a Green Energy Handmaiden? The Congestion Toll is a Bait and Switch to Public Transit

A recent article on ZeroHedge explores New York’s congestion toll, a $9 fee imposed on drivers entering Manhattan’s Central Business District below 60th Street, which began in January 2025. The plan was sold as a way to reduce traffic, cutting emissions, and fund mass transit. Who could be possibly against that?

President Trump and New Yorkers who commute into the Big Apple, that's who. In his usual gravitas, Trump heralded himself as a "king" after invoking Presidential power to cancel the congestion toll.

While most of us are caught up in the battle between a President and a governor, the real story is a much darker agenda.

Critics argue it’s a stepping stone to broader carbon taxation and the World Economic Forum’s 15-minute City concept, which seeks to limit personal travel for climate goals. Governor Kathy Hochul has fiercely defended the toll, vowing to fight the Trump administration’s plan to scrap it, claiming it’s vital for infrastructure and safety.

However, the article suggests her focus glosses over the toll’s roots in carbon pricing, a mechanism to discourage private vehicle use. It frames the policy as part of a globalist push to centralize populations, curb private transport, and control mobility, drawing parallels to lockdown-era travel restrictions. Skeptics also question the climate justification, noting no clear link exists between carbon emissions and warming trends historically.

The "Congestion Toll" is just a Toll and Switch to Centralized Public Transit

Governor Hochul’s congestion toll isn’t just a traffic fix—it’s a toll and switch, luring us in with promises of less gridlock and cleaner air, only to unveil a carbon tax and a radical remaking of private transportation into a state-controlled public transit system. Beneath her talk of funding buses and fighting emissions lies a chilling agenda: to strangle private car ownership with fees until it’s a relic, herding New Yorkers onto a government-run network like obedient livestock.

It’s eerily reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale, where women were stripped of autonomy and reduced to birthing machines under a pious facade of societal good. In the same way, Hochul’s toll—dressed up as climate salvation and tied to the World Economic Forum’s 15-minute City vision—casts drivers as the scapegoats, penalized to fuel a transit monopoly. Her fierce defense against scrapping it isn’t about infrastructure; it’s about cementing control, with carbon taxes as the whip to force compliance.

Just as the Handmaids were told their subjugation was noble, we’re sold this loss of freedom as a green virtue. It’s not about safety or convenience—it’s about turning mobility into a state-owned machine, one $9 toll at a time.

Thus the title image to this article:
We Will Drive No More. Is Governor Hochul a Green Energy Handmaiden?

What say you now?

The panel discussion below is from the World Economic Forum advocating for centralized control of human mobility. Instead of waking up and driving to work in your car, you launch a mobile app on your phone and choose from one of the public transit options available whether its bike sharing, an uber, a bus, train, or ride sharing, or I suppose just not working.