NYC NOW - April 19, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start your day: New York City Mayor Adams is defending Columbia University after police arrested 108 pro-Palestinian protesters on campus on Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, Governor Hochul and state lawmakers have hammered out a deal to allow New York City to lower its speed limits to 20 miles per hour. Also, the New York City Council voted on Thursday to greenlight a pilot program that installs solar canopies in at least one city-controlled parking lot in each borough. Plus, on this week’s segment of ‘On The Way,’ WNYC’s transit reporter Stephen Nessen and editor Clayton Guse break down some details of the MTA’s congestion pricing program that are confusing some motorists.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, April 19th. Here's the morning headlines from David First. New York City Mayor Adams is defending Columbia University after police arrested 108 pro-Palestinian protesters on campus yesterday afternoon. Adam says Columbia University has an obligation to, quote, protect its students. Columbia University students have a proud history of protests and raising their voices. Students have a right to free speech, but do not have a right to violate university policies and disrupt learning on campus.

The arrests came in response to a request from the school's president, Manu Shefique, to clear out protesters who occupied a campus lawn for almost two days. Colombia has been the site of recurring student protests over Israel's war in Gaza. Several students involved in the protests say they were also suspended from Columbia and Barnard College. Those students include the daughter of Minnesota Congress member Ilhan Omar. Governor Hokel and state lawmakers say they have hammered out a deal to allow New York City to lower its speed limits to 20 miles per hour. The measure is nicknamed Sammy's Law. It would change the current 25-mile-per-hour speed cap on most roads across the five boroughs. It's set to be included in this year's state budget.

The proposal is in memory of Sammy Cohen-Extine, a 12-year-old from Brooklyn, who was killed by a speeding driver near his home in 2013. Governor Hokel says his mother's years of advocacy, including a hunger strike last year, paid off. I cannot wait to hug Sammy's family, and we'll do an official signing with that, with a lot of tears, I'm sure, but knowing that their advocacy resulted in a bill of win in his name. The bill's exact language has not yet been released. It would also need sign off from city lawmakers. With Earth Day around the corner, New York City lawmakers are vying to make the city's future look a little greener. The City Council voted yesterday to give the go-ahead to a pilot program to install solar canopies and at least one city-controlled parking lot in each borough. Solar canopies are designed to produce both shade and clean energy.

Council member Justin Brannon sponsored the bill. He says the initiative could, save the city money and help it reduce its carbon emissions. The solar canopies bill will push our city to make new, inventive use of open spaces like parking lots and service of generating green energy. Once the pilot ends, the city will publish recommendations on expanding the program and making it permanent. 46 degrees mostly cloudy going up to a high near 60. Up next, our weekly transportation segment on the way.

That's after the break. NYC. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. It's Friday, which means it's time for On the Way, our weekly segment breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us is WNYC Transportation Reporter, Stephen Nesson, and editor Clayton Goosey. Okay, so this week you're unpacking some of the nuances to our favorite topic here on this segment. The MTA's congestion pricing plan. This plan, it's been so heavily scrutinized already. The MTA has a 4,000-page report, dozens of public hearings, and has answered.

hundreds of questions about it. So at this point, what else is there to discover that's new about it? Well, there's actually a couple details. And there were some questions that were generated pretty much on every appearance I've ever done on the Brian Lairr show about the Queensboro Bridge. And here's why. There are actually three ramps that go from Queens into Manhattan. And not all of them are told. So we went on a quest to understand how and why this is happening. The MTA told us to check that 4,000-page environmental assessment that they did. We've studied this map, but it still wasn't totally clear. And here's why. There's one ramp from the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan that lets vehicles off between 59th and 60th streets. Another is on the south side of 60th Street

and a third dumps drivers on 62nd Street. That's the one that we're pretty sure is north of the congestion zone because it's supposed to start at 60th Street. Interesting. Turns out that one is not told. But really, there's nothing online that clearly spelled this out, which is why we went on this quest. Yeah, and it's not that there's just nothing online. This was an area of confusion for weeks and weeks, especially recently, about us and our back and forth with the MTA trying to get understanding around if it's told, and then why this one exit isn't told. So doing our due diligence, me and Stephen, the other week, went out by the bridge and said, okay, let's figure this out, let's take a look at the ramp.

And you do see this one exit on the upper level of the roadway. Drivers will be familiar with it that goes north. It lets out at 62nd Street. 62nd is north of the zone, so it wouldn't be told. But at the same time, it confused me and enraged me because the MTAs clearly said the law only exempts the FDR drive, Westside Highway, Brooklyn Battery Underpass, and the streets connecting the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to West Street. That ramp, it's an elevated structure. part of it's below 60th Street.

So I'm just trying to understand why it wouldn't be told and didn't comport with the law. And we talked to drivers and they were all confused. Nobody really knew what was going on and it wasn't really spelled out in any kind of clear communicated way. So it got us to wondering what other

areas are there. Little nuances in this big lonely island that might be confusing to drivers. Yeah. And that brought you to the Brooklyn Bridge, right? That's exactly it. Yeah.

So the FDR drive, as I just pointed out, is exempt. So if you drive over the broken bridge and connect to the FDR, logic would follow like, hey, I don't have to pay. That isn't necessarily the case. And we went down there looking at this spaghetti loop structure of on ramps and off ramps, trying to get our heads around this. And eventually, you know, after we asked the MTA for clarity, one official told us one thing, another official told us another thing. thing. Eventually, we got clarity. You don't have to pay going on or off the broken bridge or between the broken bridge and the FDR, except for one. When you go off the broken bridge and you go onto the FDR south, that off ramp touches down on the street. So you have to pay. And the explanation that they

gave us as to the why of it all, and this is the first time they've explained this or used this language in their interpretation of this 2019 law, was that it touches down on the terra firm of Manhattan. the actual surface roadways. So if you touch down on the surface roadways of Manhattan minus these other streets, these streets are, you know, on the outskirts that are exempt, you will pay the toll. And it did kind of make us wonder, should the public have known about these details sooner? So I called Rachel Fouse. I consider her the guru on good government practice.

And she did not consider these details egregious oversights, but just the result of a very complicated. new law that has a lot of details that haven't been fully explained. The law is pretty clear that the FDR and the Westside Highway are exempt and everything else is not. So the MTA seems to be taking that and using that as the explanation for this. But I think there is a sort of gap between what the public understands that to mean and what it means on the streets and what it means for the MTA. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously the MTA wants to launch these tolls two months from now.

They say they point a big public education campaign to clear up a lot of this. And they'll also add signs all over the place telling you, here's where you'll pay, here's where you won't. But still, we have a bit of a ways to go before that happens. So in other news this week, not far from the Brooklyn Bridge, actually, right? The Landmark Preservation Commission approved a new kiosk for e-bike delivery workers to exchange batteries. Can you tell us about that and its significance? Sure. So, you know, if you've gone out on the streets, you've seen e-bikes delivery people everywhere.

There's been a dramatic increase in them in the city. You know, there are about 65,000 app-based delivery workers in the city right now. Over 2 million packages are ordered online and delivered each day. And even food, you know, there's something like 2.6 million deliveries a week just from people ordering food online. And these e-bike workers, they have run on batteries, lithium-ion batteries. And we've heard a lot about increasing number of fires caused by the low-quality ones. So the city wants to do something to find a safe place for them to exchange batteries, charge them during the day because they do need to be recharged. So there's a vote this week that allowed a new kiosk, really the first one in the city to be built.

It's going to be down near City Hall in a 1980s-era newspaper stand, which hasn't been used since the pandemic. It breaks my heart a bit, but yeah. Well, it's going to be a sleek, modern sort of kiosk, 300 square feet that can charge 48 batteries at once. and also is a place for workers to rest, maybe even do some repairs. Senator Chuck Schumer secured a million dollars to build it, along with another one on the Upper West Side. That one is perhaps stalled at the moment after some pushback from residents who had concerns about fires there with the lithium iron batteries and the close proximity to a subway station. Right. And it gets to the point. Everyone, you know, wants their food delivered fast until it gets to the nitty gritty of how that happens.

So every week in our On the Way newsletter, we highlight something that happened this week in New York City Transit history. We don't always get to discuss it on this segment, but this week we will. Tell us what you learned, Clayton. So I really love this one. Back in 1991 this week, the City Department of Transportation announced a new initiative. And it's pretty interesting back then, and it still is today. DOT has road inspectors. You know, a contractor, crew comes in, paves a road, paints a lane, whatever.

They go out and make sure that they did the job right. They have to do an audit and do diligence. They would normally go out in cars and go to these sites and mark them up and write the reports. They said, hey, that doesn't make sense. We're going to have a team of five that go out on bicycles. And this is in 1991 when there were a lot more traffic fatalities. The streets were, you know, even more dangerous than they are today for cyclists. And we found this daily news clip from 91 in which this inspector Pia Simpson's quoted saying,

we got to be alert, you know, saying, in effect, these streets are dangerous. But, you know, the whole point of this is to make the work be done faster, keep him out of traffic and reduce pollution. And when I reached out to the DOT on this, they said, not only does this team still exist, they're still operating on e-bikes and city bikes today. And Pia Simpson, who is quoted in that daily news article, is running the unit. That's WNIC editor, Clayton Gousa, and transportation reporter Stephen Nesson. You can stay in the know on all things transit or ask a question of your own by signing up for our weekly. newsletter at gothamis.com slash on the way.

Stephen Clayton, thanks as always. Thanks, Sean. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you this afternoon.