NYC NOW - April 26, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here’s all the local news you need to start your day: A new program in the Bronx is helping link homeless New Yorkers in need of apartments with small property owners eager to rent out their units. Meanwhile, new data shows that in 2024, New York City is experiencing its highest number of traffic deaths since the launch of the street safety campaign a decade ago. Also, more than 20,000 runners are getting ready for Sunday’s Brooklyn Half Marathon. Finally, in this week’s segment of ‘On the Way,’ WNYC reporter Stephen Nessen and editor Clayton Guse discuss reforms to fare evasion enforcement on public transportation and bridges, new boosts for bus riders, and answer a listener’s question about WiFi on subways.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, April 26th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. A new program in the Bronx is helping link homeless New Yorkers in need of apartments with small property owners eager to rent out their units. WNMC's David Brand reports. The city's Department of Homeless Services says about 11,000 people in shelters

have rental assistance vouchers but can't find a permanent apartment. The nonprofit Bronx Works is stepping in to connect about 100 of them with local landlords. Bronx Works received $450,000 from J.P. Morgan Chase to launch the landlord engagement program. They're assisting property owners with administrative requirements and helping them secure grants for repairs that bring the apartments up to city standards. In the years on New York City's Vision Zero campaign, data show the city had its highest number of traffic deaths this year than any other since the street safety campaign launched a decade ago. Transportation Alternatives says data showed traffic crashes killed 60 people the first three

months of this year. The Street Advocacy Group's report also shows a big spike in deadly car crashes in Brooklyn and Queens and says drivers in SUVs and other big vehicles were responsible for the vast majority of crashes killing pedestrians and cyclists. More than 20,000 runners are getting ready for this weekend's Brooklyn Half Marathon. The route kick off in Greenpoint's McCarran Park and works its way down the waterfront before turning southeast and ending in Prospect Park. Sunset Park resident Larson Gable has been running for about a year and says he just had to sign up for this weekend's race. Two friends signed up that I couldn't let them take all the glory. Gable says he's looking forward to a car less run with city views.

You know, having the closed streets, being able to run down and see all of like the years. River and all of Manhattan. That is pretty spectacular. The National Weather Service says the weather should cooperate. We'll have details on that in just a second. The Knicks lost last night in Philadelphia, 125 to 114. They still lead the series, though, two games to one. Game three Sunday at one in Philadelphia. The Islanders now face elimination after losing last night to the Carolina Hurricanes, three to two, game four Saturday afternoon on Long Island, and the New York Rangers returned to action tonight in Washington. They were up two games to none against the capitals. Your forecast now, 42 and clear, sunny and 60 today, mostly clear and 44 tonight, then tomorrow, mostly sunny

and 61. On Sunday, Mike, get some shower Sunday morning, then partly sunny in 72, so warm, and then during the day, it'll be dry. Up next, our weekly transportation segment on the way. That's after the break. 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 Goosa. Okay, so last weekend, New York State lawmakers passed a budget for the year, finally, we should say. While transit issues weren't the most contentious topic, there was some news for the writing public.

Stephen, what can you tell us about it? Well, there were some major reforms to fair evasion enforcement. Fair evasion, of course, has been a thorn in the MTA side costing hundreds of millions of dollars each year. And the budget had some changes to the penalties, which in some ways actually deemphasizes just straight up ticketing for fair evasion. So let me just give you a little bit of context. Fair evasion on subways has been about at 13 percent for the last couple years, but on buses on the select bus service routes. That is the buses that are some of the busiest in the city, the kind where you can board. in the middle and you can also pay with Omni in the back as well as just buy the ticket on the street.

More than half of those riders are not paying the fare. 50%. So the MTA made some adjustments to the penalties. And this is to ensure it's not just a punishment for being too poor to afford the fair, but is maybe an effort toward behavior correction. So here's what it looks like. They're going to require police officers to issue written warnings instead of a summons for first-time fare evasion offenders.

and they're also going to require the MTA to dismiss fair evasion penalties against someone who enrolls in the city's Fairfares program. That's the half-priced Metro card program for low-income New Yorkers. They're also going to cut the fair evasion fine in half if you're already enrolled in fair fairs. One other thing they're going to do is require the MTA to refund up to 50% of your first fine if it's paid on time and their refund is going to come in the form of a metro card. So they really want to encourage people to find ways to pay the fair and not just pay penalties. I should also add they are going to increase the

penalty for repeat offenders. Right now it's a $100 ticket, no matter how many times you are busted for fare evasion. Now they want to increase the maximum penalty to $200 after your fourth offense. We also have new penalties for drivers who evade tolls, which could be crucial once congestion pricing, our favorite topic on On the Way goes into effect in Manhattan. Clayton, how did lawmakers tackle the problem? So yeah, and you've really seen this. become a growing problem in recent years where people scratch out their plates, lock over their plates, do whatever they can to make their license plate unreadable. And it's really corresponded with the growth of cashless tolling. We don't have toll boosts anymore. You pay a toll

or if you have an easy pass or buy an automated license plate reader. And that is how congestion pricing is going to be enforced. So it's a big deal. Jet congestion pricing is supposed to bring in a billion dollars a year. If those license plate readers can't read license plates, that really that really hinders that effort. So state lawmakers, you know, took a look at this. They said, okay, we're going to crack down. They say, first time you get caught covering your plate, you know, your fine is $100.

It can go up to $500 if you get busted, but it's not just that. If you keep getting caught doing this three times, more than three times in a five-year period, then the state DMV has the authority under this law to revoke your car's registration. You can't drive the car in the state anymore. And it allows, it also has some other language. in there that allows for vehicles to be ticketed or to booted. If they have a lot of unpaid tolls, kind of like if you have a lot of unstowning parking tickets, you can get the meter maids out there kind of locking up your vehicle.

But there is a big question about how this is going to be enforced. You know, a lot of people point out that police are among the biggest offenders of toll evasion and license plates covering. So who's going to kind of mind the shop here? And there is kind of one little caveat in this legislation that, explicitly gives police officers to discretion to say, hey, if I catch you covering your license plate, instead of giving you a ticket, I can just say hand over the cover. And my discretion, if I'm a police officer, you can go on your way. So they did allow some flexibility in the enforcement of this. And I actually kind of witnessed this happening already last year. You know, I was on next to the FDR drive and a van drove by that had a blue surgical mask covering the license plates.

So the state troopers are right there. They pulled the van over. And it turned out it was full of NYPD officers in uniform who weirdly said they were undercover, which is why their license plate was covered. They removed the face mask and went along their way and the state trooper let them go. I asked him, why didn't you give them a ticket? They said, well, we're not going to do it this time. We don't have to do it every time. Wow.

So bus riders got a bit of a boost in the budget this year, right? Although they did not get everything lawmakers had hoped for. What is in it exactly? There's $12.4 million, which is slightly less than what bus riders got last year when lawmakers secured $15 million to offer five free bus routes in the city. That program is going to sunset this year. There isn't funding for it to continue. And quite frankly, the MTA doesn't want it to continue either. They say it wasn't actually that effective for bringing in new ridership.

But the money in this year's budget will go toward things like adding service on five express buses. And it will increase service on 13 local routes. Assembly member Zoran Mamdani says these are crucial increases as congestion pricing is coming online. The idea of congestion pricing is that many people will choose transit over driving in the city. And having fewer cars on the road means buses presumably can go a little bit faster. And, you know, a really similar thing launched in London when they did their congestion pricing program. They had a major boost in bus service. I wouldn't exactly call New York right now offering a major boost, but it's something that will help.

Here's Mamdani. Part of the idea behind our push, this package was called get congestion pricing right, was understanding how much money could the MTA actually absorb for better bus service, given the Adams administration's continued incompetence. That incompetence that he's referring to at the Adams administration is their failure to install more bus lanes. You know, Mom Dani notes that Adams is not meeting the goals set by the city council or even his own ambitious goals he made when he was running for mayor. You know, Mayor Adams said he was going to install 150 miles of new bus lanes in four years. It's been two years and so far we have just 23.2 miles of what the DOT calls new and improved bus lanes.

So every week, this is one of my favorite parts of this segment, I get to channel the righteous indignation of, listeners and readers. We answer a question from a curious commuter. This week, we have a question from Arnaldo in Yorkville who asks, why doesn't Wi-Fi work in the subway? What's the deal? So it's a little bit better than it used to be. You might remember like 10 plus years ago. Yeah, you go onto a platform. It's goodbye. Hopefully, I'll talk to you when I'm back about ground. No, Texan, no calling. Now you do have service, Wi-Fi, self-service connectivity at the stations. But in between the stations, in the tunnels, it's a dead zone. Like you can load up an article when you get into a station, but you can't stream your soap operas when you're when you're

riding in between. But that's going to change the MTA a couple years ago, inked a deal to say, hey, we're going to bring cell connectivity and Wi-Fi to all the tunnels in the city. The whole network that works being done for free by a third party, which is obviously installing the network, but they get to own the network and its data, which is quite valuable. It's kind of a different story. But very importantly, once that happens, you, a subway rider, will be able to be a, able to listen to this segment live on WMYC while you ride the subway the whole time. And you'll be able to read our whole newsletter without any interruptions. It's really important. And can you believe it? We're just a few years off to being really so much closer to our audience.

Probably the most important part about having Wi-Fi in subway. That's WNYC editor, Clayton Gouza 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 Gotham dot com slash on the way. 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.