NYC NOW - August 18, 2023: Morning Headlines
Episode Date: August 18, 2023Get up and get informed! Here’s all the local news you need to start your day: The MTA’s board is discussing congestion pricing exemptions for Manhattan below 60th Street. Meanwhile, in Crown Heig...hts, after a 17-year-old was shot post-basketball game at the “Major R. Owens Health and Wellness Center”, activists reiterate the center’s role as a safe space. And also, City Comptroller Brad Lander warns Hollywood studios of potential divestments from the city’s pension funds amid the ongoing writers and actors strike.
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Welcome to NYC Now.
Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC.
It's Friday, August 18th.
Here's the morning headlines from Tiffany Hansen.
The Traffic Mobility Review Board, a group of six experts appointed by the MTA and Mayor Adams to set the cost of congestion pricing tolls are considering if there should be any exemption to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.
Those deliberations were part of the board's second meeting yesterday.
Governor Phil Murphy is calling for New Jersey drivers who already pay bridge and tunnel fees to be exempt.
But Juliet Michelson, who is a special advisor to the congestion panel, says if the MTA does that,
it will increase the base rate by as much as $9 for everyone else.
That'll bring the daily congestion fee to its highest predicted estimate.
The upper range of what was analyzed in the EA, the infamous $23.
toll. By law, the MTA must charge enough to make $1 billion a year for capital improvements. It hopes to have the program up and running by next spring.
Activists in Crown Heights want residents to know that a local community center that was the scene of a shooting is still a safe space.
A 17-year-old is in critical condition after he was shot in the lobby of the Major R. Owens Health and Wellness Center on Tuesday.
The teen had just left a basketball game. The community's center chairman,
John Coelho says he hopes peace can be built there.
Sometime in the near future, God willing,
these two young men will be brought back into this space as seedlings
and a reinvestment into our future.
That was Joe Coelho.
The community center's chairman, community center staff,
have added new security guards and are now requiring bag and ID checks at the entrance.
Do have some weather around the region this morning.
A few claps of loud thunder may have woken you up this morning.
Rain and storms moving through the area.
A flood advisory is in effect until 715 this morning.
That includes Jersey City and all five boroughs.
We could see flooding caused by this morning's excessive rainfall.
Be advised of that as the front moves through this morning.
It will give way to a breezy afternoon clearing,
perhaps even a few peaks of sun this afternoon,
with a high of 84 degrees tonight, clear,
and a low of 62 degrees.
Allergies today, weed pollen levels are moderate.
Grass pollen is low.
72 degrees now in the city.
It's WNYC.
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See you this afternoon.