NYC NOW - January 12, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

Residents of Midtown East are voicing their opposition to a proposed casino in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the Bryant Park Winter Village is now offering its "Bumper Cars on Ice" until March. Plus, on this week's installment of On The Way, WNYC transit reporter Stephen Nessen and editor Clayton Guse discuss the impact of Wednesday's F train derailment in Brooklyn. It was the second subway derailment in less than a week.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, January 12. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Midtownese residents made it clear at last night's town hall. They opposed a planned casino in the neighborhood. They compared it to a drug dealer coming into the neighborhood. It's one of five proposed casinos vying for one likely license in Manhattan. Jerry Skernick is one is on the New York State Gaming Commission.

He says any proposed casino has to get the majority of a six-member advisory board. If three vote against it, the application is dead. There's nothing the casino facilities location board can do. There's no appeal. Last night's proposal is dubbed Freedom Plaza and includes a five-acre park, a 1,200-room hotel, 1,300 units of housing and a community development fund worth 2% of the casino's profits.

If ice skating isn't quite your thing, the Bryant Park Winter Village has another cold weather offering for the rest of the season. Bumper cars on ice are back at the rink starting today until March. People age 7 and up can take a 10-minute slip, slide, and bump across the ice. Reservations are suggested,

and tickets are available online. You'll have perfect weather for that coming up. 47 and partly sunny out there now, Partly sunny in 47 today and then rain. A lot of it, heavy at times, and thunderstorms. Then tomorrow, slim chance of showers, partly sunny, temperature rises to the 50s before a cold front. It's going to get cold. Stay close. There's more after the break.

NYC. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. It's time for On the Way. Our weekly segment on all things considered breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us, as always, is WNYC's transportation reporter Stephen Nesson and editor Clayton Goosa. Guys, 2024 has already given us plenty to talk about. The big news this week is that there's been yet another subway train derailment, this one in Brooklyn. That is two derailments in less than a week.

What's going on here? Wednesday's incident happened around 12.30 in the afternoon when an F train was passing through a construction zone at the West 8th Street, New York Aquarium Station. That's in Coney Island. And Transit President Richard Davies says the train jumped the tracks as it was going through the construction section. We saw some photos from the scene that show a train car perilously close to the edge of the elevated tracks there. There were 34 people taken off that derailed train and no injuries, thankfully. But the exact cause is still under investigation. And that's very different than the derailment from last week.

Yeah, last week's, we know quite a bit about last week's derailment from a number of sources. I mean, the top line is that the main cause kind of started by someone pulling a bunch of emergency breaks on a train that kind of led to this cascade of developments that ultimately caused two trains to collide, just north of 96th Street. About 24 people were injured. But none of them seriously officials say. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating that first derailment that Clayton is talking about here. What have they said? And are they looking into yesterday's derailment too? The NTSB is in town for last week's derailment.

and they said yesterday they're actually not looking into the Konya Island one. But at a press conference last week, Chair Jennifer Homandy says they have 13 specialists looking at the entire MTA system. They have experts in signals, mechanics, and they're going to be looking into MTA management and the MTA's rail control center. That's the nerve center of its entire operation that presumably was keeping an eye on this operation that Clayton was just describing. They'll look at training, they'll look at qualifications, and they'll look at systems. system safety or safety management systems. We have specialists in signals. They will be looking at the signal systems, the wayside detectors, the wayside signal

systems, and they will get all the signal downloads. She did say they ruled out any track issues for now. So it's not like a broken rail or something. But she also said it's too soon to blame any individuals. She said typically if there is a human error, it indicates a failure of the system. And she added there are three things the MTA doesn't have that would make her job easier and train safer. She noted there are no inward facing cameras on the trains. There are no outward facing cameras on the trains to see what's happening on the tracks.

And there's no event data recorders like the black boxes on airplanes in Amtrak. She says the NTSB actually requested this be mandatory on all trains in 2015, but for now nothing is required on subway cars. Sounds like flight and words. What is the MTA saying about all this? Well, speaking this week on Brian Lair, MTA chair, Jan O'Leber, says derailments like the ones we've been talking about only happen once every 10 to 15 million trips and that taking a train is by far safer than driving a vehicle or getting in a car. He also noted that, you know, each year there are about 1,700 breaks that are pulled and mostly it's by vandals because only 30 of them are for legit reasons. You know, the one thing he did say about the cameras is that 60% of the cameras is that 60% of the ones. of train cars now have cameras on the inside.

And he thinks once, you know, 100% of the cars have cameras, you know, when someone does pull the brakes like this, some sort of vandal, he believes they'll be caught more easily. All right. We're going to move on to other topics because there are some of you can believe it. This week, Governor Hokel delivered her State of the State speech and included the third, I don't mean to laugh when I say this, the third phase of the Second Avenue subway. What is the third phase? And was it surprising to hear about it? A little bit. The plan right now, Second Avenue Subway, has three stops up to 96th Street.

They're planning to get it up to 125th and Lexington. But this plan, instead of extending it downtown, Second Avenue subway, they would extend it west across Harlem, beneath 125th Street, all the way over to Broadway. It was rated as a good project in the MTA's 20-year needs assessment, a big report that came out last year. It's cost is pegged at $8 billion. And the MTA hopes that it kind of ties into that second phase we just mentioned in East Harlem because they're already running a boring machine, a tunneling machine underground, and they hope to just leave it there and continue digging westward across the island. But that second phase is still in the planning.

We're talking about the third phase. Second phase is still being planned. You know, just a reminder, the second phase of the second avenue subway would extend the queue line from 96th Street at a new station at East 106th Street and East 160. 16th Street as well as a new station below the existing East 125th Street station. So, you know, that plan is to connect the 456 on Lexington Avenue to the Q-Train. The governor basically wants to create a 125th Street shuttle. And it's the historical context here that's also worth noting is that for basically 100 years, New York City planners have wanted to run a second avenue subway down the length of Manhattan.

This is a departure from that. They even plan two other phases, the third and the fourth phase, eventually bringing it all the way downtown in the financial district. Now, this marks a pretty significant change to decades and decades of precedent. And it wouldn't be on the way without a mention of congestion pricing. Please, yes, let's hear about it. In the case of the tolling program, you know, if it's delayed by the lawsuits, which are underway that we've spoken about in the past, you know, it could impact the start of the construction of the 2nd Avenue subway phase 2. Interesting. That project needs money from congestion pricing to move forward.

Like Clayton was saying, phase three is pegged at $8 billion. Well, phase two is $7.7 billion. And the federal government has agreed to cover nearly half the costs. And that project is expected to take eight years once it begins. Half the cost for phase two. No agreement for this proposal. Right. They'd have to cough up the $8 billion themselves for now.

Now it is time for this week's curious commuter question. This one comes to us from Maureen in Manhattan. She says, why are trains in other large cities more reliable and run more often than here? Places like London, Paris, Barcelona. It seems like in every other place I visit. I don't have to wait more than three to five minutes for a train, but wait times here can sometimes be 12 to 25 minutes. I think everyone can sympathize for this question. Yeah, it's a question that you'll sympathize with if you've ever gone to a major city or many major cities out of the United States, especially, where they really invest in transit.

There's two key differences that the MTA likes to make, or one really big one that. the AMTA likes to make is that none of those cities that Marines mentioning has 24-hour subway service, Paris, Barcelona, London, they all don't have 24-7 around-the-clock subway service. And when you don't have that, you can have crews go maintain the tracks more. You have less money being spent on operations at night, so you can flex more of that into more frequent service during the day. You can have more reliable commutes. But there's another key difference that also drives up costs in New York to run the subways

in general that Paris, Barcelona and London don't have. And that's that the vast majority of trains in the city have two crews running them, two-person train operation. You have a train operator driving the train at the front and a conductor in the middle doing the doors. Paris London, Barcelona, single-person train operation. So if you want to increase service, you're not just adding another train and another person, you're adding two more people, like those salaries, health benefits, pensions, all in the taxpayer and transit riders fare dollars. That's editor Clayton Guza. And transportation reporter, Stephen Nesson. on a wild week on the transit beat.

You can stay in the know by signing up for our weekly newsletter at gothamis.com slash on the way. Thanks, Dbo. Thank you, 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. We'll be back this evening.