NYC NOW - January 19, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

New York State watchdogs say too many MTA workers using government cars engage in risky driving behaviors like idling, harsh acceleration, and braking. Meanwhile, State Senator Kevin Thomas of Long Island says he’s on board with Governor Hochul’s push to regulate the “Buy Now, Pay Later” industry. Plus, on this week’s installment of “On The Way,” WNYC transit reporter Stephen Nessen and editor Clayton Guse discuss Governor Hochul’s new fare evasion policy, along with updates on congestion pricing lawsuits involving New York and New Jersey.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, January 19. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. New York State watchdogs say too many MTA workers using government cars engage in risky driving behaviors like idling, harsh acceleration, and braking. The agency's inspector general reviewed more than 400 cars and found that almost 3,000, 300 of them idled excessively for a combined total of 5,000 hours over a two-week period, polluting the air, of course. It's illegal to idle for more than three minutes in the city unless temperatures are 40 or below 40,

or the car is an emergency vehicle. Key State lawmakers says he's on board with Governor Kathy Hokel's push to regulate the so-called buy-now, pay-later industry. Long Island Senator Kevin Thomas chairs the state senate's Consumer Protection Committee, he says the industry needs more oversight. When we see something like this and there is little to no regulation, the state has to step up. And that's exactly what the governor is doing right now, and I applaud her for that. The governor's proposal would apply to companies such as a firm and afterpay.

If approved, they'd have to limit late fees and offer other fraud protections. The federal government is also weighing regulations to the industry. The measure is all part of Governor Holcomb's state budget proposal. She and state lawmakers have until the end of March to negotiate a final budget deal. 29 with light snow out there. Snow today, one to three inches in the city, three to five in the Jersey shore. Cold tonight, down to 19 and another chance of snow. Not much, though, partly sunny and 24 tomorrow.

Sunday, a little bit warmer, sunny and 31. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. You have questions for a week to report on the issue. 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, WNYC's transportation reporter, Stephen Nesson and editor Clayton Gousa. Hello to you both.

Hey, Sean. Hello. We're going to start with fare evasion this week. This week, Governor Hokel pitched big changes to the penalties for fair evasion on subways, buses, and bridges and tunnels in her annual budget. What's new and why is she doing this? Well, the biggest change would be the increase from the minimum penalty of $50. She wants to increase it to $100.

And she actually wants to do like a gradient. Like a second offense would get $150 fine. Third, we would go up to $200. But what I think is really interesting, what's different than what we've seen in the past is she does want to give first-time violators a warning. Second time, if they violate it, she would actually want. to offer them a MTA metro card at full or half the cost of the fine itself. And another super interesting different thing that the governor wants to, you know,

uses her approach to cracking down on fare evasion is to actually allow the transit adjudication Bureau, the folks that deal with these tickets, to forgive summonses if a person enrolls in the Fairfares program. Remember, that's the half-priced metro cards that low-income New Yorkers can apply for. And it seems like a woefully underused program. I think right now, it's a little more than 300,000 people are actually in the program. But the city believes 900,000 New Yorkers would actually qualify for it. You know, I was reading a New York Times article the other day about how fair evasion, the penalty hasn't changed since 2008.

Back then, it went from a minimum of $50 to $100. So it's been a long time since they've done that. And it's also not just the subways and buses. They're going to get a change. They're going to increase the penalties for toll evasion on the bridges and tunnels. They want to increase that fine from $100 to $500 for toll evasion with using obscured plates. Yeah, Stephen, so the MTA has been battling fair evasion for the entire history of time here. It introduced new Fairgate at Suffan Boulevard Archie Avenue. It's the JFK Airport stop.

It was supposed to help with that, has it? Yes and no, I guess is the way I would put it. you know, the MTA installed this new bank of turnstiles. You sort of swipe and the both gates open, like you know, like you're going through a saloon. And it's really just a pilot they're doing at that station just to see how it works, give it a try. But according to some videos we've seen online, they also look ridiculously easy to hack. I think the most widely shared video is this gentleman with cool sunglasses and a hoodie sort of casually walks up to one of the turnstiles, waves his hand over the adjacent one.

Like there's some sort of sensor there that he puts his hand on. And that one on the side opens up. And then he just waltzes right in on that side. It's the purpose, right. Yeah. Okay. It seems crazy that that, you know, that that exists, especially since the MTA made such a big deal about how they're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. And this is their new, you know, approach to, you know, stopping people from hopping the turnstiles, which everyone does now. The MTA has never redesigned the turnstile in a meaningful way. The turnstile you see today is basically the same turnstile you've seen for decades and

decades and decades. And all the while, they've raised the concern of fare evasion without taking an approach to redesign the very way that you enter the system. They maybe had an opportunity a few years ago when they rolled out Omni readers. But this at least is a very early indication that they're saying, hey, these fair gates don't work, let's find one that does. Now, we've already kind of touched on it, but we should say it would not be on the way without a section on congestion pricing itself. What is new on that front?

Well, you know what they say, Sean? Another week, another lawsuit. Okay, let's hear it. So the newest one is a class action lawsuit filed by some lower Manhattan residents. One man, Daniel Bazetta, is a funeral home owner, and he claims his hurses are coming in. and out of the zone and he can't help it. And it's going to hurt his business. There's a butcher that's on this lawsuit. The two bridges neighborhood, a dessert maker, as well as some city council members, Bob Holden and Assemblyman David Weperin from Queens. Essentially, they're arguing that congestion pricing will damage these small businesses. It'll create medical

hardships for people and what they say will strand hundreds of thousands of working class New Yorkers who live in transit deserts. Essentially, the core of the argument, as far as I can see, very similar to the New Jersey lawsuit. You know, they all say the MTA didn't study this enough and they should do a more lengthy review. Governor Phil Murphy in New Jersey has updated his lawsuit. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. So Phil Murphy was one of the first to get in on the legal action around congestion pricing. You might remember back in July, New Jersey sued the Federal Highway administration for approving the MTA's environmental assessment. But this week, he really took a left turn and amended his complaint. And it doesn't argue just that the environmental assessment was insufficient,

but that the tolls of themselves violate the United States Constitution. And they're citing little-known clause in the Constitution that kind of prohibit states from enacting laws that unnecessarily hinder interstate commerce. And of course, the great Congress member from New Jersey, Josh Gottheimer, who I suppose would be one of the original opponents of congestion pricing from that state, put out a report late last week in which he argues some new math that he says has come to light. He's claiming that the MTA is actually going to make way more money than they even dreamed of. He believes it could be $3.4 billion. And because of this new math that he crunched, he believes New Jersey drivers don't even need to pay the tax. Here's Gautheimer.

There's no reason New Jersey drivers can't be exempt from the congestion tax. Their own number and all the numbers that are publicly available prove that they do not need any revenue from Jersey. Charles Komenoff spoke to Streets blog and says that Gautheimer is nearly doubling the number of cars that are actually going to enter the congestion zone each day. And the MTA's spokesperson John McCarthy says,

quote, it's scary for Americans that this congestion-loving politician who serves on the Financial Services Committee in the United States Congress clearly can't count. So the congestion pricing battles continue and we'll be keeping an eye on them. We have a curious commuter question coming to us this week from Dennis and Brooklyn. Why is there no subway transfer between the Lorimer Street, J&M Station, and the Broadway G station? So there are a few places.

This is maybe the most egregious place in the subway system where two lines or stations kind of are on top one another, but you can't transfer through them. There are some examples where you can, like Court Square. You don't have to cross-through and styles to go underground up to the seven. or to the G or the E. It's all interconnected. It's not the case at Lorimer where the J&M runs elevated. And Broadway, where just beneath the G runs underground. You have to get out of the station, pay a second fare to get between the two.

And if you don't have an unlimited, that could cost you. How wretched? They could cost you $290. What's interesting is that the MTA is capable of a free transfer between the two. They even had one in 2019 and 2020. Remember when the L train was under construction, you know, they canceled the. big shutdown. They just did nights and weekends, but they still retained a free transfer between the stations to give as a courtesy to riders who may be affected by reduced service on the L. They took it away in 2020 after the construction on that train wrapped. There's currently no plans to add a free transfer. You know, the MTA has previously said. There's other ways to get between it. But the G is, you know, the G is kind of a different route from the rest of the system. So it's a, the answer is simply, it's a policy decision. They have the power to give a free transfer. And they don't. That's editor Clayton Goussa and transportation reporter Stephen Nesson. On a wild week on the transit beat,

you can stay in the know or ask your own question by signing up for our weekly transit newsletter at gotthmus.com slash on the way. Thanks, Debo. Thank you. Thanks, fun. 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 can. get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.