NYC NOW - July 12, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start your day: Governor Kathy Hochul says the Democratic Party should focus on President Biden’s Republican opponent instead of debating his future. In other news, COVID transmission is up in New York City due to a new “flirt” variant, named for its infectious mutations. WNYC data reporter Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky crunches the numbers. Plus, this weekend is the last chance of 2024 to experience Manhattanhenge. Finally, on this week’s episode of “On the Way,” WNYC’s transportation reporter Stephen Nessen and editor Clayton Guse are joined by reporter Giulia Heyward to discuss how the heat wave impacts the city’s infrastructure. They also talk about federal funding for the Gateway Program, an update on car accident-related deaths in New York City, and answer a listener question.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, July 12th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. New York's Democratic governor says her party is wasting time debating President Biden's future. Governor Hokel told reporters yesterday that all indications are that the president is staying in the race. And she says Democrats would be wise to focus more on his. Republican opponent. Every day that goes by where we're not talking about the fact that he says he's

in this race and he is our nominee and we have the delegates pledged him is a day that we're helping Donald Trump. Hockel's comments come a day after her lieutenant, the lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado called him Biden to drop out of the race. A flesh and flirty COVID wave is here just in time to complicate summer plans. Transmission is up across New York City thanks to the so-called flirt family of variants, name for the mutations that make it so infectious. WNMAC data reporter, Jacqueline Jeffrey Walensky, crunches the numbers. The city's viral landscape is being dominated by a new family of variants called Flirt. They're all related, and they have special mutations that help them evade our immunity

and cling tightly to ourselves. And they're having an effect. Wastewater data shows that in parts of New York City, the viral load is close to as high as it's ever been. and close to three times as many hospital patients are testing positive for COVID compared to the middle of April. The city's health department recommends masking up indoors, especially if you're vulnerable to severe disease. Get the latest COVID data, including new charts and maps at our news site, Gothamus. This weekend is the last chance of 2024 to experience Manhattan Hinge.

The sunset will align with Manhattan Street grid today and tomorrow. The best views are on the east-west thoroughfares with a clear, view to the Hudson River, but residents of other boroughs don't need to schlep to Manhattan for a view. Bronx residents can watch their own Bronx Hedge from Highbridge in Queens, a Long Island City waterfront gives a perfect view. Brook of the Night's going to head to the Greenpoint Waterfront. The show starts tonight at 821 and lasts about 10 minutes. The phenomenon occurs. The phenomenon occurs twice every year. Air quality is good today and I suppose they stay that way all day. But look for some showers and thunderstorm.

Today potential with heavy rainfall, midday and on. There's a threat of flooding noon to Saturday evening. Right now, 76 and cloudy. It's Friday. That means it's time for our weekly segment of On the Way. Covering all things transportation, that's after the break. On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. It's Friday, which means it's time for On the Way,

our weekly segment breaking down the week's transit news. joining us WNIC Transportation Reporter Steven Nesson and editor Clayton Goosa, and we're joined by a special guest, News and reporter Julia Hayward. Hello to all of you, Julia, welcome aboard. It's an understatement to say that it's been hot this summer, but Julia, you've been reporting that the heat is not just uncomfortable, it's actually slowing down commutes from NJ Transit to the subways. Tell us how the rising temperatures are affecting the city's heavy infrastructure.

Yeah, one of the wilder ones happened with the Third Avenue Bridge on Monday. It's what connects Manhattan at the city. the Bronx. Tens of thousands of people use it to get back home every single day. It's supposed to swing open to let large boats pass by, but the high temperatures caused what's known as a heat expansion, which means that the bridge actually got stuck open. So because of that, cars were essentially stalled. They weren't able to actually travel across the bridge. This went on during rush hour from 5 p.m. And it wasn't fixed. People weren't able to hose it down. get it to cool down enough for people to drive on it until 6.30. The city called it a rarity,

but this isn't the first time something like this has happened this summer. And other agencies like the MTA, which we cover, we know is painfully aware of how extreme weather is going to impact the rails and stations in the coming years. It just put out a 20-year needs assessment, and that includes a deep look at how the agency needs to prepare for more extreme heat, cold, and even the torrential rains that we also get. While each part of the system does require somewhat different fixes, one thing is clear, it's going to require billions of dollars in investments. Right. And then the only topic hotter than the weather in transit in the city is how they're going to pay for it.

I mean, Hocol's pause of congestion pricing has stripped away about $15 billion that the MTA was going to use for transit upgrades. So as they're mapping out how they're going to pay for the next 20 years of upgrades and climate resiliency, there's a lot of question marks over what gets prioritized, what gets saved. NJ Transit, Amtrak, and even city officials have all said that they're going to be doing more inspections. But the climate and urban planning experts that I talked to this week, also that the city needs to be more proactive as opposed to reactive. Some of the climate experts I spoke to you recommended heat-resistant materials, doing a heat and stress assessment, real-time monitoring. Because we know from what the National Weather Service and other climate experts have told us that there are, are going to be more heat waves to come, both in the summer and the years to follow in the city.

And, of course, there's ongoing problems with heat affecting commutes in NJ Transit and Amtrak through the Hudson River Tunnel. I just can't believe that hosing down the bridge was the way to cool it down. Speaking of Amtrak and NJ Transit, federal officials were in town this week to hand over a big check for the Gateway program. That would add a new tunnel under the Hudson that is less prone to these kinds of breakdowns. Stephen, you were at that press conference. What's the latest? Well, there was actually one of those cartoonishly big checks handed over for six. $6.8 billion, indeed, from the federal government, which marks the final share of federal funds to fully pay for this new tunnel.

So the total price tag for Gateway now remains at $16 billion. And with most of it coming from the feds, about 70 percent, it does mark the largest federal grant for a rail project in the modern era. But again, this is a project that was delayed in part by the Trump administration. So with another presidential election on the horizon, there was talk this week about what might have. happen if Trump is elected again, and could this project be in jeopardy? But all the officials sought to quash those fears. Here's Senator Chuck Schumer who says he's actually refused to play ball with Trump. Donald Trump said you build the wall, maybe I'll give you a gateway.

I told him NFW, we're going to get this done on our own. And after many fall starts and obstacles placed in our way, gateway's full speed ahead. All systems go. He says the latest commitment is essentially the point of no return. federal money cannot be withdrawn. Still, as we reported in our newsletter last week, New Jersey Transit riders and Amtrak commuters, they shouldn't hold their breath that, you know, this money is going to save their commute anytime soon. And just to underscore what Stephen had said just now, the gateway program, the whole point is to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson

so that they can close down the existing century old tubes and fix them. That new rail tunnel isn't going to be done for at least 12 years. And then the fixes are going to take another couple years after that. So there's this big question, will those tunnels hold up? Will these old old tunnels that were built by the Pennsylvania Railroad at the turn of the 20th century hold up? And you know, you ask Gateway, they said, hey, we're not going to fix those until we build the new tunnel. And if the old ones do break down, we're not going to entertain hypotheticals. We're not going to say if we have a contingency plan for that.

Now, we're going to move from the rails to the roads. Clayton, you reported at the end of last year that there were more deaths from drivers and vehicles than people being killed. by guns. We're six months into the new year. Has there been any improvement on that? Yeah, no, it's even worse. New Yorkers are far more likely this year to be killed by a person with a vehicle than they are by a person with a gun. During the first half of the year, 127 people killed in car crashes across the city while 82 people were killed with shootings. You know, drivers and people with guns, obviously have different intentions, but still this data kind of flips a narrative, a common narrative, about public safety. Politicians have good reason to call for gun control and to crack down on gun violence.

But drivers, this data shows, proves to be just as much of a public health menace. And you can see how that narrative's kind of played out under Mayor Adams. He's called for the NYPT to aggressively crack down on guns and illegal guns. But he's also come under fire for not reducing traffic violence through street redesigns and more enforcement, more bike lanes and bus lanes and kind of pedestrianization. You know, I wanted to check in with some national experts to see if this is a trend in other places and why they think shooting deaths get far more attention than traffic deaths. What they told me is that there has been a spike in traffic crashes since the pandemic across the country. People are driving more recklessly, and it hasn't really decreased to pre-pandemic levels.

That is, according to Angie Schmidt, she's the author of Right of Way, Race Class and the Silent Crisis of Pedestrian Deaths in America. And she cites a real lack of enforcement nationwide for traffic rules. She does credit New York City with those automated red light and speeding ticket cameras, which she thinks is a more equitable type of traffic enforcement than police stops. But it doesn't help us understand why this city has seen a rising number of traffic deaths while shootings have gone down. Now every week in Gothamist on the way newsletter, we answer a question from a curious commuter. This week, we got one from Vinnie in Brooklyn who asks, The Passageway from Penn Station to the 34th Street Herald Square Station was closed way, back in 1986.

Are there any plans to reopen the corridor nearly 40 years later? Yeah, Vinnie's talking about the Gimbles Passageway, which is an underground connection. It's still there, closed, when it ran from Penn to the Gimble's department stores. That's now closed. But like many entrances to the MTA stations, there's a lot that they've closed over the years in what Vinny might refer to as the bad old days due to crime and safety concerns in some corridors. But it really makes a good point. It took out a key way to get in and out of Penn Station, which is notoriously difficult to navigate.

I should add, the MTA says it has no plans to open the passageway. But as part of that Midtown redevelopment that includes redesigning Penn Station in the area around it, there are a couple of proposals connected to the former Hotel Pennsylvania that could include a new passageway. Yeah, like so much else in transit, nothing's final yet, so don't hold your breath. We sure know that. That's WNYC's transportation reporter, Stephen Ness, and editor Clayton Gousa, and newsroom reporter Julia Hayward.

You can stay in the know in all things transit or ask a question of your own by signing up for our weekly newsletter at gotthmus.com slash on the way. Thank you. All for you do. Thanks, Sean. Thank you. Stand clear of the closing doors, please. 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.