NYC NOW - July 24, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

The Department of Correction has suspended three staff members at the Rikers Island jail complex following a detainee's death. Meanwhile, we take a closer look at the latest challenge to New York's congestion pricing plan. New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a long-standing opponent of the plan, joins WNYC host Tiffany Hanssen.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Monday, July 24th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Three staff members at the Rikers Island Jail Complex have been suspended after yesterday's death of a detainee. The Department of Correction says it's suspended an assistant deputy warden and two correction officers for, quote, procedural violations. Guards say they found detainee Curtis Davis unresponsive in his cell early Sunday morning. The city medical examiners working to identify the cause of death.

Davis was the seventh detainee to die in New York City custody this year. A federal judge may decide next month to appoint an outside authority to take over the trouble jail complex. The suspended staffers' unions did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 81 with some sunshine right now, a slight chance of showers and thunderstorm. today and tonight, partly sunny in 86 for a high today. Tomorrow, slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in 87 and then hot the rest of the week with high temperatures in the low 90s. On WNYC, I'm Tiffany Hanson.

New Jersey is suing the federal government in the state's latest attempt to halt New York's congestion pricing plan. Garden state officials say the federal highway administration rubber-stamped the plan to toll cars entering downtown and midtown Manhattan while ignoring its between. potential impact on North Jersey. New Jersey, Congressman Josh Gottheimer has been leading the fight against congestion pricing for years. Congressman, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. Great. All right. It's no secret. You've been against the MTA's congestion pricing plan pretty much since the moment it was announced. So briefly, just tell us why you think

it's necessary for the state to take this step. Well, I think two reasons. One, $23 a day extra. That's $5,000 a year for a hardworking commuter. You're a nurse. you're a restaurant worker. That is a huge, huge cost for families. And you can imagine $23 a day, $5,000 a year what that could do to a family trying to get by. And the second thing is every single nickel of this goes to the MTA, the mismanaged MTA, which last year alone lost $700 million to fare skippers,

people who just didn't pay. It's $3 billion in the hole right now. And turning to Jersey to pay for it with this cash. that pay for its problems is just not the right thing. And third, environmentally, the MTA admitted in their own report to the federal government, this will actually lead to more pollution, cancer-causing pollution in northern New Jersey and the out of boroughs. I'm very concerned with the health of our children and our families. Well, talking about that pollution, New Jersey says congestion tolls will make traffic surge in the state, especially in communities already

overburdened by pollution. The whole plan is supposed to reduce traffic by getting people out of their cars into mass transit. So explain where the disconnect is here. Well, simply, so the way that the MTA is proposing this, they will charge you $23 to go over the GW bridge. That's in addition. If you pay $17 now to go over the bridge, right? Then you go into, you got to park, pay for gas. You pay an extra $23 to go south of 60th Street, right? So the challenge is the way they've structured it, you're actually going to get more trucks will do everything they can to avoid going into this congestion zone south of 60th. So they're going to move around New York. They're going to go over the GW Bridge,

or you're going to have huge backups, according to the MTA, at the bridge, right, of more trucks that give off a lot of pollution, cancer-causing pollution like formaldehyde and other carcinogens. They're going to give a discount, they say, at the tunnels, right? So you'll actually have more of the cars move to the tunnel, so you'll have more traffic at the Holland and the Lincoln. And then, of course, north of 60th Street, right above the congestion zone, you're going to have a huge traffic jam. So when you do, when you look at the map of this, you can see why it could not just lead to more traffic, but actually to more pollution. Well, I'm curious, why not just go after the MTA itself? I mean, New Jersey is suing the federal government for what the lawsuit

characterizes as rubber stamping and environmental review of the, of the congestion pricing plan. But why not just go after the MTA? Well, Governor Murphy today said that's an option. First, you have to wait until they set the price until they finish their planning at the MTA. And I think that's possibly on the table is the next step. The reason the federal government is because the MTA submitted to the federal government, this whole report in the report admitting that it'll lead to more traffic, more congestion, and more pollution north of, as I said, north of 60th Street and, of course, the Outer Burroughs and by the GW Bridge. So they admitted it's going to have environmental impact. that should be studied further. For some reason, the federal government just decided the Department of Transportation to rubber stamp it and say, go on ahead. So New Jersey is saying, wait a second, we should really study the impact. If we know this could lead to cancer-causing pollution in northern New Jersey, in the Adder

Burrows, we probably should study this further. Well, a recent article that came out in the record newspaper says New Jersey Transit's facing one of the worst fiscal crises in the agency's 40-year history that could reduce you know, we can see massive service reductions in layoffs. So what I'm wondering is this plan is supposed to get people out of their cars and into transit, into trains, into buses on New Jersey Transit. So why don't you see it as a blessing in disguise for New Jersey? Listen, I think we need to, in New Jersey, invest more in New Jersey transit.

I think it's critically important. I was one of the authors and folks who helped get past the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which includes a huge investment in mass transit. right i saw i'm a huge supporter that the challenges and the reality is we haven't built all this mass transit yet this infrastructure and so we're very limited in northern new jersey if you come out here you'll see we're very limited in where we have mass transit and we don't have as many options a lot of that restaurant worker that nurse to get into a shift or a shift has to actually drive it's just the way it is so you're not suddenly if you institute this new congestion tax 23 dollars a day

it's not like suddenly there's going to be new mass transit options available overnight it takes time and doing this now makes no sense. We should invest in New Jersey transit. But last point, we are not going to New York and saying, hey, we've got fixes to do here in Jersey. Why don't you pay our bills for our problems? Matt, New York should take care of the MTA. It's been a woefully mismanaged agency for years, one of the worst in the country. It should clean up its own mess, not look to Jersey in this big cash grab and say, hey, we need the money, Jersey. Why don't you start paying more? All right. We'll leave it there. Congressman Josh Godheimer, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks. You too. Take care.

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