NYC NOW - June 14, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start your day: The MTA is continuing its crackdown on illegal plates, seizing more than 200 ghost vehicles over the past two weeks with help from the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies. In other news, New York Governor Kathy Hochul defends her decision to freeze congestion pricing, arguing that the MTA's plan to charge drivers a $15 daytime toll to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street would lead businesses to pass the new expense onto consumers. Plus, on this week’s segment of On The Way, WNYC transit reporter Stephen Nessen and editor Clayton Guse discuss the ongoing blowback from Governor Hochul’s indefinite pause of congestion pricing, including MTA Chair Janno Lieber’s response and new lawsuits.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, June 14th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. The MTA is continuing its crackdown on drivers who obscure their license plates or use bogus tags to evade the agency's tolls. MTA bridge and tunnel officers collaborated with the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies to seize more than two,

so-called ghost vehicles over the last two weeks. The MTA says it's their 18th operation in months, which has resulted in 226 arrests and the siege of more than a thousand cars with illegal plates. The MTA began the crackdowns ahead of launching congestion pricing, which Governor Hokel halted this month. Officials had worried drivers would block their plates to evade the new Manhattan tolls. The enforcement has continued even after Hockel's order. And Governor Hockel has a new defense of her move to freeze congestion pricing.

Pizza. Hockel says the MTA's plan to charge drivers a $15 daytime toll to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street would cause businesses to pass on the new expense to consumers, including for a classic New York slice. Everything from the cost of a piece of pizza is going to go up because there will be charges imposed to be passed on to consumers. This moment in time is not the right to. time to put that on the backs of New Yorkers.

Hockel had said she heard from people in Midtown diners complained the tolls were too much for them to pay. The MTA was set to launch the fees on June 30th, it is, until the governor indefinitely paused the change last week. Her decision has been met with criticism from transit advocates. The MTA has since said it will need to cancel transit upgrades that were supposed to be funded by the tolls. A heat wave was coming to the New York City area starting next.

week, the National Weather Service says temperatures will reach up to the mid-90s by next Tuesday and continue through at least Thursday. Meteorologists say the combination of heat and humidity will sometimes make it feel like it's a hundred degrees or hotter, but meteorologists say this weather makes for great beach weather. There's no rain in the forecast. If you don't have reliable air conditioning at home, the city's emergency management website has a map of places to cool down for free. The city also recommends cooling off at the city.

public parks with shade, pools, and museums. Stay close. There's more after the break. It's Friday, which means it's time for On the Way, our weekly segment breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us is WNYC Transportation Reporter, Stephen Nesson, and editor Clayton Goosa. It's been nine days since Governor Kathy Hokel announced she'll halt congestion pricing. The plan to toll drivers south of 60. Street. Stephen, what has been the fallout this week? So, right, so Hockel announced last Wednesday that she's pausing the program. And essentially, we waited all week for an MTA

response to that. We didn't get anything until late Friday, sort of an email from the budget director. But the chair and CEO, Jano Lieber, did not speak until this Monday. And he finally came out to give his first comment since Hockel made this move. You know, he still works for her. So this was about as much of a comment as we're going to get about really having the rug pulled out from under him by his boss. As much as I want to understand, our job at the MTA is not to be political analysts. As I've said before, the governor plays on a statewide and national field. And sometimes that means we don't look at things exactly the same. You know, it was five days of kind of everyone speculating what his response would be, what the reality.

action from the MTA would be because the congestion pricing funds were supposed to pay for $15 billion of transit upgrades. Those simply aren't there anymore. There was some speculation among MTS and insiders we were speaking to that Janow might resign. He didn't do that. He came out professionally, kind of soberly and somber. It kind of had a funeral field, this press conference, but he was very kind of serious and clear-eyed about the path forward. You know, Hockel says she's still committed to finding money to replace these projects, to replace the funding for these projects, you know, new signals to speed up trains, the 2nd Avenue subway uptown, the, you know, the white whale of transit projects in New York City. But there's still no clear way how she'll pay

with that, how she'll pay for those. So what does it mean for the MTA that congestion and pricing likely won't happen this year? And as you said, it was first approved in 2019. Right. I mean, they've been counting on this money for a very long time, that $15 billion that was going to pay for a slew of projects. So now the MTA is behind the scenes working to slash all of its projects. And the chair did speak about the state of good repair work that is going to be done. That's upgrading electrical systems, basic things like painting the elevated station so they don't rust. That was actually 75% of the work that congestion pricing was going to pay for. So I think they're going to just figure out what is absolutely essential and what can wait.

Yeah, and that's the only thing they're going to be able to focus on. is just to keep the system running, you know, all the work that they have to do to replace tracks and keep things moving. But it really brings up questions like the Second Avenue subway we mentioned. You know, last year, we talked about it in this show. The Federal Transit Administration came through with a $3.4 billion grant, one of the largest that they ever issued for a transit project. But that only covers, that covers less than half of the extension. The MTA needs to kick in another $4 billion. The rub here is that, you know, that 3.4 billion from the feds is dependent on the MTA coming through with their own money.

Now, does a federal government take back that money? Does it change? We're still kind of waiting to see how that might work and what kind of plan the MTA and Hockel come up with. There's also the risk that, you know, this could impact the way that service runs in general. You know, the MTA has kind of said, like, hey, without this money, we might have to pay more in other ways or do some budget math. And that could hurt just day-to-day service. And Lieber was really clear he doesn't want service to fall back to when he was growing up in the 70s and 80s, the so-called bad old days. When there were track fires, you didn't know if your train was even going to get you to your final destination. You know, there is, I suppose, a saving grace here that, you know, MTA watchdogs note that the chair has weathered more, even more sort of tough political climates. You know, he redeveloped the World Trade Center site, which was its own more assets. of like, you know, trouble and technical difficulties.

I spoke with Mitchell Moss. He's a longtime MTA watcher, professor of urban policy and planning at NYU. And he thinks Chair Lieber is going to be okay. Janow has one thing going from, he worked in Washington, the Clinton administration. He understands his way around politics. And he also understands politicians.

And I think that he was quite mellow given the crisis he's been handed. And I think that this is a good statement that the problems are solved. still remains to be seen if they are. Now, congestion pricing has a lot of supporters, right? People who want cleaner air, people who want more funding for mass transit, people who want safer streets. How are they responding to Hoclesmoot? Outraged, I would say, and exploring their legal options.

We've reported in the past there are nine lawsuits against congestion pricing, but just yesterday, Comptroller Brad Lander says he wants to sue to force the MTA to implement congestion pricing. So he's organizing around that with advocates, They haven't filed anything yet, we should note. They're waiting for the MTA board to meet at the end of the month to see what they're going to do, what they're going to announce or plan. But they did outline yesterday sort of five avenues they may pursue for legal challenges. The first one is congestion pricing isn't, you know, just an idea cooked up at the MTA.

It's actually a state law. So there might be a violation there. There's state climate laws which grant residents, quote, the right to clean air, clean water, and a clean environment. So maybe not implementing congestion pricing could be a violation of that. The American with Disabilities Act, you know, the MTA just settled years-long lawsuits in which it agreed to make 95% of subway stations accessible by 2050. And congestion pricing money was supposed to fund a bunch of upgraded stations. So there could be something there.

Michael Gerard is a professor at Columbia Law School. He's helping Lander put together their legal arguments. And here's what he had to say at yesterday's news conference. Although the governor said that this was a temporary pause, an indefinite pause, the courts of New York are clear that an indefinite pause is tantamount to a permanent pause. And we are prepared to go to court to challenge that. Yeah, a key piece here is that many a big legal brain and other watchers in New York have thought that congestion pricing was a done deal. The Federal Highway Administration last year signed off on its environmental review. they had to give it one more final review and sign off and send a document for the city,

the state DOT, and the MTA to sign. But everyone thought that that was a formality, like nothing to worry about, nothing to think about, just a simple step in the process. Now, what we're understanding is that Hockel's order is basically saying, hey, state DOT, don't sign that. Don't sign that yet, or at least for now. So that's kind of, that's kind of the mechanism here that these lawsuits might try and overturn. So in our last minute, it here, is anybody backing Hogle's decision? Well, Mayor Adams has sort of hedged in the past about whether he supports congestion pricing, but he basically said he's not going to second-guess the governor here. You know, as Liz Kim points out, he does have a base in Manhattan and Queens,

of, excuse me, Brooklyn and Queens. And other politicians like Governor Murphy, you know, say he's actually going to continue with his lawsuit against congestion pricing. Yeah, I think one thing to look out for here is the responses at the end of the month, the 26th. of June, the MTA board is set to present a reduction of the capital plan. I'd imagine that that would be very politically radioactive and kind of, you know, coming out of the MTA, kind of force Hockel's plan, all these cuts that you're going to see to transit projects. You know, at the end of the day, Hockel says, hey, congestion pricing isn't dead. She essentially says it's taking a nap. We don't know how long that nap will be, maybe hibernation. But she might launch it after November,

after the elections when, but then after that she'll still have to face more political headwins from this. And she faces election in two years. That's transportation reporter Stephen Nesson and editor Clayton Goza. You can stay in the no on all things transit or ask a question of your own by signing up for our weekly newsletter at gotthmus.com slash on the way. Stephen Clayton, as always, thanks. Thanks, Sean. Thanks. Stand clear of the closing doors, please. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from W. 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.