NYC NOW - June 27, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

City Council Member Susan Zhuang will hold a town hall on Thursday to address out-of-control littering and illegal vending in parts of her South Brooklyn district. Meanwhile, FDNY officials say a fire that broke out in Midwood, Brooklyn Thursday morning, injuring four people, involved a lithium-ion-powered e-bike. Plus, the MTA is reconsidering the future of the transit system after Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to indefinitely pause congestion pricing. The plan was expected to generate $15 billion from tolls. On Wednesday, the MTA's board and the public reviewed transit projects now on hold. WNYC’s David Furst speaks with transportation reporter Stephen Nessen, who attended the meeting.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, June 27. Here's the midday news from David Furze. City Councilmember Susan Zwang says littering and illegal vending is out of control in parts of her South Brooklyn District. The council member will hold a town hall this afternoon at 3 o'clock to discuss cleaning up the intersection of 80. 6th Street and Bay Parkway in Gravesend. She says sidewalks are dangerously overcrowded and local businesses are being harmed. In a recent city council hearings, Wang asked the sanitation department

to crack down. The illegal vendors fully packed the sidewalk. Like I see you guys did a very good job in some other area. Is that able to bring that model to my area also? Meanwhile, city officials have acknowledged a shortage of available light. for merchandise vendors. FDNY officials say the fire that broke out in Midwood, Brooklyn, this morning and injured four people involved a lithium-ion-powered e-bike. Officials say the fire started near residential apartments on the second floor of a mixed-use building around 630. FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Brian Gorman says officials are still determining if the e-bike was the cause. We did recover a micromobility device at the base of the stairs, which is the area of origin.

That was powered by lithium ion battery. EMS says three people suffered minor injuries. One person was taken to the hospital with severe injuries. Officials say the fire is under control. The Red Cross is on the scene. 75 degrees now, partly cloudy skies. We're expecting mostly sunny skies this afternoon with a high of 86. Tomorrow a day of full sunshine with a high of 78.

Stay close. There's more after the break. The MTA is reconsidering what the future looks like for the transit. system after Governor Kathy Hochel's decision to indefinitely pause congestion pricing. The plan had been expected to bring in $15 billion tied to revenue from tolls. Yesterday, the MTA's board and the public got a look at transit projects that are now on pause. WNYC's Stephen Nesson was there and joins us now. Stephen, before we get into the details, can you explain the math that MTA officials have been doing in this last month?

Sure. So they've been looking at the capital plan. That's the list of all the construction projects, the upgrades, the expansions. The current plan that they were looking at was pitched as transformative. It's this effort to bring New York City Transit into the 21st century, really modernize it. And it was over $51 billion. And it was backloaded, so to speak. That is, they were anticipating this money from congestion pricing to sort of come at the end of the end of that. And it was backloaded, so to speak. That is, they were anticipating this money from congestion pricing to sort of come at the end of, this plan. So now we're talking about the $15 billion that are not coming from congestion pricing. That was 30% of the plan. So for the last three weeks, the MTA has been scrambling to figure out which projects will go forward, which ones are going to have to wait a little bit longer. And basically what they've come down to is they need to focus on the state of good repair work that is maintaining the current system and not expanding it. Okay, so what projects have been halted? And what does that mean for commuters? Well, for one thing, it's going to mean fewer accessible stations in the near term.

23 stations are going to be put on hold. That means no wheelchair, ramps, elevators. They wanted to buy a new electric buses. So now 250 electric bus orders are going to have to wait. They're going to spend $1.5 billion on new subway cars, if anyone's been on one of the new AC trains. You know, they're not going to be able to order those as well as Metro North, Metro North train, excuse me, Long Island Railroad trains going into that new Grand Central Madison Station. Some folks have been getting on very old trains there. This also means the expansion of the 2nd Avenue subway to those three new stops in East Harlem is going to be on hold. And I think the biggest impact to riders is probably going to be the signal upgrades.

There are plans to add new signals to the AC, B, D, F, and M trains. and that's going to have to be put on hold for now. Well, the MTA board has a fiduciary duty to work in the agency's best interests. How did they respond to this list? They were not happy. Someone called it catastrophic. Here's MTA board member and chair of the finance committee, Neil Zuckerman, describing the impact of Hockel's paws. It should be a real concern to those in Albany that we were on some extraordinarily solid footing a year ago.

And now in the last couple of weeks, the footing is definitely unsteady. You know, however, they acknowledge they're not going to go rogue here and go against the governor's wishes. In fact, yesterday they voted on a resolution to basically comply with Hockel's request for a pause. But they were also clear that they're very much in favor of congestion pricing. And they want to make sure that the MTA is ready to go with the tolling equipment and the plans to spend the money for the day that it is implemented. All right. So what did public transit advocates have to say? Well, it was a real scene, David. You know, they showed up in record numbers at MTA headquarters yesterday. There was a line around the building. Over 140 people signed up to speak. Most of them opposed Hockel's move. And that was a

record number for public speakers. And, you know, a lot of them spoke like Hassan Quasi. He's with the group Riders Alliance. And he was actually saying he suffers from asthma. I have a right to clear a cleaner air, which CBD tolling will provide. I have a right to better outer-broad transit connectivity through projects like the Interboro Express, which CVD tolls will, which CVT toll revenue will in part provide a capital money for it. So yeah, that's not going to happen for the foreseeable future. Well, let's talk about Hockel's response. What does she have to say?

Well, she put out a statement during this board meeting in which she basically said she's committed to the MTA, She acknowledged that some of these projects would be deferred, but she said, quote, there is no reason for New Yorkers to be concerned that it would eventually get done. But remember, the tolls are going to raise, you know, the $15 daily toll was going to raise, you know, a billion dollars a year, which the MTA was going to use to generate bonds to pay for all that stuff that we talked about. And she was worried about the fragile Manhattan post-COVID recovery. So she remains committed to her pause, but the MTA says it will be ready for when it, is unpaused and the chair of the MTA says there's no shelf life for those projects,

meaning, but the longer you wait for them with inflation, the more expensive they will get. WNYC is Stephen Ness and thanks, David. 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.