NYC NOW - June 28, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start your day: New York City libraries will be fully funded again after last fall's cuts, thanks to a budget deal between the Mayor and City Council, sources tell WNYC. Meanwhile, while Mayor Eric Adams celebrates the reopening of Astoria Pool after $19 million in renovations, hundreds faced long lines on Thursday due to a lifeguard shortage. Plus, G Trains won't run between Court Square and Nassau Avenue stops from Friday night until July 5, with the second phase halting service between Court Square and Bedford-Nostrand from July 5 to August 12. Finally, on this week’s segment of On the Way, WNYC reporter Stephen Nessen and editor Clayton Guse discuss the MTA's outline of major cuts to its construction plan.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, June 28th. Here's the morning headlines from Tiffany Hanson. New York City libraries are set to be fully funded again thanks to a budget deal between the mayor and the city council. That's what three people with knowledge of the New York City budget negotiations tell WNYC. Mayor Adams' budget cuts from the fall. forced most city libraries to close on Sundays, but the budget restoration means they'll be able to resume seven-day-a-week service.

The funding will total almost $60 million. Adams and the council are expected to reach a handshake deal on the city budget later today. The new budget has to be in place by the new fiscal year, which starts July 1st. And Mayor Eric Adams is celebrating the reopening of one of New York City's largest public pools. A story of pool recently got $19 million in renovations, but hundreds of New Yorkers stood in long lines yesterday to get into the pool due to a lack of lifeguards. The lucky ones who made it inside were only allowed to swim in about half of the Olympic-sized pool. Adams says the city is trying to solve for it. We're doing everything in our power to hire more lifeguards. And as a result of our ongoing negotiations with the lifeguard union, we have been able to expand.

lifeguard, hiring and staffing. Several other city pools were closed off entirely on opening day yesterday. Public pools are open until September 8th. G-train riders, your summer pain is now underway. Tonight at 10 o'clock, G-trains will not run between the Court Square and NASA Avenue stops. That'll be the case until July 5th. And then the second phase of work begins. So from July 5th to August 12th, G-trains will not run between.

court square and the Bedford North Strand stops. The final phase is between August 12th and September 2nd when G-Train's won't be running between the Bedford-Norstrand and Church Avenue stops. You can get all the details on the G-train shutdown spelled out over at our news site. Gothamist, the MTA says all of this is to accommodate a complete replacement of the G-Train signal systems. Weather-wise, they're expecting sunshine for you. your Friday. Today's temperature should hover in the upper 70s right around 78 degrees tonight,

partly cloudy, with a low of 65 degrees, a chance, small chance for an afternoon shower on Saturday. It's Friday. That means it's time for a weekly segment of On the Way. Covering all things transportation, that's after the break. On WD1MIC, 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 is WNYC Transportation Reporter, Stephen Nesson and editor Clayton Goosey. The MTA outlined major cuts to its construction plan. Stephen, you were at that meeting. What happened?

Wednesday, they were talking about the $16.5 billion worth of projects that are now going to be shelved. These include accessibility improvements at 23 stations. So that's new wheelchair ramps, elevators. There's 250 new electric buses that are not going to be. get ordered, as well as $1.5 billion worth of new subway cars, like the new A-Train you may have been on recently, as well as signal upgrades. I think that's the thing that will impact riders the most. They were going to add new electric signals to the AC line, as well as the BDFM, that work is on pause. And board members were mad about it, and they're blaming the governor for this mess

that they now have to sort of figure out. Here's maybe the most candid board member, Norman Brown. If you want an example of why the MTA was over budget, was behind schedule, this is it, political interference. And I understand the politicians have tough decisions to make. They've got to get elected. If they don't get elected, then we get another politician to make the decisions. But what we have is, you know, it's a leadership deficit in Albany. Yeah. And this, I've been covering this for a bit, and Essent's been covering this for a bit.

this was probably the most somber mood at an MTA board meeting I've seen since COVID. And that was obviously a very dark time at the MTA. But what they laid out at the meeting were cuts to the MTA's current capital point, right? And some people might remember back in 2019 when they presented this plan, they had just gotten all this money from congestion pricing and they said, hey, we're going to be able to save the subway. It had just fallen into complete disappear. Commutes are terrible.

And the mood at this meeting was very much. much like a family that comes down on Christmas Day and found out the Grinch stole all their presents. Now, some advocates were hoping the board, the MTA board would somehow maybe go against the governor's wishes, right, and push to enact congestion pricing anyway. And they say that's because it's in the MTA's best interest. Was there any talk of that at this meeting? No.

Okay. And the MTA officials explained it's both technically and practically not feasible to do that. Simply put, they need the State Department of Transportation to sign off on congestion pricing and without Governor Hockel's approval, it can't do that. Here's MTA chair, General Lieber, explaining. So we're not coming up with plans to go rogue and have a coup against the state of New York. It's nonsense. What we're doing is being business-like and just making sure, number one, that we're protecting ridership and service. And number two, that we remain ready to implement congestion pricing when the temporary pause, as it's been described, is lifting.

You know, he didn't say there was a shelf life on any of these projects we described, but the longer the MTA waits, the more expensive everything becomes with inflation. Sure. You know, what the board did do yesterday is pass a resolution, and it basically acknowledges Hockel's order saying they can't launch congestion pricing until she lets them. But it also reaffirms their commitment. It says that we will launch congestion pricing once Hockel gives it the green light. And it was kind of surprised that this came up in the agenda. It popped the night before

and insofar as much that it gave board members a platform when a resolution is presented to motion everyone discusses in it and gave board members a platform to criticize the governor. And some of those criticisms came from people who Hocal nominated and appointed herself, kind of showing the concernation and discussion around this. Several vote members were very, very clear in that voting yes on the measure, they approved it all but one, that they don't endorse locals move, but as soon as she lets them, we're going to do congestion pricing. That was kind of the takeaway.

We should note, though, that there are still some MTA projects moving forward, including a big one on the G line. That, yeah, it's going to mess up a lot of folks commutes this summer. What should riders expect from that? Well, first of all, let me just say I was out talking to G-Train riders the other day. And many people are not aware of this. So let me inform you right now. Starting Friday night at 9.45 p.m. begins the summer of G-train shutdowns.

Basically six weeks. It's going to be carried out over three phases. But the first one starts Friday at 945 p.m. There's going to be no trains between Court Square and Nassau Avenue. This is going to run until September 3rd. The MTA does have shuttle bus service, which they say. will be very frequent, you know, one to four minutes during the day, which sounds pretty good. But the writers I spoke to are skeptical. It's not the first time they've had to rely on a shuttle, like 23-year-old Yumi Minnur.

The other night, the subway was down for, like, they're doing section service, and there was, like, a ton of people waiting for the shuttle, and it was, like, chaos. Like, people were Ubering from there, too, because, like, the shuttle wasn't coming, and it's, like, the only train I have to go to work. so I'm pretty mad about it. You know, others do worry that there's just a lot of traffic on the streets, and they highly doubt that the shuttle is going to be faster than the train. Right, and we called it the summer of pain on the G-train in the newsletter today,

in the On the Way newsletter. But the G-Train has 160,000 weekday riders. It's basically the only line that serves Greenpoint. I haven't seen a big construction-related transit disruption threatened the people of Brooklyn since the L-Train, which obviously got reversed. But, you know, it's going to affect a lot of people. A lot of people are thinking of adapting, getting on bikes. What are they going to do?

Are they going to work from home more this summer? It runs until Labor Day. But the MTA says this is really, really necessary. You know, there's a lot of aging infrastructure on this line. They're going to replace all the tracks. They're going to upgrade the signals, similar to the ones that Stephen was talking about in other areas of the city are now on hold that will allow trains to move faster and closer together, replace 90-year-old technology that currently directs the trains on the tracks.

But, you know, this is still only the start of the work. This is a big outage, but they're going to have a lot more night and weekend closures on the G-line for years to come. They say that this whole project won't be done until 2027. We should note that you can see all those details of the G-Train work on Stephen's story on our news website Gothamist. Meanwhile, there's news about street safety out today. The city is reducing the speed limit to 20 miles an hour at more than 200 locations across the city. Isn't there already you plan to make that happen everywhere in the city? Right, yes, but just backing it up for context, this is the product of Sammy's law, right?

We've talked about it on this segment before. Street safety advocates pushed for it for years. It allows the city to reduce its current speed limit of 25 miles an hour to 20. But it also allows them to do it on select streets. So what they're doing now is picking three or four blocks in 250 locations to reduce the speed limit to 20. But you're right, the city has the authority to reduce the speed limit everywhere if it wants to. Right. But for there to be a 20 mile per hour speed limit everywhere, the city council does need to pass that into a law. So doing it street by street is technically just a little bit easier.

All they need to do is give a 60-day notice to the public. And they are going to do some public hearings about this as well. We should add, before anyone starts crying, this is a money grab. You know, the places where they are going to lower the speed limit, it's just a few select streets. they don't actually have speed cameras. That's WNYC editor Clayton Goosa and transportation reporter Stephen Nesson. You can stay in the know on all things transit or ask a question of your own by signing up for our weekly newsletter at gothamis.com slash on the way. 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.