NYC NOW - March 29, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Videos of women sharing stories of being assaulted on streets in Manhattan are trending on TikTok. WNYC’s Giulia Heyward has more. Also, the Department of Transportation recently approved the use of longer e-cargo bikes to take the place of traditional large delivery trucks. The approved bikes are pedal-assist electric bikes that look like mini trucks and take only one person to operate. Finally, Long Island Rail Road customers are enjoying expanded service thanks to the Third Track project completed in 2022. But building that additional track to relieve one of New York’s worst transit bottlenecks wasn’t easy. A new report in Newsday finds that the MTA spent $20 million on projects in Nassau County that had nothing to do with the LIRR to shore up support for the project. WNYC’s Sean Carlson speaks with reporters Alfonso Castillo and Darwin Yanes who broke the news.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, March 29th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. The latest viral TikTok trend? Multiple videos of women sharing similar stories of being assaulted on the streets in Manhattan. WMYSA's Julia Hayward has more. At least six women, including Real Housewives star Bethany Frankel, say they were walking in

broad daylight with their phones in their hands when a man suddenly attacked them. Police have not linked to the reported attacks, but say they arrested one man in connection with one of them. He's charged with misdemeanor assault, and his attorney couldn't immediately be reached. Police say they aren't sure if he was involved in any other incidents. Meanwhile, videos about the incidents are racking up millions of views on TikTok. Some speculate the reported attacks were related. Others go farther, suggesting with that evidence that the attacks were orchestrated by political actors who want to instill fear in women. You may start seeing what looked like many delivery trucks shuttling packages around your

New York City neighborhood. The Department of Transportation recently approved the use of longer e-cargo bikes to take place of traditional large delivery trucks. The approved bikes are pedal assist, electric bikes that look like many trucks and take only one person to actually operate, speed limits for e-cargo bikes was reduced to 15 miles an hour, as well as other safety restrictions like the height and length of the e-bike. DOT says large delivery trucks present safety risk and also cause congestion and pollution. Alternative-Side parking rules suspended for this Good Friday, but we still must pay the parking meters. 50 and sunny right now, sunshine today, and 56 and breezy and gusty.

Stay close. There's more after the break. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. Long Island Railroad customers are enjoying expanded service thanks to the third track project completed in 2022. But building that additional track to relieve one of New York's worst transit bottlenecks was not easy. A new report in Newsday finds that the MTA spent $20 million on projects in Nassau County that had nothing to do with the L.I.R to shore up support for the project. Joining us now are Newsday reporters Alfonso Castillo and Darwinianis who broke the story. As your reporting lays out, there was lots of opposition on Long Island to the third track project. How did the MTA win support?

Oh, this is Alfonso. At first time, clarified that the $20 million, a lot of it did go to projects that were pretty clearly related to Long Island. Some, I think those connections were less obvious. The big thing was community outreach. you know, this project was a dirty word on Long Island for many, many years. I remember when the MTA shelved it, this is more than 10 years ago, because there was so much opposition. You know, I think the biggest concern was the impact of construction. So when Governor Cuomo resuscitated it back in January of 2016, the new emphasis was community outreach. And that was offering things like

station renovations and the elimination of a number of grade crossings that snarl traffic and cause accidents. And then there was this $20 million community benefits fund that ostensibly was supposed to go toward mitigating construction impacts. But also, you know, those guidelines for how this money could be spent weren't terribly clear. And there was a lot of wiggle room. And that's how you got into things like the $1.7 million soccer field that Darwin and I found. There was a pickleball court in Floral Park. There was a $9,000 welcome to Garden City Park sign and some expenditures that not so closely connected to the third track or the Long Island Railroad. Is it unusual for the MTA to spend money on projects unrelated to transit?

It was for a long time. And because of that, you know, they dealt with resistance on a lot of projects. So they don't make any bones about it that they think this was a good thing. And as proof of that, they point to the fact that the project got done on time and under budget. And since Third Track, they and the governor have pointed to third track as kind of the model on how to go forward on big infrastructure projects. So they weren't doing that as much years ago. Increasingly, they have, you know, to some extent, you see something similar with congestion pricing, where they created a fund in the Bronx, where they were going to deal with potentially some negative impacts from diverted truck traffic.

So more or more, it does seem like this is the route they're going to remove some obstacles in the way of projects. Let's back up just a little bit. You mentioned that the MTA worked on the third track project. for a long time. Can you give us a little more background on its purpose and the history behind it? Well, you know, for the Long Island Railroad's what they're going on 200 years old, they're 180-something years old, and for most of that time, there have been two tracks on its main line, which cuts across the center of Long Island. So, you know, obviously Long Island's population has exploded over the

years. The Long Island's capacity to carry those customers hasn't changed. very much, you know, at the top of their wish list for something like 60 years or more, has been a third track on its main line. Kind of an express track to sort of liken it to what you see on the subways. It serves a lot of purposes. In the morning, you can run trains in both directions. You know, now with the rush hours, you could really only have the capacity to run trains in one direction. This allows you to run trains in both directions.

And, God forbid, if there's some kind of unexpected service disrupt. you could route around it more easily, you know, for years and years when I was covering this speed. It wasn't unusual. Something would happen and would block a track and there'd be a complete meltdown in the rush hour. And that's happening a lot less now because of the third track. So what I can't wrap my head around here is that this seems like something that would help Long Islanders. So why were so many people opposed to it? Yes. So this is Darwin answering the question. So essentially when we spoke to a lot of elected officials, they said that when the project was first introduced to them, they felt like maybe they didn't have skin in the game that their voices weren't heard. So then, you know, Alfonso kind of spoke about it.

When they brought this community benefits fund, it kind of gave them that kind of voice where they could essentially make themselves whole after the four years of construction came and impacted their communities, whether it was constant construction, traffic, noise disruption. that community benefits fund was kind of, you know, their voice almost essentially, along with other things as well. Were there any critics of the MTA's approach to winning support for Thorntrack? Yeah, I mean, I've talked to some, you know, think tank types, the Empire Center for Public Policy in Albany, which is, they never mind criticizing the MTA. They certainly pointed to a lot of issues they have with this kind of tactic, you know, in part because they say that, If this is such a good thing, why would anybody have a problem with it? Why would you need to offer these extra enticements?

The enticements should be the benefit that comes from a third track. And because of that, I think there's some concern that creating a model this way is ripe for, you know, potentially a word that they used in not this story, but another story we did on the same subject was shakedowns. So could you have a situation where an elected official says, well, Well, if you want our approvals, if you want our sign-off, here's our list of demands, essentially. And there's a thought by some that this is essentially what happened here with some of this. But again, the MTA, I think they're fairly honest in saying this was what it was. And it worked. The litigation on this project was relatively small, where they might have expected a lot more litigation.

You see what's happening in congestion pricing now. and the married lawsuits that they're dealing with. And, you know, I can't emphasize enough how much opposition there was for this project in all the many villages and towns and along the third track corridor. And essentially, one by one, they all came on board. How does the MTA justify spending money on these projects? One point they make is that it was money well spent, right? So $20 million out of a two and a half billion dollar project.

it's less than 1% of the whole budget. They and other supporters of this fund make the point that they would have spent that much on lawsuits and other costs that come with a project delays. And the project got done relatively quickly. You know, the governor Cuomo announced it. I remember January of 2016 and they were cutting the ribbon in October of 2022. Pretty remarkable when you consider there was nothing there. They had to build this whole thing, eliminated, I think, eight grade crossings, rebuild stations.

So a ton of work was going on in Nassau County along this 10-mile corridor for those six years. And that was part of the idea of the fund was that there was an acknowledgement that this was going to cause a lot of disruption to these communities. Alfonso Castillo and Darwin Janus are Newsday reporters. Thanks so much to you both for joining us. 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.

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