NYC NOW - May 17, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here’s all the local news you need to start your day: Harvey Weinstein's overturned rape conviction has spurred a new push to update New York's laws. Meanwhile, New York City shelter provider WIN is launching a pilot program on Monday to give homeless families debit cards to help them find housing more quickly. Plus, the New York Knicks will try to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals on Friday night against the Indiana Pacers. Finally, on this week’s segment of On The Way, WNYC’s Stephen Nessen and Clayton Guse discuss New York City Transit head Richard Davey leaving his job, plans to build housing near two new Metro-North stations in the Bronx, and a street redesign in Brooklyn.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, May 17th. Here's the morning headlines. I'm Jene Pierre. Harvey Weinstein's overturned rape conviction has spurred a new push to update New York's laws. Westchester Assembly member Amy Paulin is sponsoring a bill that would allow judges to admit evidence of a defendant's past sexual crimes, even if they're not directly at issue in the case at hand.

That's the issue that led the state's top court to grant Weinstein a new trial in his case. There's something wrong with New York if a known rapist like Harvey Weinstein is let out because we don't have updated laws. That's what's happening here. Public defenders are pushing back saying the bill would infringe on defendant's rights, particularly those who come from limited means. New York City shelter provider Wynn is launching a pilot program next week that will give homeless families debit cards in the hopes they can use the money to find housing more quickly. WMYC's Karen Yee reports. 100 families will receive about $1,400 a month to use however they need,

whether to buy clothes for a job interview, use on child care, or purchase furniture. Wynn CEO Christine Quinn says the no-strings-attached money is targeted at homeless mothers with children under two years old. And that's what makes the program unique. Most of the programs that homeless people participate in treat them as if they are trying to rob the public purse. This program says we believe in you. She says families know best what they need, and she hopes the two-year program's success

will affect future policy decisions around the city's record high homelessness rate. The New York Knicks will try to move on to the Eastern Conference finals tonight. They're up three games to two when they're. second round series against the Indiana Pacers. If they win, they move on to the NBA's final four. But if they lose, that'll set up a winner-take-all-game seven at Madison Square Garden this weekend. Tip off is tonight at 8.30 in Indiana.

Meanwhile, the New York Liberty spoiled Caitlin Clark's first home game for the Indiana fever. The Libs breeze to victory on the road 102 to 66. They play Indiana in Brooklyn on Saturday at Barclays Center in Liberty's first home game. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation says the air quality is good right now, and it's expected to stay that way all day. Tree pollen is moderate today. Good morning. You're listening to WMYC. Up next, our weekly transportation segment on the way with reporter Stephen Nesson and editor Clayton Gusa.

That's after the break. On WNMIC, I'm Sean Carlson. It's Friday, which means it's time for all. On the way, our weekly segment breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us is WNYC Transportation Reporter, Stephen Nesson and editor Clayton Gousa. The head of New York City Transit, Richard Davy, is leaving after just two years on the job. Clayton, do we know where he's going? And what's the latest?

Yeah, reported exclusively, at least in New York City, Sean. You know, Rich Davy, let's just backing things up. You know, this is the guy in charge of the subways and buses at the MTA. Overseas the commutes for nearly 6 million daily riders. That's a lot of people. It's a big job. It used to have more prestige, right? It used to have a little bit more responsibility. You might remember five years ago, Andy Biford, trained daddy, as he was called, trained daddy. He was stripped of some of his responsibilities at the agency, some construction and track work amid a feud with Andrew Cuomo, kind of settling some political vendettas over who was more popular is one way to interpret it. So it's not as prestigious as it used to be, but still a big job. Davey is Richard David. David, the current man in that job. He's from Boston, and he's on track to go home.

This is the line we've been using. We confirmed earlier this week that he's cited to become CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority. So what our port authority? It runs the seaports and airports up there. We caught wind of it, confirmed it with a couple sources this week, including Transport Workers Union, President John Samuel, saying he represents Davy's work force, so he's a pretty good authority on this. And while he's in that Massachusetts Port Authority, it's a much, much smaller job.

But it's one where he'll be the boss, right? He's playing second fiddle to the MTA chair to the governor and dealing with all that. And like we kind of said, the transit authority job hasn't had as much prestige or responsibility. It's still fraught with a lot of the political issues. His departure isn't officially official, right? But today we did get a little more confirmation on how official it is. Okay. For everyone's benefit, I tuned into the Massport board meeting.

Fun. A very exciting board meeting. But in that meeting, they did confirm that. they've been interviewing Davy for this position of CEO for several months now. Today, they unveiled he's one of two finalists for this position. And speaking today, people want to ask the MTA chair, Jan O'Leber, what does he think about it? And here he is, he doesn't sound too broken up about it. I'm very sympathetic to the fact that, you know, Rich has an opportunity that may be attractive in his hometown.

I will note the Massport Board hasn't made its final decision on whether to hire Davey, it will officially vote on it next week. Okay, so Davy is the fourth head of New York City Transit in just four years. How will his tenure be remembered? Right. That's a lot of turnover. But when he came in two years ago, he, you know he's overseen a major rebounded transit ridership since the pandemic. Obviously, it plummeted then, everyone working at home and not returning to work. And he settled a contract with TW Local 100. That's kind of a hallmark of any transit president. has a big effect on ridership because it's a contract with the people who run your trains and buses. He's also kind of had some fraught moments.

A couple derailments earlier this year, kind of in quick succession of one another. You might, I think everybody saw that a derailment on the Upper West Side. It's gummed up subway service for several, several days. That one's still under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. Crime was also a major problem during his tenure, both the perception of it with some high-profile shootings, but also just the raw numbers. Last year, assaults in the subway system hit a 27-year high, and that's even still with two million fewer riders than before the pandemic. This year, there have already been four murders in the subway system.

But like you said, Clayton, this is the fourth transit president in just over four years. So it really does raise questions about how hard it is to retain high-level people at the MTA, which, you know, it's a job where you do face a lot of scrutiny, but you don't necessarily have a lot of authority to make big changes. Yeah. Another story we've reported on this week is that the city is moving forward with a big plan to build new housing in the East Bronx. It'll be located next to two Metro North stations the MTA is building there. Stephen, what is the connection?

Let's start with the MTA. It's building four new Metro North stations in the East Bronx. They'll be connected to the New Haven line for Metro North, and that's a $2.8 billion project. It's been going on for a while now. And those trains, follow me here. They will go to Penn Station, not Grand Central. And that's because there's going to be more room at Penn Station now, because many trains are going to Grand Central Madison,

the recent station that opened two years ago. And while many Bronx residents are expected to take advantage of these new stations, the MTA says it will shave 75 minutes off their commute to the city, or if you're doing a reverse commute. But they also, new stations need more people to ride the trains. So to that end, the city wants to add 7,500 new units of houses. $1,900 of them would be affordable. The city planning commission held a public hearing about this housing, and it seems like it's pretty

much a done deal. They do still need to make a final proposal for the city council to sign off on. And there was some pushback from a few gadflies, a few nimbies. They say some of the neighborhoods, particularly Van Nest, don't have room for more units. They say there's not enough street parking as it is, and sewers are at capacity, while police resources up there are stretched thin. Yeah, it's kind of what's new. Somebody's mad about a new housing development in their neighborhood. That's kind of a regular thing. Another thing that we learned is that, you know, their forestations, the areas around two of them are getting rezoned under this proposal.

But, you know, when they're going to open is kind of subject to change. They plan for 2027. MTA guy comes on. The meeting yesterday says, that may be pushed back. And it's because they have to work with Amtrak anytime the MTA works with Amtrak. They have problems. because these trains are going to run over the Hellgate Bridge. That's used by Amtrak. They need to say, hey, Amtrak, let us shut down this bridge link to do some work. Amtrak seems, there was hints that Amtrak may be giving them a little bit of problems there. So TBD, when it opens, maybe 2027, I wouldn't hold my breath. Finally, this week in the On the Way newsletter, you wrote about a new street fight brewing.

This time, it involves a street redesign in North Brooklyn on Grand Street, Metropolitan Avenue and Morgan Avenue. What's happening? Well, the context here, one big contextual point here, as you might remember, last year, there was a huge brouhaha in McGinnis Boulevard in Greenpoint. The DOT planned a really big street design, more pedestrian space, a lot more bike lanes, everything that the street safety advocates want and have called for. Mayor's office comes in last minute, pumps the brakes, make some changes. Nobody's really happy, not the opponents or opponents who were kind of connected to Mayor Adams, who kind of got into his ear and had him slow it down. So now a couple miles away, there's this push to make sure it doesn't happen again. So the DOT held a workshop a year ago on how to redesign Grand Street, Metropolitan, and Morgan in East Williamsburg, Bushwick. Similar to McGinnis, these are roads that have a lot of heavy manufacturing, heavy truck traffic, and cyclists. You know, it's a fairly dangerous roadway.

Those three roadways had 14 fatalities from 2016 to 2023. And the plan is really interesting. The plan that a lot of folks seem to like is turning grand and metropolitan into one-way streets with protected bike lanes in both directions, while also having dedicated spaces so trucks can unload goods, dedicated zones for that. And unlike, you know, the McGinnis fight, they don't want it to happen again. So the council member there, Jennifer Gutierrez, actually brought together all the stakeholders to sort of agree on this plan. I spoke to representatives from the trucking industry, and they think it sounds like. like a good plan. There's there's all this coordinated support behind this effort, which would kind of change the face of the streets in this neighborhood. They've done a lot of the work in

advance, mindful of what happened in McGinnis. But this is DOT. A lot of advocates are still worried because this is a DOT under the Madam's administration where they've paused or struggled to move forward with a lot of ambitious or even not even so ambitious bus lane projects and street safety redesigns. You look at the Flatbush Bus lane. One of the bus corridors in the city. They promised a bus lane down another speed up service. Crickets. You look at the Fordham.

For two years. Yeah. You look at the Fordham Road bus lane up in the Bronx. Big plan that would have speeded up service across the borough. Cancelled after there was some opposition. So, you know, they've done all this work, but it's still, it's still this administration, which has really caused a lot of problems for the people who are trying to redesign the city streets. And to that end, advocates.

really are trying to put the pressure on DOT. They sent them a strong letter this week. Here's Paul Keltarborn of the neighborhood group Friends of Cooper Park. We really came together. We did a lot of work. We're trying to find workable solutions. But we need help from the city. We need the city to do its part. And so we're trying to keep the pressure on because we don't want this project to get abandoned like so many other projects have across the city. DOT says they're working on a traffic study now and they'll get back to us soon. That's transportation reporter Stephen Nesson and editor Clayton Gusa. Stay in the know on all things transit or sign up for our newsletter at gotthemus.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.