NYC NOW - May 31, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here’s all the local news you need to start your day.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, May 31st. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. A federal judge is throwing out a New York state law that bans giving food or water to people waiting in line to vote. WNBC's Bridget Bergen reports the ruling comes three years after a Brooklyn nonprofit filed suit in court. The Brooklyn chapter of the NAACP sued the New York City and state boards of elections over the law back in 2021. The nonprofit has a long history of helping voters in communities of color know how, when, and where to vote.

Brooklyn branch president, Eljoy Williams, says this ruling will let her organization help voters that might be stuck in long lines. We're laser focused on making sure that we support Brooklyn voters. and we are absolutely ecstatic that we now have another way that we can continue to do that work. State and federal primary elections are next month. The judge struck down this law on First Amendment grounds. Spokespersons for both the city and state boards of election did not immediately respond to request for comment. The MTA is planning the shutdown part to the G train over the summer. Commuters convened at a public hearing last night in Brooklyn to hear from the

MTA, ask questions, or just give the agency a peace of their mind. A Greenpoint resident who identified herself, as Kylie said, she and her friends rely on the G train to get to work every day. I think it's just critical for us to express that the community is, like, so deeply unhappy of, like, what's been presented, and I'm assuming you guys are not going to be the one on these buses twice a day, every day for six weeks. The MTA is planning to upgrade the line by installing modern signal. similar to the ones on the L&7 lines. The six-week shutdown will take place over three phases.

We have more details on our new site, Gothamist. The New York Rangers are on the brink of elimination from the NHL playoffs. The blue shirts lost to the Florida Panthers at the Garden last night in game five of the best of seven Eastern Conference finals. The score three to two. The Panthers now hold a commanding lead of three games to two. Game six is eight o'clock tomorrow night in Sunrise, Florida. The Rangers will have to win to force a game 7 Monday back at the Garden.

The series winner, of course, moves on to the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup finals, playing either the Edmonton Oilers or the Dallas Stars. Right now, 60 and partly sunny, on our way to a mostly sunny day with a high of 77. This weekend, sunshine and temperatures in the low 80s for highs. Once again, 60 and partly sunny. It's Friday. That means it's time for our weekly segment of On the Way. covering all things transportation.

That's after the break. NYC. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. It's Friday, which means it's time for On the Way, our weekly segment breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us as WNYC's transportation reporter, Stephen Nesson, Clayton Goosa, is off for the week. So fare evasion is a top concern for the MTA.

The agency is trying all kinds of things to get people to pay the fare, things like hiring private security guards, even making physical changes to the turnstile themselves. But this week, Stephen, you found one part of the mass transit network that's literally just leaving the fair gates wide open. Tell us more about it. It's on the air train at Jamaica and Howard Beach. And it's only on the turnstiles that have the new Omni readers. And there's a good reason for this. It's because the Omni readers aren't compatible with the turnstiles, which are really just configured to accept Metro Cards. The Port Authority did go ahead and install them

after the Omni readers, after an outcry from the public. But because it's not really configured properly, they just leave them wide open. And again, just to remind everyone, the air train is run by the Port Authority. The Subways are run by the MTA. The Port Authority says Omni is an MTA technology and it's not fully integrated with its own systems. But it doesn't matter to riders, they still have to pay both agencies to get to the airport. Remember, it's $8.50 to get on the air train. and then they need to pay again when they leave JFK and get on the subway.

So it's about $11.40 to get to the airport on public transportation. So I'm trying to imagine this, right? These gates are wide open for the air train. Are people paying the fare? Did you see a lot of fare evasion? I saw a lot of fare evasion. I saw a lot of people paying as well. I talked to the people who just walk through the gates, which were wide open.

And I found there are two kinds of farevators. There are those who are legitimately confused. a lot of visitors, when you get off the subway at Howard Beach, there's not a lot of signs that show here's how much it costs, here's how much you have to pay. And if the two turnstiles that you pay with a metro card are blocked, the other three are wide open. So some people were really confused. They thought, well, I already paid to get on, didn't I? It's like, well, actually, you paid the subway fare. You didn't pay the air train fare. And this all comes, as you mentioned, at a sensitive time for the MTA. They're miffed at the cost of fare evasion, $800 million.

a year this year they expect. Chair Jano Lieber is in what he calls an existential battle against fair evaders in the subway. Here he is the other week talking about paying the fares as a way to maintain the social fabric of society. People are getting demoralized who play by the rules because they see somebody else breaking the rules and we can't have that. New York is about sharing public space and working together and we just can't live with people stealing from each other. I should add, the Port Authority is in some kind of denial about this. They tell me nearly 100% of riders pay at the air train, which is not what I saw. They do add that by the end of the year, they plan to fix the turnstile, so they're not stuck in the open position.

Every week in Gotham is on the way newsletter. We answer a question from a curious commuter. This one from Lanart in Manhattan who asks, and I sympathize with this, just walking over the bridge sometimes, why do the trains over the Manhattan Bridge have to be so loud? I understand that trains could never be completely silent, but they could soften the rumbling a little bit. I asked the MTA about this, and they tell me it's actually hard to exactly identify the cause of noise without knowing what type of train cars, the weather conditions, but it's also, they do know, it's about the grade of the Manhattan Bridge, how steep it is, that plays a role, how much power the train needs to get up the slope.

And it's actually true that the trains make different types of noises depending where you are on the bridge. So why don't we do something we don't get to do enough of on the show? Let's listen to some train sounds. Here is the train at the foot of the bridge, close to the tunnel entrance. Loud, but not, you know, overpowering. Here's a train about a quarter of the way across the bridge. Notice the clattering becomes a little louder. And finally, this is the middle of the bridge, just before the grade starts to slope downhill.

There's that sort of staccato clattering. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of it just has to do with the wheels, hitting the joints. And the MTA says they do have ways to address this. And in fact, they have been doing it. You know, they're installing different types of wheels and brakes that can dampen the sound a bit. It's also installing new rail joints, which it says it's doing across the system. But for now, the train is louder than the car traffic that's on the bridge.

And as you pointed out, the Manhattan Bridge is not bad for crossing. But the Brooklyn Bridge is a bit quieter for pedestrians and cyclists. My personal favorite bridge to cycle over would be the Williamsburg Bridge, which is well above the traffic. Well, you heard it here first from WNYC Transportation reporter, Stephen Nesson. You can read more of his coverage in the On the Way newsletter. You can subscribe to that at Gothamist.com. Stephen, thanks so much. 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. See you this afternoon.