NYC NOW - Midday News: Violence Prevention Teams to Patrol J’Ouvert and Parade, AirTrain to JFK Half Off Through Labor Day, and Feds Seek Penn Station Designs While City Tests Self-Driving Cars

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

More than 200 violence prevention workers will be in Brooklyn this weekend to help keep residents safe during the West Indian Day Parade and J’Ouvert festival. Meanwhile, the Port Authority is cutting AirTrain fares to JFK through Labor Day to ease congestion during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. Plus, on this week’s transit segment: Federal officials are soliciting new design proposals for Penn Station with construction targeted to begin in 2027. And the city approves a pilot for eight autonomous vehicles to test in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, August 29th. Here's the midday news. I'm Jenae Pierre. More than 200 violence prevention workers will be out in Brooklyn this weekend to help keep residents safe during the West Indian Day Parade and Juve Festival. City officials say the workers will address minor infractions like loud music and double-parked cars and walked with revelers at early morning parades. Al Matthews says he and members of his nonprofit, Bronsville Think Tank Matters, will focus on diffusing any conflicts that arise.

We had those type of situations. People pushing them, you know, we explain, like this is a large crowd, you know, somebody's going to push you. The official juvei parade starts at 6 a.m. Monday, followed by the West Indian Day parade on Eastern Parkway that will begin at 10. If you're heading to or from JFK,

airport this holiday weekend, you may want to take the air train as fares will be half off through Labor Day. The Port Authority says that means rides will be $4.25 each. The agency is encouraging travelers to use mass transit to avoid traffic on roads during the busy travel period. They're also reminding JFK travelers of ongoing construction at the airport that could cause detours and congestion. Air train users can take an eight-minute ride from the Leffertz Boulevard Station, where there's a free drop-off and pickup lot to JFK's terminals. It's feeling a lot like fall, almost. Temperatures are hovering right now about 73 degrees,

and they'll do so this whole weekend. Temperatures are forecast to top out in the upper 70s over the Labor Day weekend, so make some plans if you don't have some already. Stay close. There's more after the break. I'm Sean Carlin. for WNYC. You have questions for a week to report. It is time for On the Way.

Our weekly segment on all things considered breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us is WNYC's transportation reporter Stephen Nesson and Ramsey-Kulife and editor Clayton Goosa. Okay, this week, federal officials announced they're collecting designs for a new Penn Station. They want shovels on the ground in two years. We should say there have been renderings floated in the past. So what are they looking for exactly?

Well, the Trump administration says they're open to any and all proposals, although they do want it to be a public-private partnership, that is the private sector covering a portion of the cost similar to the way they developed LaGuardia. And remember, we're talking about the Trump administration because they took over the redevelopment of Penn Station from the MTA, who to this point had been working with Governor Hockel, discussing this grand vision for Penn Station that includes turning the entire station into like the single floor train hall, eliminating those low ceiling. and maze-like conditions. The feds want something similar. But remember, the MTA already renovated a portion of the Long Island Railroad concourse, and I think they were thinking it would have some sort of consistency in the design. They put out renderings a few years back, but we haven't really heard anything since. Now, Trump is in charge, and he's tasked none other than train daddy himself, Andy Biford,

to lead this project. Right. Bifert's going to have to navigate a lot of different personalities, entities, some of the private companies that are going to come in, but also NJ Transit, Long Island Railroad. He's working for Amtrak, which owns the station. Also, all the New York officials, all the federal officials, he's going to be in charge of kind of really negotiating and navigating all those personalities. Yeah. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the blocks south of the station, weren't there plans to just completely demolish that?

What's the deal with that? Right. That was one of the more controversial proposals that's kind of been floated out there for a long time about. about Penn Station expanding it. And I guess to understand that, you kind of have to think about the Gateway Project, right? And the new Hudson River tunnels that are coming, connecting New Jersey and New York, that's coming in, you know, the next decade, in theory, if it gets built on time. But it'll allow for the doubling of rail capacity, passenger rail capacity between New York and New Jersey. In theory, if you have more trains, you need places for those trains to go. So Amtrak and New Jersey Transit for years and years and years was really behind this so-called

Block 780 plan, expanding Penn Station a Block South by tearing down a block of Midtown. And they kind of understand why we need to kind of understand the puzzle that is Penn Station, right? The Southern four tracks, there's 20, what, 21 tracks at Penn Station. The Southern four are exclusively NJ Transit. Now from tracks 5 to 12, that share between NJ Transit and Amtrak. in that northern section, 13 to 21, that's all MTA, Long Island Railroad. And those northern tracks are nice because the MTA, despite not owning the station but being its largest tenant, invested into that concourse, invested in new kind of entrances, and also New York State had built-out Moynihan train hall. Long Island Railroad years ago extended its platforms over to Moynihan.

New Jersey Transit didn't. That's why you can't get a New Jersey Transit train at Moynihan because New Jersey Transit says, oh, one day we're going to expand South with this gateway program. We don't need Moynihan. Well, now that's a little bit on the back burner, right? And we should add Andy Biford, who's in charge of this, is not a fan of demolishing the block. He said very explicitly he doesn't want to do that. That's tabled for now.

He likes this thing called through running. That is where New Jersey Transit and Long Island Railroad trains share tracks. Right now, the different transit agencies have trains that all terminate at Penn, which means when they arrive at Penn Station and they drop people off, they park there until the afternoon when they go back to New Jersey and Long Island. But with through running, you don't need to do that. They can just keep going and share tracks. So this would free up the space at Penn Station that Clayton was talking about.

And Byrd, who's from England, says this is very common in Europe, maybe not so much in New York City, where the transit agencies are somewhat territorial. Yeah, somewhat is a big word there. So the feds want shovels on the ground by 2027, right? I got to say, that seems like a pretty tight timeline, considering that people have been studying how to rebuild Penn Station for years. Not much progress to show. Well, we've been calling it Operation Warp Speed Penn Station Edition. Remember how

Warp Speed was for the vaccines during COVID? So it seems like this president who's famous for his short attention spans, who likes things done overnight, wants to see some progress on his clock. And Biford says he doesn't want some half-cook scheme. He wants serious, well-formed designs and a way to pay for this project. I don't want drawings on a napkin. I want credible designs,

credibly backed by funding proposals and that meet the need. We do want to see this station to be world-class. Right. He doesn't want the multi-level maze conditions. And there are several proposals out there that we've actually reported on already. Ramsey's really familiar with them. Yeah, there's one that raises a lot of eyebrows.

That's the behind this group called the Grand Penn Community Alliance. Their backers are people who are major Trump donors, like a guy named Thomas Kliginstein, people who believe in making America beautiful again. What does that actually mean? Well, their proposal includes a neoclassical architectural style, think Roman columns and a lot of marble. It also calls on moving Madison Square Garden to 7th Avenue

across the street on 7th Avenue and replacing that with a public park, a main atrium that is more open and breathable, and it doesn't include a plan to expand Penn South. There's also another $6 billion plan by a company called ASTM. their plan would construct a sleek exterior keeping MSG where it is. Of course, there would be two main train halls, glass exteriors. A big criticism of Penn Station is just how low the ceilings are.

It would raise them. That's a big criticism. And then there's also a Governor Hockel plan that also has more light. It's more open. And those are, I guess, the main things that we're seeing so far. Yeah. Okay, moving on, another huge story this week. The City Transportation Department approved a pilot program to allow for eight autonomous vehicles

to test drive around Manhattan and Brooklyn for about a month. What's up with that? Well, you may have heard of this company Waymo. They're run by Alphabet. That's the parent company of Google. They have these self-driving taxis that are available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin. Basically, it's an app like Uber and you call a car and it shows up, but there's no driver. Yeah. So, yeah, so these are robot taxis. And this is a pilot the city is doing. They're testing out eight cars right now with the human being behind the wheel. That's because New York State does not allow self-driving taxis yet.

And while some city lawmakers want a lot more rules and regulations passed before we even think about letting robot taxis on city streets, some of the folks I've spoken with really like them. They like not having a driver to talk to. They can just have some quiet time. Some women have said they've had issues with drivers in the past. So this is one less thing to worry about. Even Safe Streets advocates say these cars have automated controls that don't let the car go faster than 25 miles per hour. This is the kind of technology that makes streets safer, they say.

And look, while there are those possible benefits, we're also hearing a lot of different concerns about the self-driving technology. Two of the major ones. One are other street safety advocates who say this new technology hasn't been tested out in a very pedestrian dense place like New York City. If you look up Waymo's, they have a lot of this operating in Los Angeles. San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin. Those cities are a lot more car-centric. There are wider roads, generally less pedestrian foot traffic. But obviously, the point of this pilot is to test it and see how it actually works in New York City.

But a second criticism comes from the city's major taxi workers' union who say they're concerned of another Silicon Valley tech giant coming in and completely disrupting the taxi service industry. First, it was Uber and Lyft, calling a car. Now is it Waymo? Are we just going to completely replace humans with computers? Right. You remember seven years ago after Uber came in and the taxi medallion industry was decimated. Hugely disrupted that. Right. There was a rush of taxi suicides or suicide drivers. And now a lot of those taxi drivers who formerly, you know, either owned a medallion or relied on yellow taxis for their income have now moved over to Uber and Lyft. They're fearing that they're going to be forced out altogether. And it's a real labor issue.

Yeah. Okay. Before we go, we might get to this. Every week in our on the way newsletter, we answer a question from a curious commuter. This one is from Angie in Brooklyn who asks, what is the strategy? around the emergency exit doors. How long do you really have to hold the door open for? Yeah, so the MTA has consistently described emergency exit gates as the super highway for fair evasion. So what they're doing is this new delayed egress system. Basically, you push the bar, you wait 15 seconds, there's going to be a lot of beeping. You're not in trouble. After those beepings, then you hit the bar again, and it should open.

So they're saying that this complies with fire codes and safety codes. But obviously, a lot of people are confused. It's a new technology. They have this at 130 stations. They're going to bring it to 150 by the end of the year. If it doesn't work and it seems like some of our listeners have had problems with it, you can call 511 for any complaints or you can solve a, you know, file a complaint through the MTA app. Okay.

Well, thanks to Angie for that question. And thanks to W&MIS, Ramsey, Caliphate, Clayton, and 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. My friends, as always, a pleasure. Happy early Labor Day. Thank you, Sean. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC.

Catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.