NYC NOW - Morning Headlines: Federal Judge Weighs Trump’s $11 Billion Health Funding Cuts, City Officials Show Caution on Self-Driving Cars, Knicks Start Playoff Push, and Feds Take Over Penn Station Revamp

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

A federal judge is now considering whether the Trump administration can cut $11 billion in health grants, including $360 million for New York State. Meanwhile, New York City transportation officials say self-driving cars aren’t ready for the city’s streets just yet. Also, the Knicks begin their playoff run Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. Plus, on this week’s transportation segment: The federal government is taking the lead on the Penn Station overhaul.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, April 18th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. A federal judge now has to decide on a case over the $11 billion in federal health care grants the Trump administration wants to cut. At stake for New York State, more than $360 million. WNMIC's Rune-Vennigal-Paul has more.

New York is one. one of 23 states suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to restore the funding. During the hearing, a lawyer for the federal government defended the cuts, telling a judge they are within the discretion of the executive branch. But an attorney for the states, David Horowitz, accused HHS of a power grab and said the federal agency doesn't have the authority not to spend congressionally appropriated funds. The court's temporary hold on the cuts remains in effect. Arguments in the case resume later this month. Self-driving cars are popping up across the country with automated taxis now on the road in

cities like San Francisco and Austin, Texas. But is that technology ready for New York City's chaotic streets? Not quite yet. That's according to taxi and limousine commissioner David Doe, who addressed the topic at the Javitt Center, head of the New York International Auto Show. Our regulations still require a driver behind the wheel, and so it's going to take a little bit of time. There's a lot of testing involved, and so we are seeing a five to ten-year horizon, so it's not tomorrow. The south-driving technology could threaten the roughly 100,000 for a higher vehicle in taxi drivers now working in the city. And while autonomous taxi cars aren't here yet, the TLC says all for higher vehicles must be either electric or wheelchair accessible by 2030. The New York Knicks are making a run for an NBA championship starting tomorrow night against the Detroit Pistons at the Garden game one of the best of seven playoff series.

This year, the Knicks won 51 regular season games, but they struggled against the elite teams in the NBA, especially the teams in the east, such as the defending champion, Boston Celtics, and the Cleveland Cavaliers, the top two teams in the east, just about all season long. That tip off is tomorrow night at 6 o'clock at the garden. Go New York, go New York, go. 47 and clear right now. Mostly sunny today and 67 and gusty. Then tomorrow, partly sunny, gusty, and 84 degrees in the city. Easter Sunday, mostly sunny and 67 and breezy.

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 WN. Mice, I'm Sean Carlson. It is time for On the Way. Our weekly segment on all things considered breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us is W&MISI's transportation reporter Stephen Nesson and Ramsey Caliphay and editor Clayton Gousa. All right, so we're going to start with some developing news.

Stephen, it looks like the federal government is stepping in to run Penn Station's overhaul. What's going on with that? Right. So this is not entirely surprising for folks. have been following this, but it is a big move. A lawyer for the Federal Railway Administration sent a letter to MTA chair, Janal Lieber, basically saying the MTA is no longer welcome as part of this redevelopment project. They're not going to be redeveloping Penn Station.

It's going to be run by Amtrak. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote in a statement that there is, quote, no reason to delegate leadership of this important project, and that the days of, quote, reckless spending and blank checks are over, something he's sort of wagged his finger at the end of. MTA about for a couple of weeks now. It's not clear from the letter how they're going to renovate the station, but as my colleague Ramsey has been reporting, there are already a few proposals out there. Yes, there actually is a major proposal that we've spoken about that has direct ties to President

Trump, and it's called the Grand Pen design. Makes. It sounds about right. Yeah. That's been pitched by the National Civic Arts Society. They're based in D.C. and are supported by a man named Thomas Kliginstein. He's donated more than $10 million to Republicans in the last election. And the design is kind of aligned with some of Trump's values, a neo-classical style of architecture. So the president of the arts society, his name is Justin Chabot. He actually sent me a statement this afternoon

after the news broke, and he says he's very delighted by this move and believe Trump will, quote, make Penn Station classical again. So since Amtrak owns Penn Station, that means it might be a direct line to the federal government. And it's possible that maybe we saw this coming.

Duffy has publicly threatened the MTA before to cut funding on certain projects. Yeah, and it's kind of a matter of what do we know, it's, and it's still, we're figuring out what are the federal governments, what's Trump's motive here? I mean, obviously, Penn Station is a very unpleasant place to be, the wayfinding, everything about it is troubling. There have been calls for years and years and years, decades to make it nicer. Trump is, in one sense, coming in and taking that off the MTA's

hand, saying, don't worry, I'm going to come and redevelop it. But what does he want? Does he want to rename it Trump Station? Does he want to create a monument for himself? There's been a lot of speculation that he does. The big kind of factor here, though, is what happens to Madison Square Garden. Penn Station has been miserable because of Madison Square Garden since the 60s. It's air rights. We're on top of it. And it's two things, really. It's the physical space, like how you come and go from the station, but also how many tracks are below there. Because as we talk, they're building the tunnel, the gateway tunnel, and Amtrak wants to add more tracks. But they haven't figured out how yet. Right. And MSG is a big part of that sort of problem.

So it's can they can they move Madison Square Garden? Can they expend Penn Station of Block South? Can they combine Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit into one through running operation? Now all those decisions are in the hands of the Trump administration, not NJ Transit and MTA and Amtrak all sharing it. It's in Trump's court. All right. Well, stay tuned to WNIC's transit team. I'm sure they will have the latest on this as it develops.

We're going to shift gears a little bit, talk about as we so frequently. do on this program. You guessed it. We're going to talk about congestion pricing. We know the Trump administration is trying to shut down the entire program. We also know that Mayor Adams has been working with the White House on Trump's immigration agenda. But in this week's on the way, newsletter, Clayton, you wrote that Adams is saying one thing in public on the future of the Manhattan tolls, while his administration's lawyer say something different behind the scenes. What's going on? Right. In the spirit of Holy Week, Adams is very much pulled a Pontius pilot and tried to do wash his hands of congestion pricing. Hey, hey, hey, this is a

state-run MTA issue, not a city issue. Not the case, according to the city's corporation council, right, who serves at the pleasure of the mayor. The city's corporation council says, not only does the city and the city DOT have a direct interest in congestion pricing, but they go so far as to criticize the Trump administration for undermining the law itself. That's a quote in court filings filed earlier this month that we came across. It kind of casts a different light over the city's role and Merrick Adams' role. And it comes Because Merrick Adams has been very careful not to criticize Trump, especially since the federal prosecutors under Trump have dropped the criminal corruption probe against him. Yeah.

Okay. So, Stephen, the feds gave the MTA until the Sunday to shut it down. What happens if they don't? Any updates on that? Well, we were sort of in wait and see mode. But, you know, Governor Hockel has said she's not going to shut down the tolls. And Secretary Duffy has written online, as I said, he's not going to keep giving money to the MTA. And so I guess we've sort of already seen what happens if you continue. you to ignore orders from the Trump administration. They just took away your Penn Station project. It's not clear what other projects they might take away or what other funding they were expecting that could get the rug pulled out from under it. But, you know, basically we're going to see what happens on Sunday. At the same time, there is speculation that, you know, by giving Trump Penn Station, by saying you have the opportunity to build, you know, this monument for yourself, that he'll leave

congestion pricing alone. And he also might need that congestion pricing money from New York, to help kick in and pay for any redevelopment there. Wow. Wow. The plot thickens. Okay. So Duffy and the Trump administration keep criticizing the program. They say it's unfair.

But you reported this week on some new data on the tolls from the MCA. Tell us what it says. And do you think the people who find the tolls cumbersome to pay will be swayed by this data? Probably not. But we do have some data that came out recently that we're looking at. And basically since January, when the tolls went into effect, each month we're seeing fewer and fewer vehicles entering the zone. In March, for example, the tolls deterred an average of about 82,000 vehicles from entering the zone. That's a 13% reduction from what it was in the previous two years.

January and February saw a slightly smaller reduction, but those months typically have fewer vehicles entering Manhattan around that time. You know, anecdotally, it's interesting here on Verick Street. Immediately after the tolls went into effect, we noticed a huge drop in like horns honking. Yeah, sure did. They seem to have come back a little bit, but according to the data, there were 2.5 million fewer vehicles on the street in March, which, you know, is pretty remarkable.

And the MTA for its part says it's still on track to raise $500 million this year from the tolls, which is their revenue target. Right. The objective take is that there are fewer cars in Manhattan now. The spins on the other side, the opponents of this saying, you're gatekeeping. You're making a privilege

tenor and drive Manhattan. Other people are saying, hey, it's way nice so to be a pedestrian in Manhattan without so many cars. All right. This month is autism Awareness Month, and the MTA has a long-running program to market. In addition to putting blue lights in major transit hubs, which create a calming effect for people with sensory issues, the agency is also playing announcements and stations from autistic students in the region.

At a press conference this week, the agency invited those students to attend and ask transit leaders' questions about the system. So we thought, we'd play some of those. Consider this a curious commuter special. How do you become a train conductor? To become a train conductor, you would take a... a test, multiple choice tests, then once you're in, you go for training, about nine weeks of training, ride along with a season conductor, and then you'll be out on your own, opening

and closing the doors and making an announcement. How many people do you serve in the MTA in one whole day? So the number varies, but it's roughly four and a half million people every single day. So the R-46, as we all know it, which has been in service for kind of a while, May with tire suit. Look, the R-46 is without question one of the workhorses of our system. It's been great, but it's had its day, right? The reality is the R-211 is out there, and it's a pretty amazing car.

So we're looking forward to continuing to roll that out on the A and C lines. Hi, my name is Gabriel. I was wondering, would you have to shut a train down if it crashed? So we try to keep trains from crashing. We don't like that very much. But if there were an accident, yes, we would remove that train from service to make sure all of our customers are exited safely, get the help that they need,

and we'd make sure that that train goes to the yard to be worked on. How fast? How fast? Does the train run? Just the train runs. We have a number of different lines. Every line has a different speed at which they can operate on. I think the top speed is 55 on the seven line.

That's where you're going to really kick up some speed. Those are the voices of the students with autism participating in the MTA's Autism Awareness Month press conference this week. Also, thanks to WMIC Transportation Reporter Stephen Nessen for putting that together, as well as Ramsey Kalee and editor Clayton Gouza. You can stay in the know on all things transit or ask a question of your own by signing up for a weekly newsletter at gotthmus.com slash on the way. As always, my friends, busy week. Thank you for your reporting. Thank you. 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.