NYC NOW - Morning Headlines: Gov. Hochul Calls on SUNY Students to Volunteer at Food Pantries, ICE Recruiting NYPD Officers, and NYC Mayor Elect Mamdani’s Transit Plan

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Governor Kathy Hochul is urging SUNY students to volunteer at food pantries as the federal shutdown nears 40 days and threatens food aid for millions of New Yorkers. Meanwhile, ICE is recruiting NYPD officers through social media ads promising higher pay and up to $50,000 in bonuses. Also, more New York City buses will start using cameras Monday to ticket drivers who block lanes, part of the MTA’s push for faster, safer service. Plus, in this week’s transit segment, a closer look at Mayor Elect Zohran Mamdani’s bus plan and how controversy around the planned Gateway tunnels may have helped Mikie Sherrill win the New Jersey governor’s race.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, November 7th. Here's your morning headlines from Michael Hill. Governor Kathy Hokel is calling on SUNY students to take action against hunger as the federal government shutdown approach is 40 days long. She's urging all 500 members of the Empire State Service Corps to volunteer at food pantries today. The statewide push comes as a federal shutdown threatens food assistance for 3 million New Yorkers. The governor says no one should go hungry because of dysfunction in Washington. The Service Corps is New York's largest AmeriCorps program.

It's made up a student from 45 campuses across the state. ICE is running social media ads aimed directly at NYPD officers urging them to jump ship. W&MICS Charles Lane has more. ICE's new recruitment push, promises NYPD officers more respect and up to $50,000 in bonuses. The ads hit on concerns about incoming mayor Zoran Mamdani, who has pledged stronger police oversight. Former NYPD officer Gillian Snyder teaches at John Jay College. They don't want to work somewhere where they think everything they do is going to be scrutinized,

everything they do is going to be criticized, everything they do is going to be interpreted through a really negative lens. Schneider says that signing bonuses are rare in law enforcement. ICE is also touting perks like student loan repayment and no degree requirements. More New York City buses are getting cameras to catch drivers who block lanes. This is starting on Monday. Four more routes in the Bronx and Brooklyn will have automated enforcement. This includes BX9, BX15, B11, and B63. The MTA says the goal is faster, safer, more reliable service.

Drivers will get warning for 60 days than fine. starting at $50. The program already covers 47 routes across the city, which the MTA says has led to fewer collisions, less pollution, and fewer blocked bus stops. 42 with clear skies right now, but in Washington Heights, it's 37. Partly sunny and 59 for high today in the city.

Those winds pick up and guts to 30 miles an hour. Tonight, showers likely through midnight, mid-50s. Then tomorrow, a slim chance of showers by 7 in the morning, becoming sunny mid-60s with a light wind. 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 time for On the Way. Our weekly segment on All Things Considered, breaking down the week's

Transit News, joining us as WNYC's Transportation Reporter, Stephen Nesson and Ramsey Caliphay and editor Clayton Gouza. transit played a central role in this year's mayoral election that just wrapped up this week. Mayor Elects Aron Mamdani made buses a key part of his campaign. Here he is repeating his pledge during his victory speech on Tuesday. We're going to make buses fast, then? So in this segment, we've all pointed out time and time again, right, that New York City's mayor has a lot of power to make buses fast. Maybe not so much power to make them free.

Ramsey and Stephen, you two were out in the field on election night. What did Mamdani supporters say about his bus plan? I was posted up at the watch party in Queens with Make the Road. New York, which focuses on immigrant rights. And it was a mix of people who say anything to make transportation more affordable and better would be welcome. I think there was a healthy dose of realism about who controls the MTA. But most folks agreed free buses is an important and worthwhile goal to pursue.

One of the folks there was 42-year-old Diane Ramirez. She's a public school teacher. She canvassed from Mamdani and says she doesn't want to put pressure on him. But yeah, she expects free buses. We're able to do the Staten Island ferry, for example. That's free transportation. We were able to provide free buses during COVID. New York City is the municipality that brings in the most money.

So I just feel like these are things that can improve the quality of life of a lot of New Yorkers. Of course, as we've reported, there are millions of bus riders and considerably fewer ferry riders. And I reported during election night at a community center in Kensington with Mamdani's Muslim and South Asian voters. The thing that most excited them for his mayoralty is not that he too is Muslim and South Asian, but that is policies to help address the affordability crisis. So I spoke with several attendees, and the policy I kept hearing about is this free bus program. One supporter told me that Mamdani maybe has a new style of governing, of leadership. He said he has the power now, and he'll make housing more affordable and buses in child care.

Free people are really pushing and rallying behind this. Okay. I mean, of his four main campaign pledges, this might be the hardest one to execute. Hocles largely signed on to child care, at least politically. Rent freeze can happen to the Rent Guidelines Board. may be complicated, but it's something that he feasibly could do. The free grocery store pilot is a relatively small initiative. Free buses is going to cost at least $700 million, and he doesn't, and the MTA is a state-controlled agency. The MTA is poo-pooing it. Jano Libra last

week was saying, hey, it might cost even more than $700 million. It could cost up to a billionaire. So they'll need to find money from the city budget or from new taxes that have to be approved from the state to replace that revenue. There's also the problem of the MTA's so-called bond holders, right? The MTA takes out debt to pay for transit improvements in construction, and it pays it back with mass transit fares. If you get rid of a whole fair revenue stream, the bondholders are going to say, hold on a minute. We need some other dedicated revenue before we sign off on that, right? There's a lot of masters here of the fair to consider. So it's going to be really tricky to navigate and how and when and if and what version he executes this is really going to, I think, be a yardstick for how his, he he's measured against his campaign promises moving forward.

Yeah. But let's remember the other half of his promises to make buses faster, that might be an easier pursuit to go forward on. So in order to get rid of the fair payment, you would maybe contribute a couple minutes to people of saving of time, getting on the bus, getting off of it. But the real change really lies in adding more bus lanes or dedicated busways. So on the campaign trail,

he's promised to meet legal requirements of the streets master plan, which says that the city must build at least 30 miles of protected bus lanes every single year. Okay. It's a law that Adams has ignored every year or not. As an important addendum there. Now on the other side of the Hudson, Democrats scored a big win when Mikey Cheryl won the New Jersey governor's race. Stephen, in this week's newsletter, you highlight the controversy around the plane gateway tunnels that may have helped her win the race. Polling had indicated that Mikey Cheryl and Republican Jack Chirrelli were in a pretty tight race. Chittarelli had the backing of President Trump. And then Trump started trashing the gateway project.

Right. Remember, on the first day of the shutdown, him and his budget director threatened to cut funding for infrastructure projects. And then Trump just up the ante by saying, Gateway is terminated. And for Chittarelli, it kind of put him in a tough position because he totally backed Trump. But here's the president trashing a project that would really help New Jersey residents. The morning after the election, Cheryl credited her supportive gateway as playing a role in her win. I spoke to Dan Casino, professor of government and politics at Fairley Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey, who says probably did help turn out. voters. It doesn't seem like a determinative issue in Northern Jersey because most of your

commuters in northern New Jersey who are commuting in the city, well, those are already voters who are pretty heavily Democratic. I think it probably helped with turnout. We did see turnout in those areas and S.S. County County really go up in this cycle. He says voting totals were up 20 percent compared to 2021. Right. And just to define this again for everybody, I mean, this is one of the, if not the, the biggest public works projects in the country, and it took a long time to get here. I mean, this is the first new set of train tunnels between New York and New Jersey since Penn Station, the Pennsylvania Railroad built those old tunnels and, you know, 115 years ago. It's a $16 billion job, which isn't just to build the new tunnels, but to then use those to close the old ones,

which were damaged in 2012 during Sandy, and repair them. It's a crucial link, not only redundancy, but of potentially adding more service between New Jersey and New York, but it's not just for riders. I mean, all this money is going to go towards building trades, labor, companies. It's an economic aboon. And I don't know if you know this was a lot of construction workers in New Jersey who might be interested in having those jobs. And when they hear Trump trying to threaten it in the middle of an election season, yeah, that could be a deciding factor for some. Maybe it didn't decide the race, but it certainly helped juice the numbers. I mean, Cheryl, did win by a healthy margin. Remember, we wouldn't even be talking about this if Republican governor, Chris Christie,

hadn't pulled the plug on a similar project called ARC in 2010. Just a reminder, elections have consequences. Sure do. Yeah. That's WNYC Stevenesson, Ramsey Caliphay, and Clayton Guse. 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, my friends. Thanks so much. Thank you, 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 dot. and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.