NYC NOW - Morning Headlines: Hochul Holds Out on Budget Deal, NYC Tour Guides Lose Canadian Business, Mets Home Opener, and MTA Releases New Subway Map

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Governor Kathy Hochul says she’s willing to keep the state budget on hold until lawmakers agree to her key priorities, including changes to mask laws and criminal discovery rules. Meanwhile, New York City tour operators say Trump’s Canada rhetoric and new tariffs are driving away Canadian tourists. Also, the Mets return to Citi Field today for their home opener against the Toronto Blue Jays. Plus, on this week’s transportation segment — the newly redesigned MTA subway map, a fatal crash on a known dangerous roadway, and why the Staten Island Ferry only connects to Manhattan.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, April 4th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. The New York State budget is already days late, and that's WNYC's John Campbell reports. Governor Hokel says she's more than willing to make it even later. Hokel says she has four policy priorities that she needs in a final budget, and they go far beyond dollars.

sense. Among them are a crackdown on wearing masks in certain situations and a proposal to ease rules that govern how prosecutors share evidence with defendants. The governor says she'll hold out until she gets what she wants. I'm truly not in any rush. I will stay here as long as it takes to get the budget that I believe that delivers for New Yorkers. Hockel hasn't been able to strike a deal with Democratic lawmakers thus far. They passed a short-term extension that will keep the state properly funded through Monday. Some tour guides in the five boroughs say lost business and cancellations are crushing them in the wake of federal tariffs and Trump's calls to annex Canada. Real New York tours says 20 bus tours of Canadians have already canceled.

They say that means thousands of dollars of lost revenue. Canadian officials also say that Canadian car trips across the border from the U.S. are down almost 10%. Based on data from February last year and this year, data from the city's Tourism Bureau shows, that last year one million Canadian tourists visited New York City. The Mets are back in Queens to play their first home game of this new season. They'll play the Toronto Blue Jays this afternoon at 310. WNIC's Veronica Del Valle, follows one fan prepping for this big day. Aaron Manning is getting ready for his first ever home opener by taking a trip to the new Mets store at Union Square.

Two decades of Mets fandom have led him to this moment. Now, he feels like he has to be able to. to impart some wisdom on newer fans prepping for the season ahead. Get ready to be nervous a lot. Get ready to bite your fingers. Get ready to be very nervous all the time because being a Mets fan

is one of the hardest things in the world. The Mets are hoping to make the highs and lows of backing the orange and blue a little easier this year with slugger Juan Soto on the team. The Amazons signed him away from their cross-town rivals, the Yankees. He's set to play in Queens

for the next 15 years. Get ready to be nervous. I like that. 65 with rain right now. Shower us this morning. It'll become sunny. A high in mid-60s. And for that Mets home opener at 310, 64 and partly sunny. This is WNYC. 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. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. It's Friday, which means it's 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 Caliphay and editor Clayton Gousa. All right, we learned about some big changes this week to the subway map. The MTA released its first fully redesigned subway map in nearly 50 years. It's hitting stations and subway cars right now. Stephen, you were there for the unveiling. Tell us about the new map. It's definitely very different than the previous one. It's got much less clutter, more focus on train lines and connections.

The idea I think behind it is that it should be easier for people to navigate and show clearly where stations are, where they're accessible, and where the transfer points are. So let's get into some of the details. Right away, I think folks are going to notice that the shape of the city is kind of gone. The last map had some geographic resemblance to New York City. The new one, not so much. Even Central Park is just reduced to a square. Okay. But I think the biggest difference between the new one and the last one, which really has been in use since 1979 with just a few updates over the years.

But it's the end of the spaghetti-like subway lines. This new map has got thick, colorful lines for every line. So the ACE are three blue chunks, which subway aficionados will recognize as being very similar to the short-lived but very popular 1972 map designed by the Italian Massimo Vinelli. And the new map really does draw a lot from the Vannelli. with some new additions. So one big change is this new map has black bullets next to each stop. Previously, it was just like a black dot.

So these new dots are bigger, and they have the letter or number of the line embedded in it. It's high contrast, so it's easier for people to see. I spoke with designer Stephen Flam, who says these sorts of high contrast dots are good for people with vision issues, and also it's just good for absorbing

information quickly. Sure. And, you know, I asked him, you know, look, man, I just check Google Maps when I want to get where I'm going. Sorry. And he said, so I asked him, you know, why even go through the trouble of updating the old map? A lot of people will say, do we even need a map? We have Google Maps. And we say, well, we want to just show where our lines go, where the stops are, how to make your transfers. In a nutshell, how to ride the subway quickly, at a glance. And at a glance also means stripping away a lot of the old stuff, like the landmarks on the map, the museums, even the street names are all gone. I mean, that's personally why I'm not a biggest fan of the map.

Whoa, shots fine. If people care. And that's one of those reasons. I'm thinking, look, it looks good, the colors, the thickness of the lines. But I'd rather the map maybe be a bit more geographically accurate. Makes me think of who this map is really for. I think mostly tourists want to see the map on the trains when they're visiting the city. And they need a physical map.

Sometimes, you know, they have their own tourist maps that show them where they'd like to go, whether it's the Met or the Empire State Building. So if the maps aren't geographically aligned, maybe it might be a challenge for them to get around. Yeah, interesting. Well, Stephen, you spoke with that head designer, right? Are there any other Easter eggs or fun details we need to know about? Well, there's some cool new things that, you know, little details you'll have to look carefully to find,

but there's two locations that indicate a free out-of-station transfer, and there's a little walking man with some dots. Those are in Brooklyn at the Junior Street and Livonia Avenue stations, and at 59th and 63rd Street in Manhattan. And folks also notice the ADA symbols are not just bigger, but they also indicate if only one direction is ADA accessible, which is useful. The connections to the airport are more clear than they were before. And even the terminals at JFK are numbered, but you'll see some are missing where they're under construction right now. But probably the most interesting thing for me is what's excluded, which is we said a few things, but nearly all the parks are also gone.

And I asked Flam about this, and he said, we only include parks that are, quote, accessible by suburb. subway, although I'd argue you can walk to almost any part from the subway. Yeah. Sean, when you think about a map, you think about a statement of values. Yeah. Really, what are you leaving in? What are you taking off? What are you literally wiping off the map? And what are you keeping there.

And Stephen here got some good scuttle butt on some deliberations over what they wanted to take off. For some people. Apparently, some people at the MTA wanted to remove all references to Amtrak on the map. Yikes! It's a good reminder that all maps are political, as Bwit was saying. And so here's Flam, the lead designer, explaining how that went down. Somebody, and I'm not going to tell you who, question, why are we showing Amtrak? And the answer is, well, you want people to come to the city.

It's a huge connection, the Northeast Corridor. You have to show Amtrak. Needless to say, Amtrak, as well as the path and NJ Transit connections are included in the final map. Yeah, I mean, the deliberations are a huge surprise. The MTA, say the word Amtrak in front of MTA chair, Janet Lieber, and he'll turn bright red. They fought with Amtrak over, you know, blaming them for some delays on their long-delay-deaside access project. They've argued with them publicly and privately over the future of Penn Station, which is owned by Amtrak, but largely used by the MTA. Every time they seem to fight and disagree.

I mean, the MTA, for what it's worth, has built something over the last 60 years. I don't know if you can say as much for Amtrak in terms of expanding the National Railroad. Yeah, for sure. All right, we're going to shift gears here a little bit. Ramsey, you reported on a tragic death of a family killed in a car crash on Brooklyn's Ocean Parkway. it comes as the city and state have struggled to implement any major redesigns on the roadway, despite years of advocacy from locals. Why? Well, for one, it's a lot of coordination.

So Ocean Parkway is actually a state road. So in order for the city, DOT, the Department of Transportation, to make any changes, it'd have to partner with the state to get it done. So here's some of the glaring issues with Ocean Parkway for pedestrians, and I actually made a visit this week to see what those were. For one, the roads are very wide. So it's six lanes wide, in fact. and two service roads on either side.

So what wider roads mean is that it's actually more likely for drivers to maybe abuse the speed limits, like what happened last weekend. The pedestrian walkway is also sandwiched between all of this. So neighbors told me when I visited that there have been instances where they've almost been hit by cars turning from the service road onto the pedestrian island. The bike lane is another island on the other side, and it's actually one of the oldest in the city. So much of that lane is in disrepair with cracks and bumps. creating unsafe conditions for cyclists.

So when you get all of that into consideration, Ocean Parkway has actually become a very deadly road. It's actually 15 pedestrians who have been killed since 2017. And that figure includes, unfortunately, the family that was killed this past weekend, 34-year-old Natasha Asada and her daughter's Diana and Deborah. They were killed by a speeder who blew a red light and turned into Ocean Parkway.

A four-year-old boy from the Sada families also injured and in critical condition. But also, you know, despite this and maybe other, few higher profile traffic deaths this year. We should note that the city did report in the first quarter. It's actually been one of the safest in a while, where 41 people were killed in traffic accidents. If you compare that to the same period last year, it's down from 65 traffic fatalities. Okay. Every week in our on the way newsletter, we answer a question from a curious commuter. This one is from Carl in Manhattan. Why doesn't the NYC ferry system connect Staten Island

with any other borough besides Manhattan? Right. Carl makes a very good point. There is an NYC ferry stop that goes from Staten Island ferry, like the free, you know, Staten Island ferry, you have to pay for the NYC ferry and goes to two stops in lower Manhattan, but it could go anywhere. In theory, to any existing ferry stop, there's already a stop in Bay Ridge, which is kind of what Carl is getting at here, or anywhere else, but in Justin Brannan, council member, he's running from Mayor Camilla Hanks, Councilmember for Staten Island, have written a letter saying, hey, give us a connection between Bay Ridge and Staten Island via the ferry. The message from the EDC,

economic development corporation has said, no, we're not going to bother with that. It's already a very highly subsidized per rider ferry system. They've come under a lot of scrutiny. Adding new routes would add more costs to that. They're saying, hey, take it or leave it, drive over the Verasano, take a bus. We're not giving you a boat between the boroughs. All right. Small correction, we should note that Justin Branden is running for city control. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yes, City Control. I think for correct me. It's been a long week, Keeping us on us here. Thanks to Carl for the question. And thanks to WNYC editor, Clayton Goza and Transportation Reporter, Stephen Nesson and Ramsey-Kleafay.

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 gothamist.com slash on the way. My friends, thanks so much. 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 podcast. more soon