NYC NOW - Morning Headlines: Two Inmates Die in Prison Amid Officer Strike, New Immigration Detention Center Opens in Newark, and the Fight for Congestion Pricing Continues

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

State corrections officials confirm two deaths at Sing Sing prison as an unauthorized correctional officer strike continues, raising concerns over inmate care and facility conditions. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is opening its first new immigration detention center in Newark, doubling local detention space. Plus, a new book revisits a shocking 1973 crime in Park Slope, where a man poured sulfuric acid on a four-year-old neighbor, who later became a renowned scientist. Finally, the MTA reports collecting $48 million in congestion pricing tolls during its first month, but revenue fell short of initial projections as the agency prepares to fight the Trump administration’s order to shut down the program by March 21.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, February 28th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. State corrections officials say two men incarcerated at the Sing Sing State Prison are now dead. WNYC's John Campbell reports the deaths come amid unauthorized corrections officer strikes. The corrections department says 67-year-old Anthony Douglas and 35-year-old Frank. Franklin Dominguez were found unresponsive in their cells. It remains unclear whether the deaths

were in any way tied to staff shortages caused by the ongoing work stoppage. Corrections officers continue to strike at more than two dozen state prisons, including Sing Sing. State officials and the officers union are in mediation to resolve the strike, which the union hasn't officially sanctioned. The Westchester County Medical Examiner has not yet released official causes of death for either person. The first new immigration detention center, President Trump's second term, is opening in Newark, New Jersey at the site of a former detention center. The administration says that Delaney Hall site will hold a thousand beds doubling local detention space. Amy Torres is the executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, and she says the development is concerning.

Delaney Hall sits about 10 miles as the crow flies from lower Manhattan. This is going to be devastating, not just for our state, but for the entire region. The site will be run by the private prison contractor, GEO, or GO group under a 15-year, $1 billion contract. The company says the facility will open later this year. Newark's mayor, Razbaraka says, without satisfying city property use requirements, inspections, and permits Delaney Hall cannot lawfully open in Newark at this time. A new book explores a crime that shook Park Slope in Newark.

73 when a man pours sulfuric acid on his four-year-old neighbor's head, the crime blinded and burned Joshua Mealy. He went on to become a scientist, earned a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2021. Mealy hopes sharing his story will help normalize disability and blindness for readers. The thing that I hope people take away from the book is that blindness and disability in general are not heroic. They're not tragic. They're just normal. It's just another way of being in the world. The book is connecting dots, and it's out next Tuesday, March 4.

41 and clear now, mostly sunny and 51 today in Gusty. And then tomorrow, March 1st, mostly sunny, mid-50s, gusty, cold and windy at night, cold on Sunday. This is WNYC in New York. 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 WNYC, H.C. On WNMICC, 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 to WNYC's transportation reporter, Stephen Nesson and Ramsey Kleefe. Okay, the fight over congestion pricing continues to brew. This week, the MTA revealed how much money the tolls brought in during the first months of operation. Governor Hokel even dropped in on an unusual MTA board, meaning what does this mean for the future of the program? Let's start with the money. $48 million. That's how much the MTA says drivers paid during the first month.

It was a short month, remember, since it did launch a few days into January. The agency says, though, that's a good sign, especially since January is also typically a slow month for travel into the city. And the financial wizards at the agency say it puts them on track to hit their goal of $500 million in the first year. And remember, that's the money it needs so it can sell bonds to fund $15 billion in transit upgrades. But the MTA did say that was still 7% short of their original projection for the month of January. They still do see this as a win, though. Program expenses, so the cost to maintain this program, were actually lower than the NTA had thought that it had anticipated. So if you do a little math, which is not that interesting, net revenue is higher.

It doesn't change the fact, though, that the MTA missed their goal by $3.4 million. Another thing the MTA shared that's kind of interesting was the type of vehicles that contributed to this first month of revenue. A majority of the revenue came from personal passenger vehicles. It's about 68%. And then about a quarter came from taxis or for hire vehicles. Now, the Trump administration is ordering the MTA to wind congestion pricing down. You reported this week the feds are giving the MTA a deadline of March 21st to turn those tolls off. We know that the MTA is suing to block the fed.

So what is the latest on that? You'll recall initially, MTA Chair General Lieber said he was going to appeal to Trump as a fellow New Yorker, a businessman focused on the bottom line. And to that end, the MTAs trotted out some promising numbers. We've reported on this show. Traffic is down, which means people get to drive where they're going faster. Broadway sales are up. Commercial leases are up.

Foot traffic is up. All signs the MTA say show that congestion pricing is not hurting the city. And just the opposite, in fact, things have gotten better. So Governor Hokel dropped in on the MTA board meeting this week, which they held at Grand Central Madison, just above one of the Long Island Railroad tracks, just to make it fun and to celebrate the two-year anniversary of that station. I digress. Hockel was there to regale us with tales of her trip to Washington last Friday, in which she brought a glossy magazine with big pictures and simplified data, hoping to persuade President Trump to drop his opposition to the program.

All right. Well, how'd that work out? Not that great. Hockel reported it herself that Trump really wasn't moved by all of that. Okay. But you did take a dig at him, noting he's probably never missed, you know, a kid's sporting event because he was stuck on a train or even stood in a flooded subway station. So here she is at yesterday's MTA board meeting.

And when someone tries to say, no, we have another vision for your city. We just have to say and say, we respectfully disagree. And take that to the courts, take it to the people, because I know there's a lot of power in that Oval Office. But I'll put that power up against the power of six million pissed off commuters in New York City right there alone. Whoa. I think she's hoping the court of public opinion will come out. so strongly for congestion pricing that the administration will have to back down. But the Trump administration has argued that congestion pricing should never have won approval in the first place.

And they say that's because the goal is to raise money and not reduce congestion. That's what they say. And that the federal government doesn't allow for a tolled zone, which is what congestion pricing is. The MTA is suing in hopes a court of law will also rule that the federal government can't really rescind its approval or kill the tolling program. There's no date yet set for the hearing, but we do now know there's a March 21st deadline for someone to make a move. Okay, moving on to another wrinkle congestion pricing here. I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Ramsey, you reported this week on an unexpected perk of congestion pricing for Uber and lift drivers.

What's the deal with that? So here are the current rules with congestion pricing. If an Uber enters the zone with a passenger, the rider is going to pay $1.50 surcharge. For yellow cabs, that surcharge is $0.75. But you know who doesn't get charged? The drivers. and that includes when their Uber or Lyft enters that zone without a passenger at all. The empty did confirm that the plates from the taxi and limousine commission on four higher vehicles

and taxis are actually exempt from the tolls. That's more than 100,000 drivers. So some taxi drivers, you know, they borrow their work cars and at the end of the day they drop it off at a garage. But for Uber and Lyft drivers, those are people who typically own their own cars. So if they want a free ride into Manhattan to run errands or to hang out, the congestion tolls aren't actually stopping them. Here's Ahmed Fanny, he's an Uber driver who says he often takes his car into Manhattan when he's not working. Sometimes I went down in Manhattan to do something with a car. Sometimes I have a doctor's appointment or so maybe I go for shopping.

I do want to know he's commuting from the Bronx often. So other drivers I spoke with told me the same thing. At first they were confused about what they would have to pay, what they wouldn't have to pay. But they were later, and they said pleasantly surprised to learn that their cars didn't get told. So the taxi drivers union told me that drivers maybe aren't likely to abuse this exemption since they'd rather be making money when they're driving in Manhattan. They also said that, you know, these people work between six or seven days a week typically. Okay. Finally, we learned about a fascinating experiment the MTA has been doing with Google.

The MTA, they put a Google Pixel smartphone on train cars to see if it could detect track defects. What did they find? This was first reported in the tech magazine Wired. And so what they did was they put six Google Android phones on an A train. And these phones are recording the sound and vibration data from the train as it rumbles down the tracks. And it sends that data to the cloud. So the cloud is analyzing, using AI, all the vibrations and track data. Looking for abnormalities.

What happened there? Well, apparently, 92% of the problems that AI identified were later confirmed by humans to, in fact, be track defects that were then fixed. They also had one of the assistant track inspectors listened to these recordings himself, and he noted where he heard problems, like, say, there's a loose joint or a loose bolt or a rail defect, but his expert ear only identified 80% of the problems. Oh, no. Is that game over man for humanity?

Are we obsolete now, and the robot overlords I can take over? Well, as a matter of fact, the MTA calls it a game changer, but they're not going to wipe out their team yet. Okay. First of all, the MTA is still required to have a human inspect every mile of track with their own eyes. And the MTA is still running its fancy track geometry cars. Those scan the tracks looking for defects with a high-tech computer. But it's a promising development.

The MTA is always criticized for buying expensive custom technology that's later obsolete. And a cell phone, on the other hand, is cheap enough. And it's, in fact, looking for other companies with similar capabilities as it thinks of ways to incorporate this kind of tech into its own. operations. Yeah, interesting stuff. Okay, every week in our On the Way newsletter, we answer a question from a curious commuter. This week's question is from Deshawn from East Orange, New Jersey, who asks, I would like to know why there is still not a ferry landing for Coney Island from the NYC ferry. What's going on with that? Well, we have an answer. Okay. Back in 2019, former mayor Bill de Blasio announced he was going to add a landing that would provide ferry

service to that neighborhood. The EDC, that's the New York City Economic Development Corporation, that runs the New York City Ferry Service actually began constructing a dock at the Coney Island Creek, but it abandoned the project in 2022. And the reason it did this, they say, is due to navigation and safety concerns related to sand buildup.

Sorry to say, the agency spokesperson, Jeff Holmes said, consultants found constructing a landing at Coney Island would cost five times as much as other parts of the city, so they have abandoned it. This is another way to say the Coney Island stop for the New York City Ferry plans are sunk.

Well, maybe not the answer that Deshaun was looking for, but in any event, thanks to Deshaun for that question. And thanks to WNYC Transportation Reporter Stephen Nesson and Ramsey Caliphay. 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 gotthmus.com slash on the way. Stephen Ramsey, 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 and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.