NYC NOW - November 17, 2023: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Get up and get informed: Here’s all the local news you need to start your day: Mayor Adams says severe budget cuts are coming for New York City. WNYC's Elizabeth Kim reports on how they'll affect services. Meanwhile, the ride-sharing company Revel is shutting down its moped service tomorrow, after five years in New York.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, November 17th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. Mayor Adams says severe budget cuts are coming for New York City. WNIC's Elizabeth Kim reports on how they'll affect services. Starting next year, a library in Q Gardens, Queens will be the only one open on Sundays. The dramatic rollback in services is one of many coming down the pike, as Adam seeks to balance the budget amid a costly migrant crisis and expiring federal pandemic aid.

In other areas, the NYPD is freezing hiring and will drop to less than 30,000 officers, the lowest headcount in decades. Middle schoolers will have fewer days and hours in summer rising, a free camp and enrichment program. The city will also delay the expansion of composting in Staten Island. and the Bronx until late 2025. Adams had pledged to bring curbside composting to every borough by the end of next year. The ride-sharing company Rebel is shutting down its moped service tomorrow after five years in New York. W.M.C.'s Ryan Kyloth says goodbye to the Little Blue Bikes. Rebel's mopeds officially shut down tomorrow, but they've been disappearing from the app's little map all week. I took my last ride a couple days ago.

For me and a bunch of other New Yorkers, the mopeds were, forgive me, a revelation. There's a few regular trips in my life, the Lower East Side to West Harlem, for example, that are terrible. An hour on transit, seven or eight sweaty miles on a bicycle, forget a taxi. But on a Revel, that trip was 30 minutes for under 20 bucks. Revel bikes brought neighborhoods that were hard to get to into easy reach, if you were willing and able to scoot around. Did some traffic laws get bent? I've seen it happen. But beyond the convenience, those things were just fun.

I learned a new dialect of the city's honking language. A lot of short, sweet, hey, I'm over here, peeps. I learned to use but never trust the side mirrors. And I learned that that thing motorcyclists do where they hang their feet off the foot pegs feels really good. I'm going to miss these things. If it's a good day to be on one of those rebel mopeds today, 52 and clear now going up to 65 under partly sunny skies.

Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you this afternoon.