NYC NOW - November 18, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

MTA Chair Janno Lieber says the agency is committed to a smooth, efficient rollout of congestion pricing, which is set to take effect in January. Meanwhile, the FDNY says three people were injured, one critically, after sidewalk scaffolding in Chelsea collapsed Monday morning. Plus, New York City’s emergency response times are getting slower every year, according to Mayor Eric Adams’ latest Management Report. WNYC’s Tiffany Hanssen speaks with Councilmember Joann Ariola and EMS Local 2507 president Oren Barzilay about what’s behind the delays.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, November 18th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. MTA chair, Jan Alieber says the transit agency is working to make sure congestion pricing is ready to launch in Manhattan on January 5th. Lieber told New York 1 this morning the MTA's testing out the technology used to told, driver south of 60th Street, the equipment, he says, has been in place for months. You know, the system relies on taking photographs, so we're making sure that the angles and the, and the clarity of the photography is consistent so that we can read license plates. Governor Kathy Hokel last week revived congestion pricing with a $9-based toll, the general election this month, just after the general election this month.

She had paused the June start. the MTA Board is set to sign off on the tolls today, Lieber says the federal government still needs to sign off on the changes as well. The FDNY says three people got hurt. One is in critical condition after sidewalk scaffolding collapse on them this morning in Chelsea. The collapse happened just after 8 o'clock on West 29th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. Deputy Fire Chief Michael Barvell says officials are working to identify what caused the collapse. Right now it's believed a box truck parked the location, hit the sidewalk shed, causing the collapse, but that's still under investigation. Department of Buildings officials say 40 feet of the structure fell on the sidewalk.

64 and sunny right now still with an elevated risk of fire spread. Sunshine and 65 and gusty today. And tomorrow on Wednesday, sunshine and near 60. Wednesday night, a 90% chance for rain. Stay close. There's more after the break. Here on WNYC, I'm Tiffany Hanson. Emergency response times in New York City have been getting longer year after year.

That's according to Mayor Adams' annual Mayor's Management Report. Councilmember Joanne Ariola represents parts of Queens from Woodhaven to Ozone Park to Howard Beach and the Rockaways. She's also the chair of the Committee on Fire and Emergency for the New York City Council. Orrin Barzley is the president of EMS Local 2507 Uniformed EMTs, Paramedics, and Fire Inspectors of FDNY. They both join us now to talk about this more. Welcome. Thank you so much for having us on. Thank you. So, Orrin, after a call is made to 911, an emergency call is made, those first couple of minutes are critical, no doubt about it.

So I'm wondering what happens when responders just aren't quick enough. I'm glad to hear that there was no fatalities in the council members district. However, there were some fatalities in other districts. It's not a secret that after four to six minutes of not breathing, you're going to be pronounced either clinically or biologically dead. So when it takes us over 10 minutes to get to a critical incident, such as somebody who's not breathing or having a stroke or is choking, their life expectancy decreases significantly after six minutes.

I'm curious what you've been hearing from your members, the emergency responders, in Local 2507, about these longer wait times. What are they telling you in terms of why this is happening? They can only do one assignment at a time. They are running across the city all day long, every day, 24 hours. The issue that they're faced with is because the calls are coming in more rapidly in recent years. However, our resources has remained the same. Before the merger of New York City EMS into the FDNY, we used to have nurses at our 911 call centers.

and when a call of somebody, you know, breaking their nail or have an ingrown hair, toothache, that call would go to that nurse and that nurse will explain to them that they do not need an ambulance for this. Go to your local doctor, go to an urgic care center. You know, calling 9-1 and arriving to the hospital with an ambulance does not get you seen quicker. They'll be putting you in the waiting room with the rest of the people who are in the waiting room. It's a huge lift. And unless they bring back the nurses and start educating the public, this is going to be continuing for eternity. Salaries start around $40,000 annually, or in which, if folks don't know, is less than an app delivery worker.

So I'm wondering how that affects the number and the type of people that you can recruit for these positions? Unfortunately, the city, Office of Management and Budget, and the Mayor's Office doesn't respect our men and women. We represent the largest people of color, the largest group of women workforce, and starting salaries $18 an hour. People just come here as a transitional city job until somebody else gives them a call from another city agency that pays them a hell a lot more than FDNY, EMS.

Our average lifetime here is two to three years. Experience has a huge impact on a patient outcome as well. You can be book savvy, you can be smart. However, if you don't recognize the symptoms of doing call after call after call, you start learning how the symptoms change from one call to the other. Our members have two to three years. They don't get to be exposed to what a 20-year person has been through. Councilmember, Ariel, let's talk about a meeting that you chaired earlier this month,

talking about the FDNY EMS response times. So what did the FDNY have to say about this? The FDNY historically does not complain. They don't ask for more money. Every year we get our budget report. And we have not, under the previous commissioner, we have not had any fiscal needs, meetings, or hearings. I'm hoping that this changes with the new commissioner.

I think it will. We're losing good talent to other agencies or they're just going through EMT training just to become a firefighter. It's just not right. We have to get more money for our EMTs, more ambulances on our streets, more places for the ambulances to be stationed. So there's not so much gap time when they have. to respond to an emergency. There's an area in my district that's called Breezy Point. It's in such

a gap area. If they call 911 for an EMMS to come or an ambulance to come, it has to come from Brooklyn or way down on the peninsula. And we have seen fatalities in that area because of that. But for the amount of money that is getting paid, how long will those men and women, most of which are black or brown, how will they be able to support a family? They can't. We really have to put FDNY first in the budget process in the upcoming fiscal cycle. Well, Councilmember, you talk about putting more ambulances on the road, but let's be honest, we already have snarled traffic that I'm sure must be affecting this, right? Plus, we have the increase in the number of bike lanes, meaning streets are narrow. We have people double parking. First responders have to get around all of that.

Governor Hokel recently approved congestion pricing at the new $9 amount, that toll, $9 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street. So I'm curious what you think about the congestion pricing and what that would do to either help or maybe hurt emergency responders. I think you make a fair point with the amount of vehicles that are on the road, the amounts of scooters that are on the road, the amount of pedestrians, that are on the road. I don't think that the congestion pricing is going to help at all because I think people will continue to come in with their cars because they don't feel that the subway system is reliable and or safe. So we're still going to see the same amount of vehicles. There's also the issue of the city of New York closing streets arbitrarily and not notifying the FDNY. So oftentimes they're on their way to an emergency, whether it's an ambulance or

a fire department rig, a ladder or engine, and they're not able to navigate through because they were never notified that those streets were closed. Oran, what would you like to see city and state officials do most immediately to help first responders be able to do their job? You know, one thing I forgot to mention before I answered this question is, I have members who live in shelters. I have members who live in their cars. I have members who live in their family house because they simply can't afford living in this city. So adding a $9 toll is going to be detrimental to my men and women. My men and women will more than likely quit if this goes through as now they will be paying to come to work. When you earn $18 an hour and you have to pay

the Midtown Tunnel toll or you have to pay the Holland Tunnel toll, you're already paying to come working here. And now you're going to add another toll. It'll simply be no longer worth coming to work. So those areas have three EMS stations. And if those members simply say, I'm not coming to work anymore, the response times in those areas will significantly increase, even though traffic may decrease, because the responding units will be coming from Queens, Brooklyn, or Upper Manhattan. Council member Joanne Areola, the chair of the Committee on Fire and Emergency for the New York City Council and Orrin Barzillay, the president of EMS Local 2507, Uniformed EMTs, Paramedics, and Fire Inspectors of FDNY. Thank you both so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you.

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