NYC NOW - October 25, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start the day: Prosecutors and defense attorneys are clashing over whether witnesses can call Daniel Penny, the former Marine on trial for fatally choking unhoused man Jordan Neely, a “good Samaritan.” WNYC’s Samantha Max reports. Meanwhile, environmentalists are urging New York state to permanently close two power plants in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Plus, the Yankees face the Dodgers in Los Angeles for Game 1 of the World Series. Finally, in this week’s transportation segment of “On the Way,” WNYC reporters Stephen Nessen, Ramsey Khalifeh, and Catalina Gonella discuss using congestion zone cameras to fight ghost cars, the MTA’s struggle to restore pre-pandemic ridership levels, and how much bus and train fares might rise without subsidies.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, October 25th. Here's the morning headlines from David First. Prosecutors and defense attorneys disagree about whether witnesses in the trial of a former Marine, accused of choking a homeless man on the subway, should be allowed to call him a good Samaritan. WNYC's Samantha Max reports.

Daniel Penny has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges. Prosecutors say witnesses shouldn't be allowed to call him a hero or a good Samaritan because it's a subjective opinion. Penny's lawyers say multiple people who were on the train that day called him a Good Samaritan right after the incident, so they say that description should be allowed in court. The two sides went back and forth in an email exchange this week, just as jury selection was starting in Penny's trial. A judge is expected to decide in the coming days as the trial gets underway. The DA's office declined to comment on the email exchange, and Penny's attorneys did not respond to an inquiry. Environmentalists are calling on

New York State to permanently close two Brooklyn power plants. The plants in Sunset Park are only turned on when electricity demand is at its highest, usually just a few days a year. The deadline to retire the plants is next May, but grid operators extended service for another two years. Now, advocates say New York could stick to the deadline if it managed demand better. Daniel Chu is an author of the report at New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. We never really look at how we can manage the demand in a way that makes it more reasonable to supply energy to the grid. Demand management is a set of different strategies that look at how demand at times could be shifted to other times. The plants are known as peaker plants. They run on fossil fuel and use a disproportionate

amount of energy just by being turned on. For the first time in 15 years, the Yankees are back in the World Series, and they'll be renewing their historic postseason rivalry with the Dodgers starting tonight in Los Angeles. The best of seven series will feature baseball's two biggest stars going head to head. This will mark the 12th time the Yankees and the Dodgers face off in the fall classic with the Bronx bombers holding an eight to three advantage. And yes, that includes the period the Dodgers played in Brooklyn. 49 degrees. There is an increased risk of fire spread in New Jersey today. It will be sunny. We're

expecting a high of 63 this afternoon. Tonight, partly cloudy with a low of 53. Tomorrow, sunny and breezy with gusts up to 30 miles per hour, a high of 67. 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 WNY. It's Friday, which means it's time for on the way. Our weekly segment breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us is WNYC Transportation Reporters, Stephen Nesson and Ramsey Caliphay, and Newsom reporter Catalina Ginella.

Congestion pricing, our favorite topic, is not in effect right now. That is due, of course, to Governor Hokel's pause of the program back in June. But I didn't know this. The cameras used to collect the tolls have been too. turned on for months? The equipment, okay, not charging drivers, but it has been tracking what kind and how many vehicles enter the congestion zone. Catalina, you reported this week that Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine wants the MTA to release that data. What's he wanted for? Yeah, so the reason that Levine wants the data is because he says it could be a useful tool in dealing

with the issue of ghost cars. Those are cars whose license plates are fake, somehow obscured or missing. It renders them unreadable to tolls and also speeding cameras and red light cameras. And he says it's a growing problem. In fact, his office estimates that more than 5% of cars in the city right now have undetectable plates. But he thinks it may be even higher. That's why he wants the data and he asks the MTA for it. He thinks the numbers would get more public backing behind enforcement of ghost plates. And he also thinks that it could inform policies to tackle the issue. And Levine says the number of ghost cars is expected to increase once congesting pricing does go into effect since people will have yet another incentive to obscure their plates. We've got this wonderful asset.

We've got the readers up. So let's not wait until they're activated. And we realize, oh, my God, a huge percent of plates are unreadable. Let's start to deal with this now. The MTA says they've received Levine's letter and they're reviewing it. And the NYPD and the MTA have been doing crackdowns on ghost plates. They did one in September at the bridge and tunnel crossings and impounded 286 vehicles that either had ghost plates or were persistent toll violators. Okay, back to the rails.

Subway ridership is hitting new post-pandemic highs, but it's still not where the MTA wants it to be. Ramsey, what does the data show on that? Yeah, let's look at the numbers. So this post-pandemic record we're talking about is 4.3 million daily subway riders. But that's actually only 75% of what the average subway ridership was looking like. the pandemic. I spoke with experts on New York City's economy. Just let's see where we are. They say we can't actually bank on everyone returning to office and working in person. Yeah. That actually shows that that return to office kind of trajectory is plateauing.

It's somewhere between 50 and 53%. So people aren't changing their habits and they don't want to go back to work. Many have moved out of the city and some have only made their commute to be one to two times a week. Stanford economist Nicholas Boom, he actually made his own recommendation of what the MTA should do to continue boosting their ridership. Back to works kind of stalled out. Yes, you'll get a little bit, but you're not going to get much. You really are looking at a better service to attract people onto ridership away from, say, driving, walking or biking. Yeah, so what that means is making service better, improving the quality of the subway system, and ensuring riders are safe when they ride the trains.

But of course, as we always bring up, and you mentioned this in the first question, And experts say that congestion pricing is also essential to getting more people back onto the subways. Remember, it wasn't just a funding stream. It was a way to get more people on the trains to improve the system or broadly to remove congestion. So some form of it needs to come back for ridership to continue to grow. And it maybe is already having an impact on the budget, all the stuff Ramsey was talking about. The state comptroller came out with a report this week. And it finds the agency could actually be short $176 million next year.

if conditions remain more or less as they are with ridership as it is. And that's one of the reasons. Ridership is lower than expected. There's also some other factors involved. There's higher than expected overtime costs. And, you know, there could be another financial crisis around the corner, a pandemic. So that would put the MTA down $1.5 billion, which would be, of course, catastrophic. And just to circle back to congestion pricing again.

We've spoken about it many times, but the MTA isn't getting that $15,000. billion dollars that it expected for its construction plans. And that's a missing piece of the puzzle. And the comptroller says if that's not resolved soon, the MTA will actually have to borrow more money, increasing its debt load to pay for those projects. And that could actually impact the operating budget, which is the perennial problem. That's the ridership money, the stuff that goes into keeping the day-to-day operations going. And so it could be an ongoing problem. Speaking of, what does the MTA and Governor Hokel have to say about all this? any clarity on where that missing funding might come from or these dire warnings about service?

Well, let's start with the MTA. They agree there are some major risks in their budget. For example, the revenue from casinos was supposed to come in in the next couple of years. But as we know, the licenses for those haven't even been issued yet. The agency also promised to find $500 million a year in savings that it hasn't really identified yet. MTA chair, General Lieber, says this week, he agrees with the comptroller that There's a lot of risk, but he still says the agency isn't a good place. We're not where we were pre-COVID. It's no secret that hybrid work has impacted on ridership.

But when people have a choice of how to get where they're going, whether they're going out to a ballgame or theater or otherwise, they're choosing transit much more than regular commutation. The falloff is much less. That's a good sign. People are choosing transit. Governor Hokel, for her part, is still touting her bailout from last year when she raised the payroll mobility tax and found a one-time chunk of cash for the MTA.

She told reporters this week, quote, were not in a perfect place, but she says she got creative with the legislature last year, so people shouldn't worry about the future of the MTA now. That said, she's going to have to get real creative again because the MTA needs at least $33 billion for its construction budget for the next five years, plus the $15 billion from congestion pricing, and now maybe its operating budget could come up short this.

year. Okay. Every weekend our on the way newsletter, we answer a question from a curious commuter. This one actually seems pretty topical, right? Saying on the topic of money, Jerry from Manhattan writes, fairs on the subway and buses are subsidized by the city and state. If those fairs were not subsidized, how much would fares increase to cover operating costs? So transit fairs cover just 27% of the MTA's roughly $20 billion annual budget. The rest of that money comes from bridge and tunnel tolls, as well as taxes. and some local funds from the city. If elected officials were to get rid of all those subsidies,

they'd need to find a new way to get money from the fare and toll revenue. And a little bit of back of the napkin math, courtesy of our excellent editor, Clayton Goosa, believes they would have to multiply the fares and tolls by 2.5. And that would put a base subway fare at $7.25. And, of course, just a reminder that just because they increase the fare doesn't mean people are going to pay it. That's very expensive for a single subway ride.

So like any business, the more they raise their prices, the less likely people are to use the service. Yeah. Well, thank you, Jerry, for that question. And thanks to WNIC Transportation Reporter, Stephen Nesson and Ramsey-Glefe. And special thanks to Catalina Ginella for joining us today. 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 gotfamoc.com slash on the way. Team, thanks so much. Thank you.

Thanks. 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.