MTA Chair Janno Lieber on the MTA's Resiliency
[music]
Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. After that horrible story of almost unimaginable cruelty that the BBC just ended with, we're going to take a break from our Middle East coverage and return to it in about an hour. On this program, we will focus specifically this morning on questions facing the United States with respect to the war, how much and what kind of involvement should the United States have, with two leading journalists, Ishaan Tharoor, who covers US foreign policy for The Washington Post, and Robin Wright from The New Yorker, who among other things, as some of you know, is a leading expert on Iran.
With Americans as well as Israelis among the hostages, this is definitely an immediate US interests foreign policy challenge very directly, and it spreads out from there to a number of complicated policy decisions facing the Biden administration and Congress. Yes, Congress if the House can ever start doing business again. Robin Wright and Ishaan Tharoor coming up on options, risks, and benefits for all involved from US foreign policy choices. We start today with the chair of the MTA, Janno Lieber, with some major local transit developments in the news right now, plus now transit security in this city that has at times, of course, been a terror target of its own.
That plus congestion pricing details coming closer to being finalized, including all those applications for exemptions and a new 20-year MTA plan just released that deals with issues like accessibility and climate change resiliency, which of course, is even more relevant than it was after the recent flooding that crippled much of the system a couple of Fridays ago. Janno Lieber, we always appreciate that you come on and take questions from me and our listeners. Welcome back to WNYC.
Janno Lieber: Good to be with you, Brian.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your questions for MTA chair, Janno Lieber, are welcome on any of those things, bus and subway riders, Metro North and LIRR Riders, MTA workers, and drivers too with congestion pricing and the MTA bridges and tunnels in their purview as well. 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or you can text your question to that number too. Chairman Lieber, anything to say about security at this time? Obviously, it's been a concern since 9/11. Anything new related to the Middle East right now?
Janno Lieber: No, Brian, I don't have anything new, but I have to say my kids grew up with Israeli volunteers who worked in our schools and our synagogues living in our home, and those kids are now being called back to service. In addition to the horror that New Yorkers are seeing on the coverage, our hearts go out to all of those people, young and old, who are now-- Many of whom have moved on from their military service who are going back into a war mode, and everybody in New York is thinking about it.
Brian Lehrer: Indeed. Nothing new on security? Nothing new that would need to be done because of what's going on?
Janno Lieber: Oh, listen.
Brian Lehrer: -I know there's ever vigilance-
Janno Lieber: Absolutely.
Brian Lehrer: -but anything to say.
Janno Lieber: We're not ready to talk about specifics, but obviously, our relationship with the NYPD is totally close, shoulder to shoulder every day. We have talked to them about how their increasing patrols, or as it happens, our MTA police chief of the MTA police, which is about a 2000-person force, was in Israel at the time of the attack. Now that he is actually back, we are in close dialogue with the NYPD about how we manage our subways, how we manage our commuter railroads, and especially how we manage our terminals. It's part of New York, we're generally part of our open society, but there's going to be increased vigilance.
Now, I have to say part of what has made the subways and all the systems safer is our investment. The presence of NYPD officers, you're very conscious of it, you've covered it. We surge officers into the system a year ago, that's going to continue, and there's specific actions being taken in response to the conditions now, but we've also added a huge number of cameras, so this is a system where we are able to monitor what is going on. The speed with which bad guys are being apprehended has given everybody, I think, an increased level of confidence that we are protecting this system very aggressively.
Brian Lehrer: The rains on the last Friday in September that crippled much of the system, some lines more than others, did it reveal anything new to you about the subways or commuter rail infrastructure?
Janno Lieber: Well, I think two things. One is it's revealed to us that the preparations that we have been making have been working. We had impacts to the system from the torrential rains and localized flash flooding, but what you didn't see is the conditions that Sandy revealed, which is vulnerability at the coast, where if you let in salt water, the system literally, it destroys electronics and steel and so on. Those areas were not affected because we made a ton of investments in coastal resiliency.
The more localized flooding that you're seeing, we are addressing it with some success since, two years ago, we had Hurricane Ida, by looking at what is letting water into individual stations, but the big issue which we're contending with is the capacity of the New York City storm sewer system, which can process about an inch and three quarters in an hour, but we can increasingly are getting these torrential rains that are putting two and a half plus inches an hour into the system. That's what happened last Friday. Brian, don't forget, we were back within 10 hours.
We cleared close to 20 million gallons of water through our amazing subway drainage system. The areas where it got backed up were just because of that temporary storm sewer capacity in the city sewer system. We're optimistic. As I said, we got back full service. We had impacts to service for about 10 hours, partial suspensions, and so on, but we got the whole system back in 10 hours by seven o'clock on Friday night. That was a plus.
Brian Lehrer: I happened to ride both Metro North and the LIRR the very next day for a family-related commute I needed to take, and it was as if it never happened from scheduling and this one rider's experience perspective. Are there some longer-term effects on some of the lines that were damaged that day?
Janno Lieber: Listen, you're right to ask that. One of the things that we're doing is, you mentioned before this 20-year needs assessment, we are looking at the investments. We are prioritizing climate and climate change-oriented resiliency investments looking forward. That, as I said, involves increasing storm sewer capacity, but we have to do more of-- We've lifted almost all of our pumping infrastructure out of harm's way, but we have to complete that process.
In some cases, like on the metro north area in the South Bronx, which is where the problems happened that Friday, we're actually going to have to look at the topography of those areas because they have chronically flooded, whether you add drainage or you actually lift it up or move up the power systems that were compromised on Friday. We're going to continue to invest in all of these resiliency investments. The governor, literally the first week she was in office, she and I got to know each other over Hurricane Ida, and she's been pushing us and also very supportive of prioritizing for our capital program, those climate change-oriented investments that I'm talking about in general terms.
Brian Lehrer: Right. About the the sewage system, that's not under the purview of the MTA, so who do you have to lobby to make sure that they make the improvements that will help avoid problems in mass transit, in future storms?
Janno Lieber: Listen, the city system, they've got a great DEP commissioner at the city level who was the leader in the Bloomberg administration of PlaNYC. The mayor has been supportive of this, but now the city needs to make those investments to make sure-- You don't have to change necessarily the entire sewer system. What you need to do is to make sure in areas where you have chronic problems, because you have old-fashioned gravity-oriented sewer engineering, that you have the ability to push water out of the system when things start to fill up, and we hope and we'll keep talking to the city that they'll make those investments.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your calls for Chairman Janno Lieber, 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can also text a question. We'll get to your calls and texts as we go. I guess it's a coincidence that your once-per-decade long-term needs assessment did come out just a few days after the storm, what you call a 20-year needs assessment and climate change was one of the central drivers of those needs. What few things would you put at the top of the list with respect to climate-driven rain or other extreme weather event resiliency needs other than what you were just describing about the sewers, things that the MTA itself needs to look to?
Janno Lieber: I think what the MTA is trying to figure out is not how to stop water entirely. We have to do basic stuff, like together with the city we have to look at areas where, for example, there's been asphalt piled on a roadway so the curb has disappeared and then water gets over the curb and goes to the lowest place which is into the subway systems. You have to do station-by-station analysis and investment. As I said, the key is we have to make sure we have, one, enough pumping infrastructure to move water out of the system very quickly. We do 10 million gallons of pumping a day on a dry day in New York because of all the underground water in our old subway system.
We have to move vulnerable infrastructure out of harm's way. We have to especially invest in the shops and yards. Brian, what happens frequently is it's not just in the subway system where trains are operating that water starts to screw things up, but when the yards get flooded we can't even move trains in and out to serve people. Those are, I think, areas where the public doesn't see this part of our broader idea of this 20-year needs investment which is what we're saying to the public is we have an amazing asset that's worth a trillion and a half dollars, that's trillion with a T, we have to start investing in this thing or it's going to fall apart.
It's 100 years old, it wants to fall apart. The highlight of this 20-year needs assessment is for all of us to focus on what is getting old. We looked at literally 6 million components and different assets in the subway system and our whole system and said, "What condition are they in? How vulnerable are they? How quickly do they need to be renovated?" Anyone with a home knows that you need to fix what you have before you do an expansion. That's what we're saying in this 20-year needs assessment. Resiliency is part of that.
Brian Lehrer: By the way, when we talk about the subways and we talk about the sewage system, we of course think about the underground lines. What about the above-ground trains that were suspended, like the F and the G in Brooklyn? Will that become common now with these storms? Anything to help with that?
Janno Lieber: Well, I think that where those lines got hit was not necessarily in the above-ground areas but in the below-ground areas.
Brian Lehrer: I see.
Janno Lieber: Both the F and the G have certain areas where there are old-fashioned New York underground subways. The whole system got there. Let me talk about the F and the G. I am passionate about making service better. We now have the best subway service that there's been in 10 years. We're actually adding additional frequency on 12 lines this year. That has been made possible by the governor's budget deal this year which has made the MTA the envy of every transit operator in the nation.
I went and talked at the National Transit Conference this week, and they portrayed it as New York's success story. Because every other transit agency is finding out when that federal money from COVID relief runs out, they have budget deficits of 20-plus percent. In New York, we solved it. Governor Hochul got it done in the budget, and now we're actually adding service rather than cutting service and laying people off. We're in a strong position from where we were when you and I started talking to each other a year or so ago.
Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Ricardo in Forest Hills. You're on WNYC with MTA Chair, Janno Lieber. Hi, Ricardo.
Ricardo: Oh, hello, Brian. Hi. Good morning, Chairman. I have a question. I'm very interested in human rights. I feel even bad about asking this because a lot of people are in difficult situations. There's an issue that's bothered me a lot lately which is child labor on the subways. Subway trains, on the stations, everywhere you go, you see little babies strapped on ladies' backs.
I even have a picture of one sleeping on a soda can, and even children alone. Last week I saw a boy who must have been 12 max, and with another little boy, a brother, I suppose, younger. I've called the cops standing on the platform, I've called 911, I've called staff of the MTA who issue, everybody just tells me, "Oh, I feel their pain, but there's nothing we can do about it." [crosstalk]
Brian Lehrer: Ricardo, when you say child labor, are you talking about kids selling things?
Ricardo: Selling things, yes, that's labor. Even saw like this last week, I saw them alone, a boy around 12 years old, they're usually with their parents, but last week I saw a kid who must have been around 12 with a younger brother. The subway stations extremely hot, sometimes the little ones are there all day. What's the MTA doing about this?
Janno Lieber: First of all, Ricardo, thank you for the question. I agree with you, that is always heart-rending. A lot of this, we believe, is from the surge of migrants into New York. I think the mayor is doing a lot, the governor is doing a ton. We need to get these people into housing. One step, positive step has been that they are now, many of them are now allowed to work. Technically, it's against the rules to be selling stuff in the subway system, but we're not huge on cracking down on those people. Your point is those people need to get into housing, they need to get into more sustainable circumstances, and part of that is making sure that the adults can work so the kids don't have to.
I very much appreciate your question. What our MTA PD cops do in the terminals, Grand Central, Penn, and so on that they cover, is they contact the social service agencies. We actually run an operation at the end of the line right through the night to try to get people who are riding around on the trains, if God forbid, they're sheltering on the system, to get them out of the subways and into shelter.
Right now, last night, 1,300, 1,400 people who we brought into shelter actually slept in a bed instead of on the subway. We're going to keep doing it. Not all of them stay in shelters. As you know, there are challenges with that, some of the population, but we are committed to making the subway the best version of New York in terms of how we care for people that are unfortunately in difficult circumstances. I appreciate, Ricardo, what you're raising, and we'll continue to try to work with social service agencies to address the needs of that population.
Brian Lehrer: Has the child labor, as Ricardo calls it, been increasing with the influx of the asylum seekers by noticeable amounts?
Janno Lieber: There definitely is a noticeable increase in the phenomenon that Ricardo is describing, like the candy seller, the kids candy sellers on the subway since the migrant issue has arisen. Again, we're hopeful that the fact that the parents, in many cases, now can work, thanks to the Biden administration ruling that Governor Hochul pressed for, is that we hope that that'll diminish that. The subway is no place for children to be working or living, they should be in school and in a home, and we want to support the social service agencies that are dealing with that.
Brian Lehrer: Another question from a listener, this one via text message. Listener writes, "I'm curious about whether there are any plans for Wi-Fi on subway cars as an emergency preparedness measure. Having been stuck on underground trains with no cell or Wi-Fi service, it feels like Wi-Fi in the tunnels or cars could be useful in an emergency or during a regular subway delay."
Janno Lieber: Good question. As New Yorkers know, when you're in the station, there is cell connectivity, and we are installing it in all the tunnels. Every time we go in to do work in a tunnel, we are getting there's a private sector wireless outfit called Transit Wireless who wire the stations and they're now wiring the tunnels. It's going to take a little while because we have to obviously shut down the tunnels to do that work, so it only happens nights and weekends when we're working in the tunnels, but we are actually shooting for full connectivity in the subway tunnels as well as the stations.
Brian Lehrer: Another question. Let's see, by the way, somebody adds on the child labor issue, a two-word text that says, "Toddlers too." Looking for this text that-- Sorry, I had one and then it disappeared because so many texts are coming in. Well, here's one that reflects what a few listeners are writing and calling about. A listener writes, "The smoking on the trains is unacceptable." A few people are writing in to say there doesn't seem to be as much enforcement of the no-smoking policy on the trains as there was in the past.
Janno Lieber: Well, all I can tell you is the stats of quality of life enforcement by the NYPD and the system have gone up. We have 9% less actual subway crime than we did before COVID. People don't generally look at that, but versus the last year we have 61% more summonses for quality-of-life offenses, these are not the subway crimes like assaults, but for quality-of-life violations, we're up 61% and fair evasion enforcement is up 50%. We are trying to deal with quality of life issues. There's no question that we lost ground on people's public behavior and respect for each other in public spaces during COVID.
All New Yorkers know that and they experience it. The subway is one place it's most intense. We're trying to push that back. You saw that we had a courtesy campaign. People dismissed it because they say, "Oh, you're trying to [unintelligible 00:20:53] people be courteous," but it's the basics of how do we treat each other in the public space. We're doing advertising on that, but I'd encourage people to keep reporting stuff to 311, to our WhatsApp and our other social media, the MTA social media identity on WhatsApp, on Twitter, on all of the things into, and we're also doing public service information campaign to try to discourage this kind of behavior.
I'm very sympathetic. I push on it myself. I go up to people and say, "Listen, I know you're a New Yorker you'll get it, you can't vape on the subway. Even if it looks like people aren't noticing, it sends a message that this is a disorderly place and makes people uncomfortable."
Brian Lehrer: This is related, I think, too to the increase in ridership. Recently, closer to pre-pandemic levels, it seems like as that is happening, there's this sense that people forgot how to behave on the subways. Do you think that's the case?
Janno Lieber: Absolutely. There's no question. People got out of the habit of like how to share public space. In New York, we're all about density. We are the biggest challenge coming out of COVID. People have been alone or a lot less together. Now, they're coming together, and they're in crowded spaces. The subway is the ultimate of that experience. How do we make sure that we all get along? I always say the New York City subway is the world's greatest experiment in tolerance and diversity every day.
Even if we just sit there next to each other quietly working our phones or even I'm still one of the old guys who reads the newspaper, that is proof of our ability to create this diverse community where things work. When people start having conflict over small stuff, not a good thing. We want to encourage behavior, like take off your backpack, don't block the door, basic stuff that New Yorkers used to know and some of us forgot during COVID.
Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with MTA chair, Janno Lieber. We'll get into the congestion pricing details and still debates as they are closer to being finalized now and more of your calls and texts. 212-433-WNYC. Stay with us.
[music]
Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with MTA chair, Janno Lieber. I see your panel called the Traffic Mobility Board is holding meetings to work up congestion pricing details. It's been years already since the state legislature passed the law authorizing, really mandating congestion pricing. When will you have the final plan and who gets the final say on the prices and exemptions?
Janno Lieber: Thanks, Brian. You're right it has taken a couple of years. The Trump administration wouldn't actually work with the state and the MTA on the environmental review, so we lost all that time. We've completed the Federal Environmental Review, we got an approval from the federal government to do this, and now, we're in this phase where this advisory group, the so-called TMRB, Traffic Mobility Review Board is looking at what the tolls should be mostly focusing on what discounts and exemptions to grant. As you pointed out, there are over 120 different groups that said, "Give me a discount. I should be exempt for whatever reason."
They've had three public meetings. What they're doing is they're trying to minimize discounts and exemptions because it drives up the toll for everybody else because there has to be a certain amount of revenue generated as part of the law that the state passed back in 2019. What it seems like they're headed towards is a very deep discount overnight. The whole thing is focused on dealing with congestion. Remember, congestion is making it so bad that our ambulances can't get to hospitals, and police can't get to crimes and fire trucks can get to fires.
It's all about dealing with congestion. They have an overnight discount which is very deep, a deep discount for low-income commuters. It looks like they're dealing with giving a partial credit for people who are coming through other told entries to the business district south of 60th Street, and also finally, the other big issue is taxis and how to charge taxis and for-hire vehicles. The Ubers and the Lyfts now constitute something like 40% to 45% of our central business district traffic. You need a strategy-
Brian Lehrer: Wow.
Janno Lieber: -for dealing with that. The taxis are a little bit different because they are limited, they can only pick up on the street, and also, because we all know the history of how the taxi businesses has had real problems. There's some public policy issues there. They're looking at how to deal appropriately with the taxis and the FHVs in a way to discourage congestion in the central business district but also recognizing that there's some populations there that have special income or other constraints that we need to be respectful of. The big problem for us is we're ready to go. We've installed like 40 plus percent of all the infrastructure.
If you go to 60th Street in Manhattan, you'll see all these cameras and so on that have been installed to implement this system. The big challenge is that there are lawsuits from the state of New Jersey, and I'll just say this, that 80% of New Jersey commuters actually take mass transit. They're just like New Yorkers. There's been this disproportionate focus on the 30,000 or so New Jersey residents, most of them affluent because it costs a ton to park in Manhattan who are complaining about having congestion pricing. It is not directed at any one group.
It's really about reducing traffic, cleaning the air, funding transit, and protecting against the upsurge in pedestrian traffic accidents. Pedestrians and bicyclists are getting hit much more frequently in this traffic-rage environment that we've created. I don't really care whether Team Menendez is going to yell at us and sue us or not, we have to protect New Yorkers' air quality, we got to make sure the New York economy works because we do need fire trucks to be able to get to fires, and frankly, trucks that need to be here for business to do their business. We're going to keep moving, and it's going to be implemented, all other things being equal, in the late spring or early summer.
Brian Lehrer: Is Team Menendez a low blow against people from New Jersey? It could have said Team Phil Murphy.
Janno Lieber: You're right but there are two Menendezs who were railing against us at their rally against congestion pricing. The state of New Jersey has sued us but there are a lot of politicians who seem to have made a lot of hay about it.
Brian Lehrer: Congestion pricing question from a listener via text. The question reads, "Can the toll for entering the congestion zone be based on time spent in the zone? A sliding scale similar to tolls on a turnpike." It says, "Many people have to enter lower Manhattan to leave the city without spending a lot of time in the zone itself. I don't think it's fair to charge full price for folks just passing through."
Janno Lieber: It's a very thoughtful question. The way that the legislature wrote the law actually provides for people who stay on the FDR or the FDR Drive on the east side or the west side highway what we sometimes call West Street on the west side and who don't actually enter the congestion zone by getting off those roads to not be charged. There was a provision made for, I think, the issue that your caller or questioner has raised.
As far as charging people for how long they're in, I think that everybody's decided the simplest, not everybody, but the TMRB and others seem to be saying the simplest system is one where we just-- We're all familiar with tolls to enter areas that have special conditions. We're just going to charge people to enter. We're not charging them to leave. That was a discussion that was afoot at one point, Brian, the idea of charging people for how long they stayed in the zone. The idea is it's a simple charge on entry and that's it.
Brian Lehrer: Would you remind people what congestion pricing is actually for? Is it for the climate and to the degree that it is, do you know the percentage that once this is fully implemented climate emissions from cars in the business district will be reduced? How much is it for funding the needs of mass transit by making it harder on drivers to get them onto mass transit?
Janno Lieber: Number one, two, and three is to deal with congestion, and that is the point of this, first and foremost. I talked a little bit about the conditions that are necessitating us-- We cannot do nothing if our business district, we're the most congested city in America, and in fact, New Jersey is the most congested state in America, so sometimes, I don't get why they're arguing with us, but it is about dealing with congestion. Congestion is a huge tax on our economy. All the trucks that have to be there, that can't take mass transit are stuck in traffic.
It's more expensive to build because concrete trucks can't get in and out of the city. We've talked about the safety issues. First and foremost, it's congestion, but there are other benefits that are focused on in this 22019 state law. One is funding for mass transit. We want a better mass transit system as an alternative for single-occupancy vehicles to drive into Manhattan. Also, cleaner air. Your question about how much cleaner will the air will be is an, I don't have that answer at hand, but we have a 4,000-page federal environmental review that actually answers that question.
We're expecting that about 20% fewer people will drive into that area of Manhattan on a conventional weekday rush hour. Finally, it's also about reducing traffic violence because when you have super congestion, and there are bikes and pedestrians, they don't mix so well. We all have seen in the last year or two, a surge as traffic has come back. Traffic is worse than it was before COVID, people don't get this, but there's also been a surge in pedestrian bicyclist injuries and deaths. That is one of the ancillary benefits of congestion pricing as well. Finally, truthfully, everybody you passed--
Stern: Oh man, get me on here.
Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. Finish that answer, sorry.
Janno Lieber: Is going to have a better experience because there'll be less congestion. They will save time. I think you have a caller who's about to agree with me 100%.
Brian Lehrer: Obviously. Stern in Forrest Hills is that caller. You're on WNYC. Hello.
Stern: How come you got this idiot on the air? This--
Brian Lehrer: Come on. Come on, Stern. Come on. If you want to ask a question, ask a question. We have the chair of the MTA. It's a newsmaker. I don't have to explain this further. If you have a question for him, ask your question.
Stern: That's tough for New York, and I know it and you know it. What is he going to do if this doesn't work?
Janno Lieber: What am I going to--
Brian Lehrer: What he told our screener is that a lot of people are not going to pay for the new congestion pricing. What are you going to do, put millions of New Yorkers in jail? I guess the legit question in there is what's the enforcement mechanism?
Janno Lieber: It's the same as an E-ZPass. I'll tell you what, we've been doing with people who don't pay their E-ZPass bills, we've incredibly increased enforcement of unpaid tolls. On Randall's Island and other facilities that the MTA operates through its Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, we have parking lots filled, Mercedes and Bugattis of people who didn't pay their tolls.
We're going to do more and more of that. I think that is a slap in the face to hardworking New Yorkers who are struggling to pay for transit when people run up 20 and $30,000 bills at the public expense. We're going to do more of that. The caller, I think, has a legitimate question. How do we know people will pay? Because if they don't, we're going to enforce on them, and that will lead to the confiscation of their automobile and the loss of the registration.
Brian Lehrer: I want to ask about a potential conflict of interest of yours that's been raised in the press. The Daily News reported that you have a 3% stake in the land where your former employer, the real estate developer, Silverstein, is hoping to win a bid to build a casino in Midtown. I see you recused yourself from any involvement with Silverstein and the steel, but as I understand it, you could profit from a casino, and the MTA stands to benefit financially from any casino deal. Do you have a stake in a business that is heavily reliant on government approval, and you as chair of the MTA very much have the ear of the governor and rely on her for MTA funding? Is there a conflict of interest there?
Janno Lieber: Thank you for asking. Listen, I think that what this episode shows is the ethics system's working, one, the only reason that you, Brian know about this is because I put it on my financial disclosure forms every year since I've been at the MTA. Number two is when I came to the MTA, I said, "I'm completely recused from dealing with Silverstein properties." I worked there for years on the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, which was a great honor and a great project, but it was private sector, and I moved to the public sector and I said, "I'm not having anything to do with that company or its projects."
In addition to that, I have nothing to do with the selection of the casino licenses going forward, and I never will. Just for the avoidance of any concern, I'm going to specifically recuse myself from any deal. If Silverstein proposes that land as a potential casino site, and I have no control over and never talked to them about it, I will additionally recuse myself from dealing with any issue that could conceivably have any bearing on where a casino goes or whether it's a good or a bad site. I'm going to go out of my way to make sure that the ethics rules, which you've done pretty good job of making sure everybody is on the level about this stuff, are working.
Brian Lehrer: Another congestion pricing question. Listener writes, "Some low-income neighborhoods are being unfairly hit by this, like the Lower East Side. What about pollution in the Bronx?"
Janno Lieber: Super good question. Whenever you're doing anything with traffic, there are movements, which is why we studied it umpteenth times in this 4,000-page environmental review, which studies the potential traffic impacts again and again and again. We did find that there was a potential for trucks who were trying to avoid the toll to go into certain areas of the Bronx, so we actually provided for, and this is what we got us the federal approval for what they call mitigation, investments in the Bronx that will reduce pollution and offset any potential impact.
We don't know exactly how the trucks will operate, but that was what the model told us. For example, we're going to eliminate a huge number of these dirty diesel-powered refrigeration vehicles that are in the Hunts Point market. Eliminating a hundred of those will offset much more than the entire impact of congestion pricing in the Bronx. We've specifically provided for mitigations even though this is all perspective and based on modeling and so on, but we've specifically going to invest in mitigations to make sure that nobody ends up worse off as a result of this.
By the way, no environmental air quality standards, none of the federal air quality standards, we didn't hit that level in any place, which is why in the end, they gave us a finding of no significant impact. We're getting serious about climate. We have to do something that is this congestion pricing is part of Governor Hochul's overall strategy on climate.
Brian Lehrer: We're in our last minute. We've been talking about so many problems that people have to deal with as commuters of whatever kind, and that you have to deal with, with respect to the system. I want to end with one kind of pie-in-the-sky vision of possibilities that I see was in your 20-year needs assessment. It's a cross-town line for 125th Street, an East-West line there, like the El train is on 14th Street. Why is that a priority? I know it's unfunded as of this time, how can it happen?
Janno Lieber: What we did in this is we studied all-- There were a lot of ideas there about new lines. Everybody, understandably, since we built the Second Avenue subway, people said, "Hey, if you're building new lines, I got a lot of ideas." We studied all of them, and we studied them for what kind of benefits they would have in terms of equity and affordability and especially efficiency, how much time people would save, how would it improve people's commutes. We did not expect it.
Along with Governor Hochul's Interborough Express, which runs from the Brooklyn Waterfront up to Jackson Heights, one of the highest-rated ideas when you analytically studied it was this idea of extending the new Second Avenue extension, which is going to go to 125th and Park Avenue all the way up from 96 up Second Avenue, and then West on 125th Street all the way over to where Metro North lets out at 125th and Parker-Lex, but continuing it west all the way to Broadway to make, in effect, the second avenue subway function like the shuttle does between Grand Central and Times Square.
It turned out that had great time savings and equity and affordability benefits for lots of New Yorkers, including folks in the Bronx and Harlem. It was great, but it connects to the one, the two. It would connect people to the IRT, the one, and it would connect people to the two and the three.
Brian Lehrer: The ABC, all of those.
Janno Lieber: Exactly. Through the whole system. That was a discovery from this analysis. As you said, Brian, we have to get money. We're first prioritizing fixing what we have. We cannot let this unbelievable legacy of our forebearers fall apart. Dick Ravitch started the MTA Capital program in the '80s, but stuff that was middle-aged in his time is now decrepit and old. We got to fix it. That's the precondition before we start building new ones.
Brian Lehrer: MTA chair, Janno Lieber, thank you very, very much.
Janno Lieber: You bet.
Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, much more to come.
Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.