Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We're going to start today on mass transit. All aboard for a ride with our transportation reporter, Stephen Nessen. Why are we taking this trip today? Because the transit news is piling up again and we know it's the lifeblood of our region, and so many of you depend on it, and you like talking about mass transit. We know from your calls and texts and everything.

One development. Governor Hochul, in her budget proposal released this week, has a crackdown on fare-beating. It's escalating fines for multiple fare-beating offenses, but also incentives for those fare-beaters like OMNY cards for some of those who commit second offenses and half-price fares cards for those who qualify.

The MTA estimated in 2022 that it was losing $700 million a year from fare and toll evasion. They're also putting in a new kind of gate at subway stations designed to make fare evasion harder. We'll take your early experiences with that if you've had any.

New Jersey are in the fare evasion deterrence game too. We'll hear about Stephen's recent reporting on a novel approach to beating the fare-beaters on the path trans. Also, Governor Hochul announced support in principle for extending the 2nd Avenue Subway also to run crosstown on 125th Street from 2nd Avenue all the way west to Broadway.

Then there's the summer shutdown plan for stretches of the lowly G train. Will the improvements on the much-maligned Brooklyn Queens line be worth a disruption, and is there any other way?

To talk about these stories, and maybe more, is WNYC and Gothamist transportation reporter, Stephen Nessen, known affectionately on X by his handle, Just your friendly neighborhood transit reporter. Hi, Stephen. Always good to have you on the show.

Stephen Nessen: Hey, Brian. Good morning. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with these new subway entrance gates. Where have they been installed so far? For people who haven't seen them, what do they look like and how do they work?

Stephen Nessen: They are at the Jamaica Sutphin Station. That's one of the busy stations where folks can transfer to go to the airport. The MTA installed a whole bank of them. They're pretty cool. Very modern looking. They have like, I almost call it a saloon door-style look to them. There's like little paddle doors that you go through.

It's part of the MTA's effort-- They say, one of the reasons and as you mentioned earlier, in the introduction, fare evasion is one of the big problems and at fare gates at turnstiles is where a lot of that ,obviously, is happening. They believe with better design, they can reduce fare evasion. This was supposed to be one of the efforts to address that. You remember the old back caulk style, where you see people do this cool walk where they just step right over the turnstiles?

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Yes.

Stephen Nessen: These don't have that, so you can't do that. They're slightly higher so it's harder to do a gymnastic leap over them, or go under them for that matter. As I know, you're going to bring up, and I've certainly seen the videos online, these have also- New Yorkers have cracked the code pretty quickly on how to evade the fare on these turnstiles by waving your hand over a part of the sensor and they open sesame.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Let me take a step back and talk about the early success and that hack that you were just describing that people have seen, many people have seen on some viral videos that are going around. I saw NY1 quote and transit officials saying fare payments are up 20% at that Sutphin Boulevard Archer Avenue JFK Airport station, since they installed those gates last month. Do you have that too, or do you think that number is a reliable indicator of how well they might work?

Stephen Nessen: That's what the MTA says. I asked them also, "Can you confirm that?" They said, "Yes, that's right." I did ask because it's the holidays. That's a very busy station for commuters traveling. Is it just possible that the increase in people paying has to do with the increase in ridership at that time of year, and we need to drill down on that a little more to see if there's really a 20% increase? That is what the MTA is saying. Which would be big for them.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's big if that could be replicated. For people that don't know that station, that is a big station. That's where you switch for the air train, and that's where the courthouses are in Queens. That's a major hub right there. There are these viral videos going around, I think one in particular that's been really widely shared, showing people defeating the gate and beating the fare anyway. Describe that in more detail.

Stephen Nessen: [laughs] I guess you need to see the video. My understanding is there's just like a certain sensor and when they touch it, it triggers the door to open. Is [crosstalk] more than that.

Brian Lehrer: Is that an electronic programming thing that they could fix, or is there a big flaw in the design of the gates overall, as far as you could tell so far?

Stephen Nessen: The MTA says they're going to look into it and see what they can do about it. I should say, the MTA is looking for the next turnstile of the future. This is just one prototype that they are doing as a pilot in one station. There's a similar one actually at Atlantic Avenue, just one of them and I haven't heard about the same issue there.

I need to look into this further. I need to find out what the MTA is doing about it. I can say they're actually looking for another type of turnstile. Maybe it's that one. They haven't committed to installing those across the entire system yet, but they are looking for the next turnstile and, ideally, one that isn't triggered with touching a sensor in the wrong way.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. They haven't had the problem at the Brooklyn location. They have had the problem at the Queen's location. Stephen, we Queen's people are very creative.

Stephen Nessen: Of course.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, who has a story or a question about fare evasion? Anyone have a true confession you want to share from the recent or distant past, maybe from this morning, or anything on how to beat the fare-beaters and Governor Hochul's latest plan? 212-433-WNYC. Anybody who's used the stations with the gates, 212-433-9692. You can call it that other things transportation for your friendly neighborhood transit and transportation reporter, Stephen Essen.

2nd Avenue subway to also become the 125th Street, crosstown perhaps. Summer disruptions for upgrades on the G train. Anything else. We're going to hear a call or bring up congestion pricing in just a minute. 10th anniversary evasion zero, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 for Stephen, our stalwart and friendly transit reporter. 212-433-9692, call or text. Mark in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mark.

Mark: Hi. Thanks. I love your show.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Mark: I'm just really outraged, that may not be the best way to say they lost $700 million and yet they're talking about congestion pricing. If they would just fix the problem it seems like that might really adjust the price for proposed congestion pricing. Thank you so much, and have a good day.

Brian Lehrer: Mark, thank you very much. Yes, and I guess if you compare the numbers, if they were able to end all fare beating and toll beating and that's $700 million, if they be able to capture all that money, that is almost as much revenue as the congestion pricing fee is supposed to bring, which is a billion dollars a year. Has the MTA heard that question framed that way?

Stephen Nessen: They've heard every question framed every way. That's for sure. To their point- to the caller's point, I should say, yes the MTA says it loses nearly $700 million a year. That's not just subways. That's subways, buses, tolls as well. If we break it down, it's $315 million on the buses. That's the highest loss for the MTA. They say one in three bus riders doesn't pay the fare right now. That's the biggest loss.

$285 million is for the subways, and about $46 million on bridges and tunnels, and $44 million on the commuter rails. Everyone across the board is skipping out at some point.

Just to the caller's point, congestion pricing, that money is only for subway improvements, adding new signals, buying new train cars, capital improvements, 2nd Avenue subway, whereas the fares go into the operating budget. They need money to make repairs. Of course, they also need money for the operations, but it is a separate pool of money.

Brian Lehrer: What can they do about the buses?

Stephen Nessen: There's one question I keep posing to the MTA over and over again, and I never get a satisfactory answer. That's why don't they turn on the OMNY readers in the back of the bus. I'm not a transit expert. I'm just a transit reporter, but I asked Transit President Richard Davey, can you just flip the switch? [chuckles] At least make it slightly easier for people who do want to pay. I've never gotten a satisfactory answer as to why they haven't done that yet.

Brian Lehrer: You mean so you could go in the back door as well as the front door?

Stephen Nessen: Right, because a lot of folks I talked to, it's a crowded bus, they get on the back. They're not going to muscle their way to the front to pay, and nobody's checking. To a certain extent, they do have Eagle teams that are supposedly doing a lot of checks nowadays. I think partly it's hard to pay. I think partly it's a lot of students that don't pay. As the MTA would say, it become a culture of not paying in New York City that they're trying to break.

Brian Lehrer: A third of people not paying their fares on the buses, it makes me feel like a fool because when I ride, one of my lines is the Select Bus Service number seven that goes near my house-- not number seven. I forget the number, but it's from around where I am in across Fordham Road in the Bronx, in the Select Bus Service. I'm always there, 12:00, and I'm so careful to dip my MetroCards.

We use MetroCard for that to get the little receipt that you get. One of the inspectors come on randomly like I've actually seen happen, and check that you have the receipts on the Select Bus Service. That's a big fine. Who wants that humiliation either? Well, a third. Maybe OMNY readers on the backdoor would help that-

Stephen Nessen: Perhaps. It's a culture as well.

Brian Lehrer: -but I don't know. There's got to be something else. In fact, let's see what Chuck in Riverdale in the Bronx has to say about this. Chuck, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Chuck: Hi. Thank you, Brian. Love your show. I really feel the buses should be free, especially in the quarters where there's a lot of low-income New Yorkers such as myself. I'm a big advocate for congested pricing. Let's go. Let's do it. It should have been done five years ago.

I think it's not nice for Governor Hochul to talk about the derivations when she just raised the fares on us. I'm a Metro-North user. My multipass went up. As a multi-pass user, why can't my multipass be all pass for subways and buses? We have to find a better way to treat New Yorkers safely and respect because it's very expensive to live in the city. If she wants my vote coming next election, she better stop trying to go after Black and brown people with these fares.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call, Chuck. Is Criminal Justice Reform responsible for some of these losses because government has decided that the social cost of enforcement, in the way that Chuck references, is worse than the financial cost of fair beating?

Stephen Nessen: I would not say that. [chuckles] I would not say that. To the caller's point, I do have a couple of comments. One, the Governor did actually Institute five free bus routes, one in every borough, as an experiment to see what happens. I think that's going to run out pretty soon, but it should still be underway. You can search for that. They did free buses during the pandemic as well, during some of the early years, and they did see a real boost in ridership. The MTA said that's not affordable. It cost them a lot of money to do that. They still rely on fares, as I mentioned, for the operating budgets.

To your criminal justice question, my colleague, Bahar Ostadan, did some really incredible reporting recently about the fare evasion crackdown from the City. Really interesting. She reported the NYPD overtime pay for extra officers in the subway went from $4 million in 2022 to $155 million this year.

Brian Lehrer: Whoa.

Stephen Nessen: It's not just fare evasion, but a lot of that is that. They issued 34,000 more summonses last year through September, which was 160% more than the year before. There's always the question of who's being targeted. She found the vast majority of New Yorkers ticketed and arrested for fare evasion this year, 82% ticketed, 92% arrested were not white. That's according to NYPD data. When they talk about cracking down and fare evasion, there are these other consequences. I don't think has anything to do with criminal justice reform. Seems like almost the opposite, really.

Brian Lehrer: Zack in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Zack.

Zack: Hi, Brian. Nice to talk to you again.

Brian Lehrer: What you got?

Zack: I probably pay for the subway like three times a year. I take it pretty regularly. In part, I find that obviously, the services are pretty deplorable. More so, it's just ease, very ease. There's so many times where I've stepped over the turnstile. I'm pretty tall, so it's pretty seamless act, and there'll be police standing right there looking at their phones. In my time living in New York, I've gotten a ticket once for hopping the turnstile, and they dropped it because the officer didn't write whether it's AM or PM.

[laughter]

Just between the absolute ease and then just like I have a card too. That makes for the congestion pricing and just the expense of that compared to what I'm getting, I'm willing to risk it.

Brian Lehrer: Are you suggesting that they should make it harder for you? Are you suggesting that you actually don't care that you're depriving the MTA of your fares because the service doesn't warrant it?

Zack: Yes, and there's definitely a large part of me that I don't think I'm the only one. I don't think that if me and all these other New Yorkers were paying the fare every time, I don't think that the service would improve.

Brian Lehrer: Zack, thank you very much. True confession, Stephen. How about that?

Stephen Nessen: Yes. I see it every day when I take the subway. It is across the board. I'll transfer at a station and just watch three people in a row just looking at their clothing, all walks of life, all backgrounds. As Chairman Libre likes to say, "$6 latte drinkers can afford to pay the fare", but for some people, I guess, like the caller, it's a moral choice. They don't believe in paying for the service. I guess we live in a society though, right? It's we vote, we pay our subway fees, and we may not like it every time, but it's part of the social contract of living in the city.

Brian Lehrer: Ryan in Sunset Park, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ryan.

Ryan: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for taking my call. I wanted to bring up the issue of license plate defacement. I'm a driver. I see so many cars on the streets in New York with the license plates defaced, or covered up with the illegal covers. It's something we often don't hear about. I would imagine that just with the price of tolls, and with congestion pricing going into effect, it has an even greater effect on the budget and stealing money from services.

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad you brought that up. I was going to do it, too. Stephen, they say $700 million in fare and toll evasion each year. Ryan's the first person to mention the tolls portion of that. Do you know? Do they tell us how much of the $700 million is from beating tolls in the city, and how people get away with that?

Stephen Nessen: Yes. The MTA estimates they lose $46 million at the bridges and tunnels through various kinds of toll evasion there. In Governor Hochul's plan that you're mentioning, how she wants to increase the fine for fare evasion, they also really want to increase the fine for toll evasion with obscured plates or intentionally covering plates. I think right now it's also like a hundred-dollar fine. She wants to increase it to a maximum of $500 and wants to increase the minimum fine to $250. That would be a higher penalty.

Sure, I think for congestion pricing to work, they need to catch people who are not paying with E-ZPass with their license plates. There's certainly been a lot of reporting about the ghost plates that were easy to get during the pandemic, and are still easy to get, and just folks intentionally covering it with shields and stuff, plastic-colored shields.

The MTA has started to crack down on this, they say. Last year, they did a 50% increase in intercepted vehicles that had toll issues. They issued a lot more summonses last year than the year before. I think they are ramping it up. Anyone that's been on the streets knows that it is an ongoing issue.

Brian Lehrer: You should see the texts coming in in response to our caller, Zack. "If Zack doesn't think the subway service warrants paying for it, he should stop using it. Simple." Someone else, "People like this need to live somewhere else. Disgusting."

Here's a thought. A listener texts, "How much more in city taxes would we all have to pay to make the subway system free? Would it be $50 more a year?" writes the person, suggesting maybe it's not actually a lot of money per person to then eliminate fares altogether and pay for it through taxes, income taxes, whatever taxes. Have you seen anybody crunch those numbers?

Stephen Nessen: No, but I can tell you just roughly off the top of my head, the MTA's operating budget is-- Let's see. I don't have it exactly, but it's several billion dollars. Sorry, $19.3 billion in 2022, and it goes up. Maybe, but I don't know if we're going to find $19 billion to cover all the costs of workers and train maintenance and all the expenses that come with running a transit system. I'm not the comptroller, but I guess if we could find $19 billion in the budget, maybe.

Brian Lehrer: The MTA is not just funded by bus and subway fares in the city. It's also Long Island Railroad and all the Metro North lines. Imagine being the politician to propose raising taxes in car country, and maybe even in the city, to pay for mass transit.

Stephen Nessen: Something like 23% of the MTA budget comes from fares, and 12% comes from tolls. It's still a fair amount, nearly half.

Brian Lehrer: Just before we move on to other topics, the governor's new enforcement plan, at least this is the proposal, increases fines from $100 for each offense today,to $100 for the first and second times, then $150 for the third offense, then $200 for the fourth offense. On that second offense, they'll give you a $50 OMNY card to try to convert you to being a paying customer. I wonder if that would work on Zack from Crown Heights or anybody else.

Stephen Nessen: There's also another interesting detail. Part of the governor's proposal is they'll allow the Transit Adjudication Bureau to forgive a summons if a person enrolls in the Fare Fares program. Remember, that's the city program to offer half-price Metro cards to low-income New Yorkers?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Stephen Nessen: That is really underutilized. Only a little more than 300,000 people have enrolled, but the City believes 900,000 people would qualify for it. There is funding for more people to sign up. It's not necessarily well-advertised, but I think they don't want fare evasion to be a crime of poverty.

Brian Lehrer: A listener texts, "Fare-beating seems just as endemic on path trains." You did some reporting recently on a novel approach to trying to beat the fare-beaters on the path system. What did you see?

Stephen Nessen: Yes. I wish we had the audio available. It's really something extraordinary to hear. Basically, on the path train, if you get too close to the turnstile, a very old-school, very 1980-sounding robot says something like, "Stop, you must pay the fare." If you continue to try to go through it, it escalates and an alarm goes off. Very old school. The folks at Path say it's a low-tech approach to deterring fare evasion. Obviously, they have a problem as well. I don't think it's quite as severe as the MTA's problem, at least cost-wise.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Here's a big picture take from a listener who texts, "Has anyone studied the phenomenon of fare evasion through the context of a culture of individualism in America? When I visited Japan," they write, "I never saw anyone skipping fares or the like, although their gates make it more difficult. Interesting, right? Maybe beyond the scope of your beat as a transit reporter, but American individualistic culture.

Stephen Nessen: Yes. As an observer of culture as well-- I just came back from Austria and Switzerland. You can buy a ticket, and virtually, nobody checked it the whole time. It's really on the honor system there, which was fascinating. Yes, I definitely think there's something, at least to New York, anyways. I don't know about the whole country.

Brian Lehrer: All right, we've got about five minutes left. Then Senator Gillibrand is getting ready to go as our next guest for a monthly call, Your Senator segment. We're going to talk about developments in the Middle East as pertain to US policy in particular, and other things with Senator Gillibrand coming up in just a few minutes.

We have these few minutes still with our transportation reporter, Stephen Nessen. Let's talk about the governor's support for a 125th Street Crosstown extension of the 2nd Avenue subway. How new is this idea?

Stephen Nessen: It's pretty new. The MTA put out this report this year. They call it the 20-year Needs Assessment, sort of a real deep dive analysis about what they're going to need in the next 20 years, what's the best way to spend their money in what order. An extension of the 2nd Avenue to 8th Avenue actually came out as a pretty good program. They concluded that connecting the Q to seven other train lines would be more cost-effective than sending it downtown for a downtown extension. The MTA estimated by, I think, 2045 that the West Harlem extension would serve 239,000 daily riders and save them up to four minutes per trip.

This comes, of course, as the second phase of the 2nd Avenue subway hasn't even broken ground yet. We're really getting ahead of our skiis here. My understanding is once the machinery is underground and in the tunnels, it might be more cost-efficient to just keep it going and keep extending it.

Of course, it's going to cost a lot of money. I think the second phase is pegged at $7.7 billion, and the federal government has agreed to cover almost half the cost of that. The third phase, Hoka was saying, could cost $8.1 billion and there's no federal grant for that yet.

Brian Lehrer: It is amazing that there's no crosstown train, only busses above, I guess, 63rd Street, is probably the most northern point where a subway cuts around from west to east. When you consider that Manhattan goes up to 220th Street and people use mass transit all throughout, for the northernmost crosstown option to be at 63rd Street, it really is pathetic. I could see the value of 125th Street crosstown line going west to Broadway.

Stephen Nessen: Yes, it would be exciting.

Brian Lehrer: G train. What's happening this summer?

Stephen Nessen: The G train, let's see. Make sure I got the dates right for you. The MTA wants to close down the G train from Court Square to Nassau Avenue. That's going to be from end of June, June 28th to July 15th. Ten it's going to close another section, Court Square to Bedford Nostrand from July 5th to August 12th, and then Bedford Nostrand to Hoyt–Schermerhorn from August 12th to September 7th. My understanding is these shutdowns are for revamping the signal equipment, modernizing it, upgrading it to the modern CBTC like we have on the L train, on the 7 train.

As my editor, Clayton Guza, was saying, it feels like a little bit of a bait and switch because the MTA just boosted service on the G train on the weekends, and now they're going to completely cut it off for those weeks during the summer, but those signal upgrades really go a long way. You know how good the L train can be when it's really cooking. Same with the 7 train when it's working.

Brian Lehrer: There are going to be, I think, three different periods of time this summer, if they go through with it as planned, where stretches of the G train are going to be closed for those weeks at a time?

Stephen Nessen: Yes. I think it's a total of six weeks over the summer. Basically, June through Labor Day. At some point in the summer, you will have trouble on the G train. I think we can say that with certainty at this point.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. That's still the only line that doesn't go into Manhattan, other than little shuttles in a few places, right?

Stephen Nessen: That's right. It's a crucial line, especially folks getting from between Brooklyn and Queens. Until the governor fully invests in the IBX, which we've heard about-- She did include some funding for it in her budget, by the way, her proposed budget, to keep that going, to continue the studies, to keep that project rolling. Another big thing I'm keeping an eye on.

Brian Lehrer: Sasha in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sasha.

Sasha: Hi. Nice to talk to you, Brian and Stephen. Brian, this proposal, instead of trying to keep people out and spending millions to do that, what about letting more people in who want to pay for the subway, which is people with disabilities like me? I use a wheelchair, but because of the broken elevators, a lot of us can't ride. Every time we can't ride, guess what happens? That creates more paratransit users, accessorized users, and that system runs at $700 million a year.

We had to file a class action lawsuit seven years ago to demand the elevators have a standard that they work more often. MTA and Governor Hochul are still fighting that in court and spending millions to say, "No, the elevators work well enough." They don't. They need to settle that case and commit to a standard to have the elevators be working and finally let all of us ride so we can pay. We want to pay. We want to pay the fares, but we can't ride the subway, and that's not good for anybody.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, although some people listening might say why counterpose this with the crackdown on fare evasion? If more people pay their fares, then there'll be more money in the system to make it easier to persuade them to make more stops more accessible. No?

Sasha: Yes, but the problem is when the elevators don't work, if you get more people like Zach, for instance, who might say the service is not good because it's not just disabled people. People who see strollers getting carried up and down the stairs, luggage getting carried up and down the stairs, and that leads to a feeling that the system is just falling apart. Whereas if the elevators actually work, people would feel like, "Okay, they're giving me a service I'm willing to pay for."

Brian Lehrer: Sasha, thank you very much for your call. Ben in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ben, with a different revenue-raising idea, I think. Hey, Ben.

Ben: Oh, hello. Pardon me. I was drinking my coffee and eating a cookie. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: What are you going to have for lunch, Ben? I'm glad you gave us the full-- I'm just kidding. Go ahead. [chuckles]

Ben: I'm going to make the New York City subway system rich by getting them to sell advertising on the back of the MetroCard. Is there something sacred about that MetroCard, yellow and black or white logo? No, it could be a little teeny part of it. It could be marked in a hundred different ways. They should sell advertising like France Telecom. Do you remember the old days in Paris when they had all those phone cards? The companies selling advertising really went out of their way to make cool advertising.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, interesting. Ben, I'm going to leave it there for time because we're running out of time. I don't remember the old days in Paris, but the MetroCard are going away, right? They would have to buy advertising for the most part on our phones and credit cards or on OMNY cards. Some people do use the OMNY cards.

Stephen Nessen: Right. I have asked the MTA in the past because when they have those very limited edition-run MetroCards, like they have the hip hop cards and Supreme did a thing and David Bowie, the people were buying MetroCards like crazy just to get one of these limited edition cards. It's like, "Why don't you guys just do this all the time? It looks really good for you." I think they try not to go overboard with it and abuse it just for special occasions, but I don't know why they don't just do regular advertising on it.

Brian Lehrer: I once saw a Subway series metro card. Have you ever seen that one? It has a Metz logo and a Yankees logo on it but I don't know if the teams had to pay for that or they just thought it was cool so people would buy it. Subway series. All right. Our transportation reporter, Stephen Nessen, thanks for bringing us up to date on a whole bunch of different things today. Thanks, as always.

Stephen Nessen: Thanks for having me, Brian.

 

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