[music]

Announcer: Listener-supported WNYC Studios.

[music]

Nancy Solomon: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm WNYC reporter, Nancy Solomon, filling in for Brian today. New York City is hoping to establish congestion pricing by next spring, but elected officials in New Jersey, including the governor, are trying to slow down the process. The current plan is for vehicles to be charged a toll to drive south of 60th Street.

The money raised would fund mass transit improvements by the MTA. Exactly how much would be charged and what if any vehicles would be exempt is still to be determined. The Murphy administration has filed a lawsuit against the federal government, arguing that an environmental impact study should be conducted. Here's Governor Murphy when I asked him about congestion pricing on our monthly show, Ask Governor Murphy.

Governor Phil Murphy: Number one is MTA's objectives are financial. Two, they would rip the eyes out of New Jersey commuters. Three, it would add to environmental challenges, particularly around the George Washington Bridge communities in Bergen County. If all that weren't enough, I'm happy to say that what I'm about to say is getting fixed. The foot-dragging on the extra rail tunnels under the Hudson that we inherited, the foot-dragging on the new Port Authority Bus Terminal that we inherited, our commuters don't have a choice because we've not given them the infrastructure that they deserve.

Nancy Solomon: Is that a negotiating tactic or a full-frontal strike against congestion pricing? We're going to try to figure it out with two back-to-back guests. We'll start with Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat who represents a district that stretches across northern New Jersey, including the area around the George Washington Bridge. Later, we'll hear from the Regional Plan Association.

We'd also love to hear from you and especially from New Jersey drivers about whether or not you think people should pay more to drive into the lower half of Manhattan, or perhaps you're a Jersey driver who supports paying extra to fund mass transit. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. If you can't get through on the phone, you can text to that number or tweet @BrianLehrer. Now, we're joined by Congressman Josh Gottheimer. Thanks for coming on the show.

Congressman Josh Gottheimer: Thanks, Nancy, for having me. I really appreciate it.

Nancy Solomon: You have a few problems with the congestion pricing plan. Let's start with the cost. You said it would be too expensive for New Jersey commuters and that there hasn't been a decision yet on the cost. Tell us what your thinking is about that.

Congressman Josh Gottheimer: Well, in the report that the MTA submitted to the federal government, which they submitted, we'll call it a cliff note version of the environmental and cost impacts on families in the region. In that report, they talk about, in their scenarios, up to $23 a day extra on top of what people pay to go over the GW Bridge or through the tunnels when you enter south of 60th Street. That's $5,000 a year on top of what people are paying now to go commute to New York.

You're talking about nurses, electricians, law enforcement. It's an outrageous amount of money for folks who are already struggling with costs. That doesn't even include, Nancy, parking, gas. As Governor Murphy said in your clip, a lot of people just don't have any choice but to drive into New York City to make a living and make ends meet. My base problem is you're talking about an extra $5,000 a year for families, whether it's after-taxes for folks who are really struggling as it is, just to drive into New York.

Not a nickel of that goes to mass transit in New Jersey. It's all to help the MTA, which is, as you probably know, one of the worst mismanaged transit systems in the entire country. They lost $700 million last year to fare skippers alone. It's just so poorly run. They're trying to deal with their budget. The governor of New York admitted this to try to rescue the MTA. That's all this is about. It doesn't help the environment. It's not going to help produce congestion. It's literally just about filling a bottomless pit hole at the MTA.

Nancy Solomon: Tell me more about this idea that there are commuters who have no choice but to drive that they can't take mass transit. It's a little beyond-- I have to say, like my personal experience, I live in a town with New Jersey Transit rail line right into the city. What are we talking about when you talk about commuters who must drive?

Congressman Josh Gottheimer: Sure. In many places in northern New Jersey, there are no mass transit options. There's no bus. There's no train. I think I saw something you posted a few weeks back where you even talked about how you were sitting on the train, I think, by the Meadowlands stuck. We literally are having trouble adding capacity because you've got-- and I fought very hard to get the resources and the bipartisan infrastructure bill and help write that and pass it to fix the gateway train tunnel so we can build more tubes to deal with investing more and fixing New Jersey Transit and other transit in the area and dealing with our road situation with our crumbling and bridges and tunnels that are disaster in many places in the region.

The bottom line is, right now, we don't have capacity to add more rail. There's only one in, one out into New York. We have to expand the platform in New York Penn Station. That'll all happen in the future. I'm excited about that. I fought for resources for that, but we're not there yet. If you're in Sussex County, northern New Jersey, or many places in Bergen County where I represent as well, there are no options.

The last bus out in many towns that I represent is 7:30 in the morning, which if you drop your kids off at school, that's not enough time to grab a bus. At night, it's 6:30 PM to get home. They've cut a lot of these bus services back. We've got an aging bus terminal in New York. There's not enough room to add more buses there either. It's already a capacity. We have a mass transit desert in North Jersey, so you can't add more right now.

Unfortunately, people have to drive, especially people work off hours. They have to drive. They have no choice. If you're that restaurant worker or the nurse, you have no choice. Right now, what I suggest is we keep investing in mass transit, keep building that up, and making that better, especially here in northern New Jersey, which is where we need to keep investing.

You can't stick it to people who are working very hard and saying, "Well, we need to fix the MTA, which is a mess. We're going to jack up prices on you and you're already paying $17 to go over the bridge or through the tunnels every single day to get to work, and we're just going to jam you with another $5,000 a year." It's just not right. It doesn't solve mass transit. All it is a cash grab for New York on the back of hard-working Jersey folks.

Nancy Solomon: I can hear my friends in New York listening to you and saying, "Wait, but that's New Jersey's fault, that infrastructure and mass transit has not been invested in and built up." In fact, we were just hearing from Chris Christie in the debate last night. He's the one who cut the tunnel. It would've been online now. Is it fair to say to New Yorkers--

Congressman Josh Gottheimer: Well, first of all, New York owns half that train problem and the arc tunnel you're talking about from years ago. For right now, you're just proving my point. New York should take care of New York's problems, right? Their MTA is a mess. Instead, what they're trying to do is they're going to hurt the Port Authority, which is a joint regional cooperation we've had for more than a hundred years together and the region, where 20% of the GDP goes through.

If I were in New York, I'd say, "Okay, how do I fix my problem?" The MTA, let's start there. $700 million loss at fare skippers last year. Maybe we should actually start enforcing and people who ride should have to pay and not jump over the turnstile, right? Instead of giving the Buffalo Bills $600 million to build a new stadium, maybe we should invest that in fixing our own mass transit problems at the MTA.

In New York, the congestion on the streets. Have you gone to New York during the day? You've got delivery buses. You have delivery trucks everywhere. Maybe we should have some of those deliveries go overnight. Maybe some of those nice-- Listen, it's very nice to have all those tables in the middle of the road that they've built and a lot of this on the streets in New York, but it's causing more congestion.

Maybe they should get rid of those and actually have cars and trucks be able to pass faster. There's lots of things New York can do to fix their own problem. To turn to Jersey and say, "Hey, we need the money, so we're just going to hit you. We're going to take the $23 out of your pocket every single day," and they admit. The crazy part, Nancy, is they admit it's going to hurt the environment, which I find to be the most galling thing out of all this.

They admit it's going to lead to more pollution in northern New Jersey and their own outer boroughs, more nitrogen oxide and carcinogens like formaldehyde that are going to affect their outer boroughs and northern New Jersey, right? They're going to hurt families, hurt children in the process because that's how desperate they are for the cash. To do what they're planning to do overall just isn't right.

They've given money now to the Bronx because the Bronx was rightly complaining about the pollution. They're going to get hit. Now, they're giving money for an asthma treatment center in the Bronx and for other air filtration to deal with the environmental impact in the Bronx. Nothing for Jersey. Nothing for the health. Nothing for mass transit. It's just literally a way to stick it to Jersey to help pay for their problems.

Nancy Solomon: Nobody ever wants to have to pay more money for anything, right? If that's what's needed to get people out of their cars and to reflect the true cost, you were just talking about the pollution, isn't the goal here to get--

Congressman Josh Gottheimer: How do they get there? How are you going to get them all? If they had to say to everybody, "Okay, you're going to take mass transit now," you were stuck on your train and we haven't even started trying to add more trains to deal with. We, right now, have no capacity, not a single mass transit in Sussex County, where a lot of people commute every single day to the north. That's 45 minutes up from Bergen County in northern New Jersey. Nothing in Warren County.

You've got places with mass transit desert all in Bergen County and places in Essex County, where there's no mass transit options. How do you get people? If we say to people, "Okay, now, you just can't afford it. I'm sorry. You're priced out." Labor came out strongly against this because they know that many of their folks are not going to be able to law enforcement, not going to be able to pay. Workers are not going to be able to pay to drive to New York anymore. They're going to be priced out. Then what do we do?

Where do we put all these folks before we've actually-- We're now investing to build this stuff. 10 years from now, I'm hoping it's going to look much better. For right now, what do you do? It's a regional economy. How do you get those workers in New York? How do you support those New York businesses if you're in New York? You're trying to get people to come back to work in New York. Is this the way you really get an economy going and help people? You just say, "Okay, $23 a day more, we're going to hit you with on top of what you're paying."

Nancy Solomon: Would it be naive of me to suggest that as a sitting congressman, you're our guy in Washington to get federal dollars to create some of these-- It would be bus lines because you're not going to get rail lines built quickly. Why not just get a whole bunch more buses for Sussex County and Warren County?

Congressman Josh Gottheimer: Listen, you and I are on the same page. It's why [unintelligible 00:11:44] is one of the people who wrote and passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the largest infrastructure bill in a century, which is going to invest in all of these areas more. It's what I've been fighting for for years and I actually got done. We're fighting to get as much those dollars back to Jersey and out the door right now.

If we added a lot more buses, there'd be no place to drop the people off. The governor talked about this in his comments you played. There'd be no place to drop them off in New York City. The bus terminal is old and full. They promised us in New York as part of our deal that they would build a new bus terminal. They've been stalling for years in New York because they have to agree as part of the Port Authority. They've been holding that up. Believe me. I would like to add more mass transit all over the place at the capacity to do it.

I think that's a great thing. Right now, we are where we are. The answer is not just charging somebody $23 if they're in Sussex County more. That person is going to have to pay it because they got to get to work, right? They got to feed their family. The cop that I met with two weeks ago who told me about the GW Bridge who said, "I got no choice. I got to go to work. I'm going to have to pay this money every day. I don't know how to make ends meet that, suddenly, I'm paying this."

These are the same thing for electricians and nurses who've talked to me. This is just reality. Somebody who was getting cancer treatment in New York City, somebody talked to me the other day about that. They have to go for their care in New York. They can't. They have to drive in. It's just their only choice, right? People with disabilities. There are limited options for folks. New York should clean up their own mess with the MTA. They can fix their problems pretty quickly here.

They should not turn in New Jersey drivers and say, "Hey, we've screwed up here. Pay our bills. By the way, in the process, we're going to make you breathe in more carcinogens. All the families in northern New Jersey." That is not the answer to this. The answer is to fix your own problems. Let's invest in mass transit. Let's work together cooperatively as we have with the Port Authority for 100 years.

We have the GW Bridge, the tunnels, the ports, the airports, all cooperative relationships. Let's keep working together, not have New York suddenly turn on Jersey. The federal government gives them $2 billion a year to help pay their bills. They're still losing more than $2 billion a year in deficits in the MTA. It's a complete and total mismanaged mess. I really recommend that they clean up that shop fast and deal with their own problems.

Nancy Solomon: Let's take a call from New Jersey. We have Mary in West Orange. You're on the line.

Mary: Hi, good morning. Yes, my husband is a worker who often has to report for work at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. As much as we really appreciate being able to take the train every day, there are no trains during that time. I drive him to work during those early morning hours and we really have no option. Of course, we would really appreciate if the trains ran through the night, but they don't. Obviously, if congestion pricing is approved, we'll be impacted.

Nancy Solomon: That seems like a fixable problem, Congressman, right? Getting train service through the night?

Congressman Josh Gottheimer: Hi, Mary. Well, thank you so much for that question. This is exactly the kind of comments I'm hearing from folks all across New Jersey who don't have options. This goes back into what we're talking about. There are no options right now because we can't handle more capacity. I think we should have more overnight. I think that'd be phenomenal. Often overnight, right now, you probably follow this that the gateway train tunnel, there's one tube in, one tube out.

They often close one of those tubes overnight to do repairs because it's over 100 years old and crumbling. We're trying to add and I've been pushing to add as much more capacity as humanly possible onto the train tracks to try to get more stations up. These are things that I hope will happen. Right now, we literally can't add more trains in or out of the city because the capacity of the system and the platforms. We've got a lot of work to do.

Mary, I hear these kinds of stories all the time, which is why hitting Mary every time she gets in the car with $23 a day to drive into New York on top of the 17 she's already paying. Think about that. That's $40 plus parking if she had to stay there, plus gas. It's about $100 every single day for a family before they even get a cup of coffee in the morning. It's outrageous.

Nancy Solomon: The actual price, though, hasn't been set, right? We don't really know that it's going to be $23.

Congressman Josh Gottheimer: They put a bunch of scenario where they gave us-- Well, no, they gave us actually in the report the MTA submitted, which talks about all these different scenarios. All the scenarios, they've laid out different pricing structures. Several of them have $23. We don't know what they've decided in the end, but every scenario is an extra tax on folks. I think, right now, the idea of adding an extra tax, it's insane to do that to people right now, right? People are trying to make ends meet. You're going to do that to them? Whether it's $20, $15, whatever it is, it's thousands of dollars more a year that people are going to have to reach into their pocket. We're trying to make life more affordable for folks.

Nancy Solomon: Okay, so we're going to have to leave it there. New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer, thanks for joining us.

Congressman Josh Gottheimer: Thank you so much for having me and I appreciate you paying attention to this issue.

Nancy Solomon: Okay, we're going to continue the conversation on congestion pricing with Tom Wright, president and CEO of the Regional Plan Association, and we'll take your calls. Listeners, what do you think about what the congressman had to say, how you feel about congestion pricing? We want to hear it all from all sides. 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692. If you can't get through on the phone, you can send a text to that number or tweet @BrianLehrer. Now, we have Tom Wright. RPA is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the infrastructure of the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut metropolitan region. Welcome to the show, Tom.

Tom Wright: Thanks, Nancy. It's great to be here.

Nancy Solomon: The Regional Plan Association supports congestion pricing. Let's just start there. Lay it out for me. Why?

Tom Wright: Sure. Congestion pricing is good policy. Actually, it's excellent public policy. It's using basic economics to say we need to invest in mass transit and we have a traffic crisis in New York City across the entire region. It's the classic kind of crisis of the commons. We underprice the limited public asset, which is road space in Manhattan. People use too much of it.

Really, with COVID, of course, driving and mass transit all plummeted when we had the lockdowns. We saw driving come back very quickly back to where it was before COVID. By the way, this has been done in London, Stockholm, Singapore. It has worked everywhere it's been done. New York is going to be leading, I believe, the next generation of public policy doing this. We will add a surcharge.

Everybody will pay for the cost of driving into Manhattan. That money will fund the MTA's capital plan to improve transit options. When we look at who drives into the city, first of all, everybody from New Jersey has to pay a toll. I agree with the congressman and Governor Murphy and other New Jersey leaders that are concerned about credits. We can talk more about that. Everybody from New Jersey is paying a toll.

I don't think what they realize is that two-thirds of the folks driving into Manhattan today didn't pay anything to get there because they crossed over free avenues in Manhattan or free bridges over the East River. Most of the impact where the congressman is saying that this is New York grabbing all this money from New Jersey, most of this money is going to be coming from New York drivers who are going to be contributing to mass transit to improve that system and give people more options.

This is basic economics. It's good public policy. We've been funding mass transit. We've been funding infrastructure for 50 years in this country on the back of the gas tax. We know with the rise of electric vehicles that that's a declining revenue source and we're going to need something new. New York and Governor Hochul and the MTA are really, I think, showing exemplary leadership in leading with this issue.

Nancy Solomon: What do you think about what Congressman Gottheimer had to say about that when you take the tolls and add the congestion pricing toll on top of that, that it's too much for New Jersey drivers who don't have other options?

Tom Wright: Two things around that. First off, I want to say, I share the concerns about credits. Really, this has become probably the sticking point. It's the issue that the TMRB, which is the review board that is going to make recommendations to the MTA and that the MTA will most look at, which is what to do, what kind of credits to give, not just to the New Jersey drivers. Look, about a sixth of the drivers, anywhere from 15% to 20% of people driving into Manhattan, are coming from New Jersey, crossing the Hudson River.

Some of them are actually coming from Orange and Rockland counties too. They're paying a toll. Almost an equal number of people driving into the city are coming over one of the old Robert Moses Tri-Borough Bridge and Tunnel Authority crossings, the Henry Hudson Bridge, or the Tri-Borough Bridge or the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, or the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. They're paying tolls too. Then about two-thirds of the drivers aren't paying a toll.

Whether or not what kinds of credits to give to the folks who are already paying is an important issue. I really share the concerns that the congressmen and the governor have about that. We've been advocating for giving a credit for them. In terms of the numbers he's talking about, I think it's really important for your listeners to understand. The MTA had to model a wide range of scenarios for the environmental assessment, for the federal government to give them approval to move ahead with this.

They modeled from very low tolls that didn't raise enough money for the MTA's capital plan to, on the extreme end, a $23 toll, which assumed full credits. For anybody to say that a New Jersey driver would be paying $23 on top of the existing Port Authority tolls, that's actually not what the environmental assessment looked at. It's not on the table. That $23 toll was put out as a hypothetical if full credits for the existing tolls were given.

Really, what we're talking about is probably somewhere in the $10 to $15 range is more likely to be where they'll come out with a lower toll if no credits are given. A toll may be closer to $15 if the credits are given. For New Jersey drivers, I just want to assure people that nobody's going to be paying $40 round trip for their trip. By the way, the caller that you just had who talked about the situation of driving in the middle of the night, there will also be steep off-peak discounts, both middle of the night and weekends for the drivers.

Again, we don't know exactly what the numbers are, but they're probably going to be that the tolls will be about half of what they will be during the peak hours, during the off-peak. What we're really talking about is not somebody paying $23 additionally to drive into Manhattan at one o'clock in the morning, but probably something about a quarter of that is much more likely to be where this will end up.

Nancy Solomon: The Murphy administration has sued the federal government wanting an environmental impact statement that is longer and more detailed than the one that was done. That certainly would slow down the process. We just heard from Congressman Gottheimer. Is the opposition that's coming from elected officials in New Jersey, is it really aimed at getting a seat at the table so that some of these decisions that you're talking about, about what kind of credit you get if you pay at the bridges and tunnels versus if you don't, are they looking for a seat at the table and a better negotiating position, or are they really hearing from so many people? Is it just a very political thing of like, "No, I'm not going to support this because my constituents don't support it"?

Tom Wright: I think it's really important to keep in mind that around 90% of New Jersey commuters into New York City on a regular basis are using mass transit. They're going to benefit from this policy. New Jerseyans are really going to benefit from this. I think that they want a seat at the table. Frankly, I think they deserve a seat at the table. This is something where there will be regional impacts to this. I think it's worth thinking about. New York and New Jersey have a deeply symbiotic relationship.

For New Jersey, really probably the best-paying, fastest-growing, and really, the most important industry for the state of New Jersey is probably called commuting to New York City. Likewise, every time a job is created in New York City, every time two jobs are created in the city, probably one of them is going to somebody living in New Jersey. New York doesn't exist without that educated, talented workforce of New Jerseyans. The governors have been working so well together.

Congressman talked about the importance of the Port Authority, which has had really stable leadership for six years now, and how much has been done there. They're moving ahead with the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which is a vital project. They're moving ahead with the Gateway Project, which is absolutely vital, probably the most important project in the nation. They've coordinated on things like COVID recovery, renewable energy goals, resiliency, coastal protection, other areas.

Both states have really benefited from, I think, the close working relationship. I do think that congestion pricing and whatever gets decided in terms of the initial rollout of this policy. London's experience is that every couple of years, they have to come back and tweak it. They have to increase this or lower that, add an exemption, take one away, maybe change the geographical boundaries. We should all understand that probably something similar will be happening in New York.

We're very supportive of this policy because it's excellent public policy. I think that giving credits is important. I think your point is having a seat at the table, really having the two states work together to think about tolling policy and what it means and how people are going to get across the river for a growing regional economy is vital. I'm hoping that once we get through this phase in the process, we'll get back to doing that because it's been really beneficial for everybody in the city, in the region.

Nancy Solomon: Do you think that New York has a more difficult challenge maybe than some of the other cities that have done this in that we've got the MTA, the Port Authority, NJ Transit? When you're talking about the trade-off to get people out of cars and improve mass transit, but the money's only going to one of the mass transit agencies and not the others. You're a regional planner. How do you see that shaking down?

Tom Wright: I think that's an excellent point, Nancy. It was something that we probably didn't quite see that in London when they did this, they restructured the entire governance system. They created the Greater London Authority. They created something called Transport for London, which was going to oversee all of these systems. They essentially were starting with a blank slate. We're not starting with a blank slate here in New York and New Jersey. We've got the Port Authority.

We've got the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the New York State Thruway Authority. New York City's in there. The MTA's Tri-Borough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. It is complicated trying to figure out how to layer on this new policy and it's not a blank canvas. I think one of the critical things, I do want to say this, the MTA is the largest and most extraordinary transit agency in the nation. Almost half of all the transit ridership in the country, I think it's over 40%, is out of the MTA.

Yes, they do get a lot of money out of a Washington, but far less than they represent in terms of ridership. The MTA has been really doing, I think, an exemplary job getting through COVID, coming up with new revenue sources. They're working on the fare evasion issue, which is a critical one. Earlier this year, New York State increased operating support for the MTA with the governor and the legislators coming together to do that. This is the lifeblood of the city and the region. We've got to support this entity because New York and New Jersey don't survive without mass transit.

By the way, New Jersey Transit has really been on an upswing. I think Governor Murphy, one of his great legacies was really bringing back New Jersey Transit pre-pandemic. We've got to stay on that path. Then as you've mentioned, the Port Authority. Path ridership has been growing dramatically in recent years. That's a great thing. Of course, what part of New Jersey is growing fastest? It's Hudson County and Jersey City, really all because of its connection to the path and the regional economy.

Nancy Solomon: All right, let's go to the phones because we're quickly running out of time. Nana in East Orange, you're on the line.

Nana: Good morning.

Nancy Solomon: Good morning.

Tom Wright: Morning.

Nana: I have this problem, I live in East Orange. I come to the city every day. I'm a taxi driver. I drive yellow taxi, yellow cab. I have passengers that go to Newark Airport. I have to reenter the city through the tunnels. Who pays for that? Is it the driver or the passenger who made the driver go there? That's number one. Number two, if my understanding is correct, it means that anybody entering Lower Manhattan has to pay this congestion price. Taxi drivers would go in and out of Lower Manhattan, Midtown to 60 Upper East, Upper West and come back many times in a day. Who pays for it? That are my two questions.

Nancy Solomon: Thank you, Nana. Thank you. Tom?

Tom Wright: Sure. Obviously, the impact on the taxi industry and the for-hire industry is also something that's being really hotly debated and talked about as they figure out how to do it. First off, I think it's important for Nana to understand that the legislation said that they can charge once a day. I think this applies probably even more so for deliveries and trucks and vans that are making deliveries.

They will not be charged multiple times a day under any scenario. That is set. I think the real question he raised in his first one is, does the driver pay or the passengers pay? That's something that the MTA and the TMRB are also looking at right now. We've come together with other transit and environmental advocacy groups. All of which are strongly supporting congestion pricing. There's real unanimity here on this.

We think that the best way to do this would be to increase a kind of per-trip charge that gets passed on to the passenger rather than trying to charge the fee to the driver and then have them figure out how to divvy it up among their trips per day. Since 2019, anyone riding a for-hire vehicle in Manhattan, I think it's south of 90th Street or something, has been paying a fee of a little over $2 for each trip through this policy. Taxis already have a surcharge for the MTA.

We think that probably the best thing to do would be to increase them on the for-hire vehicles. Many people are not sure. It's not clear that we actually even need to increase them on taxis. That'll be discussed. To be clear, nobody out there who drives a cab or for-hire vehicles should worry that they're going to be charged multiple times a day for this. I think the question is whether they have to pay the fee once and then figure out how to allocate it to their passengers or whether it'll be a surcharge on those trips, which I think would be preferable.

Nancy Solomon: Thanks for your call, Nana, and I'm afraid we've run out of time. Thank you very much, Tom Wright, president and CEO of the Regional Plan Association. I'm sorry we couldn't talk about this more.

Tom Wright: I'd be happy to come back anytime. Thanks for having me, Nancy.

Nancy Solomon: Thank you.

 

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.