[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Nancy Solomon joins us now. WNYC's Nancy Solomon with excerpts from her Ask Governor Murphy call-in last night. She does that call in once a month with the governor, as many of you know, and usually comes on with us the next morning. Yesterday's conversation focused a lot on transportation. The big news right now that we'll talk about is that there might be an NJ Transit strike as soon as tomorrow. I think by "tomorrow" that means 12:01 AM tonight. Plus the Newark airport mess, of course, and other transportation things, too, last night. The long lines at the DMV as New Jerseyans update their licenses for the real ID requirement in order to fly, even domestically, for a lot of people. Frustration with bad drivers- whoever heard of that in New Jersey?- and lack of state troopers on the road, and more.

One of the biggest political stories of the week nationally came from New Jersey, the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka at an ICE detention facility in his city. The governor is now involved and getting flak from the federal government in his own right. Wow, Nancy, that's a lot for a lame duck governor finishing out his term. Happy morning after.

Nancy Solomon: Hi, Brian. It sure is.

Brian Lehrer: There is a looming engineer strike that could impact NJ Transit riders starting-- it is tonight at midnight, right?

Nancy Solomon: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us more. What are the issues? What might happen to service?

Nancy Solomon: Just to stay on the midnight-tonight deadline, there is a very large Shakira concert at the Meadowlands tonight.

Brian Lehrer: Oh boy.

Nancy Solomon: If that runs late and people take the train and hope to take the train home, that could be a big problem. I think they're expecting 55,000 people. That's just looming there.

What's it about? Engineers are one of, I don't know, 15 or 16 unions at NJ Transit. They're the only one that hasn't settled the negotiations. It's basically about money. They want more. Their leadership already accepted one deal and took it to the rank and file, and they voted it down, which is pretty unusual. You don't see that that much. It's Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North, The Path, Amtrak, all those engineers make a good deal, better wages than New Jersey Transit. They've got a pretty good bargaining stance here, given that they can shut down a system that takes 350,000 people a day into New York. They've brought the state kind of to the table here. Let's see if it can get done today.

Brian Lehrer: On your show last night, the governor weighed in on negotiations. Here's a 30-second exchange that you had with him.

Governor Phil Murphy: The deal that they rejected was a significant amount more money, so the answer is we're prepared to give them more money.

Nancy Solomon: Am I right in the information that the engineers at NJ Transit don't get paid as much as MTA and LIRR?

Governor Phil Murphy: Yes. I know they called into the board meeting today and said that. I have no reason to believe it isn't true. The deal that was agreed upon, trust me, folks, if you're listening, was a very good deal with significant amount more income.

Brian Lehrer: That's a tough sell to a union, I would think. No, you don't make as much money as the people in our region who do the same exact job that you do, but we're going to say it's a good deal.

Nancy Solomon: Yes, I think that's the problem. That's why we're here, on Thursday, facing a possible shutdown at midnight. I said to the governor last night, I said, "Why don't you just pay them more? They're obviously very important to everybody in the state, to the economy of the state." That's when he actually said what we just heard. They're trying to negotiate the best deal for the state, and hopefully, we're going to get a resolution before midnight.

Brian Lehrer: The governor told you last night that he's hoping for the best but expecting the worst. If NJ Transit does shut down tonight at midnight, what plans are in place to compensate?

Nancy Solomon: This is one of those things where it sounds good, right? "Hope for the best, plan for the worst." The fact is, there is no plan. Sure, they have a plan. They're adding some buses to some Park & Ride parking lots. You cannot replace 350,000 rides into the city every day with a bus system. You just can't. They don't have the number of buses to do it. They'd get stuck in traffic. New York could not handle all those buses. We have a system, and without the system, people aren't going to get into the city by train, period.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. You mentioned the Shakira concert tonight. I actually have tickets for a concert in Red Bank next week that I was planning to go to by train. We'll see if the trains are running. I don't know that I want to go if the trains aren't running. We'll see about that. Just a little personal angle on that. For the commuters who need it- who cares about my concert- are there going to be buses? It doesn't affect the NJ Transit buses, we should say.

Nancy Solomon: True.

Brian Lehrer: This would be a train engineer strike. Are there ways to compensate?

Nancy Solomon: People are going to be on the roads in their cars, and we're going to have massive traffic jams. I think there'll be long lines for the buses. I remember after Superstorm Sandy, they said the trains were out, and people wanted to get back to work. This was probably day four or five after the storm, and people were really desperate to get back to their offices. This was long before work from home. The lines to get onto a bus, in my neighborhood, just snaked like three, four, five blocks down the street. You couldn't get onto a bus. They were not able to add enough buses to make that system work. I think a lot of people do have the ability to work from home now because of the pandemic, that's going to help some. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say if we do face a strike, it's not going to last very long because it's going to bring the state to its knees.

Brian Lehrer: I want to move on to Newark Airport, but I also want to announce here, NJ Transit announced that it's canceling train and bus service to MetLife Stadium for the Shakira concert tonight and tomorrow night due to the possibility of the NJ Transit strike. I guess this is just breaking. A producer gave this to me just now. They're canceling train and bus service to MetLife Stadium. We're seeing that from multiple sources now. Let's just linger on that for a second. Would the point of that be so that there aren't a lot of people stuck at MedLife after the concert who have no other way to get home? Like, if you're coming to this concert, you already have to have another way to get there.

Nancy Solomon: Yes, I think that's exactly right. The governor did say pretty much that last night on the show, that people have to be really careful about making sure they have a way to get home. They do not want, however many it would be, obviously, it's not the total 55,000 without a car there, but we're talking tens of thousands of people who could be stranded.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Moving on, Newark Airport, I'll assume our listeners know the basics of what's going on there. The governor seems to think the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, Trump's transportation secretary, is actually doing a good job dealing with it. Also, that Newark is a sign of things to come nationally. Here's 20 seconds of the governor with you on that last night.

Governor Phil Murphy: Secretary Duffy, I think, has put together a very sound medium-long-term plan, more bodies. I think we're 4,000 short nationally. By the way, this is the canary in the coal mine. This is Newark, and we're living it and we're doing everything we can. This is a system failure in the country. It's only a matter of time till it's coming elsewhere unless we get out ahead of it.

Brian Lehrer: Nancy, to what extent does the governor have control over the situation, if at all?

Nancy Solomon: Well, he was very quick to point out that he doesn't have control, and hence it's not his fault. He doesn't have enough control to be blamed for it. How much can he do about it? I think the governor has the biggest bully pulpit in the state. The governor also has a certain amount of control over the Port Authority, which is run by both New York and New Jersey. The governors of the two states appoint the leadership to that organization. The Port Authority runs Newark Airport and owns it. I think as a stakeholder here, I think he has the ability to focus attention, get federal support in and get some changes.

I think the latest now is that they are going to cut back on more flights from in and out of Newark to just ensure safety and to stop the delays. You don't want to see this, but would you rather have fewer choices when you book your flight, or would you rather go to the airport and sit there for six hours because your flight was cancelled? It seems like the responsible thing to do to curtail the number of flights coming in and out of the airport until they can figure out this problem.

The governor also pointed out that this is not a Republican issue or a Democrat issue, that successive administrations going back more than 20 years have not invested in air traffic control resources, whether it's both human resources, but most importantly, the technology and the equipment. Apparently, they have computers that still have floppy disks. It's just an example. Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, she's running for governor, so she was at a debate recently. She likened the connection from Long Island to Philadelphia, which are kind of the two posts that deal with this territory. The connection technically between the two is basically akin to an extension cord. It just sounds incredibly frightening and monumental governmental failure, really, to have not invested and not kept-- How much more important could this be? Air traffic control. Yes, it's crazy.

Brian Lehrer: I mentioned in the intro, and before we run out of time, that other transportation issues, besides the NJ Transit potential strike and Newark Airport, which people know about, came up last night, frustration with bad drivers. Nothing new there in Jersey, but also a lack of state troopers on the road. I think some people want more, some people want fewer. What was that about? Was it new in any way?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, you're right. It was multiple calls. Different people with different frustrations. None of it particularly new, but it definitely gets my hackles up because I live this day in and day out here. Frustration with DMV. A woman called in, couldn't get an appointment, not even to get her REAL ID, but just to renew her license. Frustrated with that. The state troopers, there was a job action that became public after the fact that they were mad at the Attorney General's office for calling them out for various problems at the agency. Some pretty serious problems with racism, racial profiling, and all kinds of other things.

Apparently, there was a job action where they just stopped patrolling some of the highways. I brought up with the governor that I travel on the Garden State Parkway a lot. That's the road that's closest to my home, it's terrible. It's just terrible how people drive on it. It's terrible how congested it is. The people are going so fast so close together. I never see state troopers on the parkway. You see them on the turnpike, but I rarely see them on the parkway. He defended that. He doesn't believe that that's true. We had a little back and forth about that.

Then the other issue was a Hoboken listener called in about helicopters and the noise, and the vibration. Sightseeing tours up and down the Hudson that people in Jersey City and Hoboken have been complaining about for years. I guess it's gotten really bad. He asked the governor to close the heliport in Kearney, which is what services a lot of these helicopters. The governor doesn't have any control over the airspace; that's federal. What this listener was saying is close down the helipad, and then they won't be able to do this. He seemed interested in that. His eyebrows raised, and he looked like, "Okay, I'm going to look into this." Because the description from the fellow who called in, it was relatable. Maybe we'll see some action on that.

Brian Lehrer: Just very quickly, on one final transportation issue, we just got a text from a listener, Corey in Hoboken, who says, "I was the first caller on Ask Governor Murphy last night and discussed the helicopter issue in Hoboken in Jersey City. They're flying over 100 flights a day at 300 feet over tens of thousands of people's homes. It shakes the windows and the floors. They start before 7:00 AM and go as late as 11:20 PM. They bill themselves--" then, which goes on. Briefly, "What was that? Was the governor aware of it?"

Nancy Solomon: I think this is the issue that I think really interested him the most of all the calls. He did seem interested in looking into it. This has been a problem. I know that Congressman Rob Menendez, who represents Hoboken in Jersey City, has been working on this. The skies are regulated by the federal government, so it would have to be FAA action. What this caller was asking for was a shutdown of the helipad, where the helicopters come and go. That's on the land that is maybe regulated by the state. That's the kind of action he was asking for.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC's Nancy Solomon hosts her Ask Governor Murphy call-in once a month and usually comes on with us the next morning with highlights and to talk about it with you. Nancy, thanks so much.

Nancy Solomon: Thanks, Brian.

Copyright © 2025 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.