Title: MTA Chair Janno Lieber on the First Week of Congestion Pricing.

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Happy Friday, everybody. On day six of the congestion pricing toll to drive into Manhattan below 60th Street, the chair and CEO of the MTA, Janno Lieber, is here to answer my questions and yours. We'll open the phones in just a minute. Hold off for just a second. Before we bring Janno Lieber on, I'll set this up with a lead story from the business magazine, Crain's, this morning. It says bumper-to-bumper gridlock on Manhattan streets has noticeably evaporated this week following the launch of congestion pricing. Where is everybody? Ridership data indicates that at least some of those motorists have migrated to mass transit, with 500,000 more people traveling on the city subway, buses, and commuter rail on Tuesday compared to the same day last year, 500,000 more.

Far and away, the biggest ridership jump Tuesday was on the city subway system, this says, on which more than 3.7 million people traveled, an increase of over 400,000 travelers for the equivalent day in 2024, according to MTA ridership data reviewed by Crain's. In other words, of the 500,000 more in mass transit, generally 400,000 were on the subways. It then goes on to say 80,000 more passengers boarded buses on Tuesday, bringing the day's bus ridership to north of 1.2 million. The commuter rails, Metro North and the Long Island Railroad, each saw increases of about 30,000 riders.

It's less clear what's unfolding on mass transit that originates from New Jersey, according to Crain's. NJ Transit spokesman, Kiela Malumba, said the agency has "not seen" a notable ridership increase this week, but declined to share ridership metrics specifically. Travel times by car on the Hudson River crossings have sped up, indicating fewer cars, according to real-time traffic data from Google Maps cited by Crain's. We have this on the Jersey beat from our news department of Shirley Matthews, a woman who has directed traffic to the Holland Tunnel for a decade.

Shirley Matthews: We were shocked. Like I said, I never expected to see this. I've been in New York for almost 45 years. I've never seen it like this.

Brian Lehrer: Anecdotal evidence, but there it is. For better or worse, or it's complicated, early indications are that something is changing because of congestion pricing. With that, Chairman Lieber, thanks for being accessible for this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Janno Lieber: Always good to be with you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, you can call or text 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Listeners, let me suggest this. Let's not have the pre-congestion pricing debate over again. The toll is on. Call about the present at 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. What you certainly can do is say how it's affecting you. If congestion pricing has added a burden to your life that has you resentful this morning on day six, by all means, call and describe what's happening. 212-433-WNYC. If congestion pricing is making you smile because it's made your life easier in any way or you just think it's good for the city and good for the world, you can call too, and of course, if you have any questions, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Call or text. Chairman Lieber, do those numbers from Crain's sound like what you're seeing on this first week of the toll?

Janno Lieber: Yes. The subway ridership was up 400,000, as you said, from a comparable day in 2024. The Long Island Railroad, Metro North were up. Here's the bottom line. We have been going up for a while. By the end of 2024, we were apples to apples over 80% of pre-COVID on subways. Long Island Railroad and Metro North are pushing 90% of pre-COVID. We have made substantial progress. We're working on the data right now to try to isolate what can be attributed to congestion pricing. There's progress on mass transit ridership.

Brian, you had it right. The anecdotal evidence about traffic in Manhattan is very positive. People are putting all kinds of things on social media about how they're going on buses. Even drivers coming in and out from Jersey from the boroughs are saving 20, 30, 40 minutes in their travel times, and they're noticing. We have seen a reduction in vehicles crossing on the city DOT East River bridges, but we've also seen it on the MTA bridges and tunnels, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, and so on. The anecdotal evidence, and we're still working on the data, is very positive.

The other thing that I'm experiencing is I went for a walk in Midtown a couple times this week and the people who deal with traffic every day are high-fiving me. One guy gave me a hug. It was not unlike what you heard from that woman who is a Holland Tunnel expert. People are noticing how much less tension and road rage and the volume of traffic that people who have to deal with it all the time, they're noticing a drop-off.

Brian Lehrer: Friends of mine who live on the Upper West Side and in Astoria have both said they've noticed that they can jaywalk across the street without being afraid of being run over by a car like they would have been in the past. Of course, jaywalking is now officially legal, so you won't get a ticket either. Even Upper West Side and Astoria, they're noticing less cars, fewer cars on the street in the residential neighborhoods. Anything specific on who's changing their behavior the most by geography or income group or profession or any other demographic?

Janno Lieber: Listen, I think it is premature for us to give that kind of granular feedback, but what we do know is that the people who drive realistically are better off than the people who take transit, broadly speaking. Low-income people, 95% of them who come to the central business district take transit. The drivers are disproportionately a little better off, in part because most of them have to pay for parking, which in the central business district in midtown or lower Manhattan costs a fortune. To the extent that there's impacts, there is a little equity part of this. Transit is one of the very few things that makes New York affordable. Our middle class and working class and even low-income folks do take advantage of that.

Brian Lehrer: We have some anecdotal evidence coming in on the phones. We took calls on this earlier in the week too. People were definitely noticing different traffic patterns and things in different places, including some jam-ups which we'll get to just outside the congestion zone. That's obviously one of the big complaints people have. Let's hear first from Bob in Bay Ridge. Bob, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Bob: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Just to give you a little background, I'm an architect with a lot of training in urban planning, so I was always a proponent of congestion pricing because of theoretical reasons. What I did not expect is that it's drastically reduced the traffic in my part of Brooklyn. I guess a lot fewer people are taking the car this week. I drive my daughter from Bay Ridge to Park Slope every morning.

All this week, my travel time from Bay Ridge to Park Slope has been about half of what it normally was. Previously, my wife takes the express bus to Lower Manhattan. She also has reported that she's seen much lower traffic, less delays, less traffic delays every day this week. She's getting home earlier every night. We love it. It's really been a benefit. However, I have a lot of friends in the music scene who are very concerned that this $9 fee is going to make it harder for them to come in and play gigs in the city. I have a little mixed feelings. I feel bad for them. I don't think it's really going to be such a problem in the long run. For me personally, it's been fantastic.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Bob. Chairman Lieber, anything on Bob, including his concern about his musician friends?

Janno Lieber: Interesting insights. What Bob has described is something we're hearing. One of the principal routes in the city to the crossings in Manhattan is the Gowanus, which comes right through Bay Ridge. 4th Avenue and 3rd Avenue are really heavily used routes. I'm thrilled to hear that he's having something better. What I would say about our musician friends is bear in mind that for folks who are doing music and that's late-night activity, the price of the congestion fee is discounted by 75% after 9:00 PM, so people who would pay $9 with the credit also if they're coming through the Hugh Carey Battery Tunnel for $3. If they're normally paying $9, they would pay $2.25. We did take that subgroup into consideration.

Brian Lehrer: That might be a group of audience members coming in for a late-night set. The musicians themselves probably would have to cross before that and pay the $9. Another piece of anecdotal evidence in a text message, listener writes, "I have had to drive into the city twice this week because I was transporting things to my work and I was 30 minutes early each time. Just took me 15 minutes from Greenpoint to East 10th Street in Manhattan." Then somebody hearing Bob's call from Bay Ridge chimed in and wrote, "I live near Bob and I don't see this at all. Maybe on the BQA, but surface streets are bad." There's all kinds of anecdotal evidence. Marcia, on the Upper West Side, I think has a possible horror story if true. Marcia, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Marcia: Hi there. I had a stove delivered yesterday and this guy said that he had to go through four zones. Excuse me, my voice is weird. He said it was $20 for each zone. I said, "So that means it cost you $80 to get to me?" He said, "Yes." Is that possible?

Janno Lieber: No. Marcia, I'm a refugee. I grew up on the Upper West Side. Without getting into block-by-block stuff, I have no idea what your friend may have said, but the toll is only-- it's $9 for a personal vehicle, for an individual automobile, no matter how many people are in it. That runs from 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM during the week, and it's only one time a day, so there's no risk of multiple charges for your friend.

Brian Lehrer: Right. It was probably a truck.

Janno Lieber: He may have been in another state.

Brian Lehrer: They were delivering a stove. What's the fee for trucks again, delivery trucks?

Janno Lieber: I think it's like $20. It depends on the size of the vehicle.

Brian Lehrer: There's her $20 reference.

Janno Lieber: I see. Here's the thing. We have been trying as New Yorkers for a generation. I was a kid in the City Hall in the Koch administration. We've been trying to get trucks to do more deliveries at night. There is a huge discount at night. We are very hopeful that trucks are going to take advantage of that and, like I said, take advantage of the 75% discount because they have such an impact on traffic. They're a relatively small piece of the traffic makeup, but they have a huge impact on how fast things are because they take up so much space.

Brian Lehrer: That is another thing that has people ambivalent, though. Like, do I really want these trucks with their engines worrying and everything coming to my building or my house at three o'clock in the morning?

Janno Lieber: Most of those deliveries are made to commercial districts and we're pretty good in New York at enforcing-- You can enforce late-night noise laws. I think that everybody has been wanting to get the trucks into off-hour deliveries for literally a generation or two. This is, I believe, going to be helpful in that.

Brian Lehrer: Here's an interesting question from a listener text message. It says, "I'm kind of bewildered as to why so many people are allegedly changing their habits over $9. A roundtrip subway ride is about $6." In a way, it's really only a $3 difference per day if we take that math.

Janno Lieber: Yes, but there's a lot of other costs. Driving, as I said, it's parking, it's gas, it's the cost of the vehicle itself. One of the great things about New York is a lot of New Yorkers, especially in Manhattan, live without owning a car. If mass transit is great and you rely on it and your family has one car instead of two, that saves you $10,000-plus a year. There's real value to having a transit-oriented society. We already have that. We have 90% of people who come to midtown and downtown to work are taking mass transit.

Brian, one of the challenges of this is everybody's talking about the drivers all the time. There are a million and a half jobs in Midtown and Lower Manhattan in the central business district. You know how many people drive to those jobs? Less than 140,000. We tend to be focused on them and not talking about what's happening for the transit folks. The transit users are getting better transit out of that. In addition to cleaner air, less traffic, and safer streets, we get better transit, which is to the benefit of 90-plus percent of our commuters.

In an hour or so, I'm going to be doing an event in Jamaica where we are actually announcing the purchase of electric vehicles to go to one of the most bus-dependent neighborhoods in the entire city. They're going to get not just new buses, they're going to get electric buses to help clear the air. Let's not forget about the benefits for the 90% when we're talking about this.

Brian Lehrer: One of the consistent complaints I hear is that if this is supposed to improve mass transit, you should have done more of that first. I know there's a chicken and egg issue here because you need the money to do the improvements, but people moving onto more crowded trains and buses would have a better experience. Maybe now the drivers who remain are having a better experience on these less crowded roads while more people are jamming onto the buses and the trains. Have you heard that about, couldn't you do more of this first?

Janno Lieber: First of all, the idea that the trains and the buses are jammed is just not accurate. Remember, we're talking about 130,000 people we carry on the mass transit system of the MTA between 6 and 7 million people a day. We are only about 80% in terms of ridership of where we were pre-COVID, so we have plenty of room if anybody wants to get out of their car because the congestion pricing can take transit. We got plenty of room. I just want to be really clear about that. What we did was we pre-invested in improved transit.

We have better subway service than we had in 10 years. We've expanded the service levels on 11 lines. Part of that was we did it to a great extent, nights and weekends and off-peak because that was where the comeback after COVID was. Today, literally, we are announcing that we had the best Long Island Railroad service ever in 2024, with the exception of the COVID year when nobody was riding, we had 5% of our usual ridership. You're talking about we pre-invested in better mass transit. We didn't just wait for this to happen. We are actually now adding express bus service. We're adding additional bus service. We've redesigned the Queen's bus system and are adding service there all through the borough. We're getting the investments done.

Brian Lehrer: MTA chair, Janno Lieber, is our guest on day six of congestion pricing. Listener texts, "I'm not hearing boo about your impact on the suburbs." Let's take a call from Ed in Hoboken, who I think is going to say boo about that. Hi, Ed.

Ed: Hi, Brian. I'm actually a big fan of mass transit, and so I'm not going to say boo. This is painful, though. My girlfriend lives in Floral Park, Long Island. I live between the Lincoln and the Holland Tunnels. If I continue to go over there the same way I normally do, which is through Lincoln, through the Queens-Midtown, which is $38 now, which is very high, but if I continue to do that, it'll go up to $56, and that's just obnoxious. If you think about it, the $18, that's a roundtrip, by the way. $9 both ways, that's $18. That's more than the cost of my E-ZPass just to go in because I only get charged E-ZPass one way. I don't know if you want to comment on that, but I have a few other points, too.

Janno Lieber: Sure. You're a smart guy, but your math is slightly off. You only get charged once a day. I don't know what you're--

Ed: Yes, but if I go over there on Saturday and come back on Sunday, that's two days, and that's what I'm doing.

Janno Lieber: All right. I shouldn't make any assumptions about your arrangements with your girlfriend, definitely.

Ed: [laughs]

Janno Lieber: Here's the bottom line, is you live in Jersey and I totally get everybody's going to have an individual thing, but the bottom line is in New Jersey, I think you had Governor Murphy on recently.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to play a clip in a couple of minutes.

Janno Lieber: In New Jersey, they're only talking about the 30,000 New Jerseyites who are impacted by the congestion pricing fee. Whereas they raised the gas tax by 6%. They raised the tolls on the Garden State Parkway, on the turnpike, the PA tolls. That's going to affect most of the 9 million people in New Jersey. Murphy's only been talking about 30,000 people impacted. I don't mean to be in any way dismissive of the personal impact it has to you, Bob. I'm totally open to going over it and figuring out how we could deal with your situation.

Why is New Jersey only talking about 30,000 people and raising tolls on millions of people and distracting them? It's like they're waving around to distract attention from what they're doing. Governor Tollhike, I mean, Governor Murphy, by focusing only on congestion pricing, has really misled New Jerseyites. You said you're a mass transit supporter. What has Murphy done for mass transit? This is a governor who promised to fix an NJT if it killed him. As I said before, he ain't dying and I'm not even sure he's trying because New Jersey Transit has been a wreck. We really object in New York to hearing all the time about congestion pricing when looking after New Jerseyites would focus on NJT improvements.

Brian Lehrer: Governor Tollhike, burn. Ed, you had another thing or two.

Ed: Should I bring up another--

Brian Lehrer: Yes, real quick, though, so we can get other people on.

Ed: I live between the two tunnels. If I don't want to get those tolls, then I can't use them, which forces me to take the New Jersey Turnpike up to George Washington and go across the Cross Bronx, which I'm dreading because everybody's going to be doing that, so I'm expecting the traffic the next time I do that to be really bad. I also understand too, that the West Side Highway and the FDR are free, but you can't get to them without getting a $9 charge because if you hit any street inside of Manhattan, you get charged. Am I correct?

Brian Lehrer: You can't get off them.

Janno Lieber: One clarification. You come through the Holland or the Lincoln, you get a $3 credit, so it's a $6 impact per day for you. That's the impact. I know that that's not welcome, but I just want to be clear on the number.

Brian Lehrer: Ed, thank you for your call. On the math, there's one misconception that maybe it's worth clearing up again. You mentioned this before, but here's another text from a listener that's about taking their kid to doctor's appointments in the city and saying it'll be $18 extra because they come in twice, but you only pay the $9 charge once per day. Once you've come in that day, if you go in and out and in and out and in and out, you don't get charged extra times, correct?

Janno Lieber: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: I thought that was important just to restate so people at least know what math we're actually talking about. We're going to take a break and continue with Janno Lieber. We're going to play a clip of Governor Tollhike, as he called him, and move on from there. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber on day six of the congestion pricing toll, 212-433-WNYC as he takes your calls and texts. To clarify something that I just said and you agreed with before the break about drivers only being charged once per day, I'm being reminded that there are some exceptions for certain kinds of trucks, pickup trucks with modified beds, I'm reading this now, pickup trucks with caps that go above the roof line or extend over the sides of the bed, vans that have been modified behind the driver's cab, whatever that means, multi-unit trucks, including articulated trucks, where a power unit is carrying one or more trailers. That's per an NBC New York article. Just to be fair and transparent and thorough that some people, these trucks, do get charged multiple times a day, right?

Janno Lieber: Brian, there was a policy, if you remember. The toling structure was recommended to us by an independent board of experts. Trucks contribute much, much more to congestion. They benefit disproportionately because they're commercial in nature, from improvements to the travel times. The idea is the trucks are definitely charged a little bit more and they're strongly incentivized to come at night, as we discussed earlier. We're not picking on particular vehicles. We're not saying it's a Dodge Ram versus a Ford 150 or anything like that. It's all about having the trucks, the commercial trucks that carry stuff be incentivized to come at night, which everybody's been trying to accomplish for generations.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Let me play a clip from our monthly Ask Governor Murphy call-in, which we had on Wednesday night. He's a big opponent of congestion pricing. I want you to respond to the specific issue that he raises here.

Governor Murphy: We believe in climate change. We do a lot to push up against it, but unfortunately, and the federal judge said this is a very flawed program but still let it go ahead, this is going to take it out of the hide of our commuters and it's going to displace the pollution from Manhattan to New Jersey.

Brian Lehrer: Specifically about displacing the pollution potentially from Manhattan to New Jersey, and we hear this from places in New York just outside the congestion zone too. More people are going to drive to there and do park and ride from above 60th street or the Bronx, reroute trucks through the already disproportionately air-polluted Cross Bronx Expressway, all of that. Your response?

Janno Lieber: Listen, it's nonsense because the reason the federal government was able to approve this 4,000-page study that took years was among other things that they found that there was no exceedance of the national air quality standards taking place place. In New Jersey, they only identified seven census tracts that had a combination of more truck traffic and some history where they made them environmental justice communities. Only seven census tracts that required any kind of mitigation. We're doing mitigation in the areas where there are impacts that are recognized by the federal government.

Whenever you do things that affect traffic, there are little blips in the whole system. There's no question. The federal government found again and again air quality region-wide, much better. No exceedance of the national air quality standards and no what they call adverse impacts that rose to the level of requiring us to reconsider doing this. That's the federal government.

Murphy's always talking about how he believes in environmental improvement. The best thing that could be done for environmental improvement in New Jersey is really fixing New Jersey Transit, which, it's no secret, has fallen apart in the last couple of years. You know why? Because they didn't make the state of good repair investments that we are making at the MTA.

We've gone since I was a kid in New York from trains that broke down every 5,000 miles to trains that are breaking down 150 to 200,000 miles. We fixed all the track. Now we want to invest in the power. That's what's killing New Jersey. We want to invest in the power and we're finding the money to do it. We're making those investments to have a great mass transit system. Our friends in New Jersey ought to consider doing the same.

Brian Lehrer: Where are some of the biggest places that people will see mass transit improvement first? Because, again, we should remind people that this isn't for operating expenses, at least not in theory. It's for capital improvements. What can you say that people will see when?

Janno Lieber: Listen, the thing that people are seeing most often right now is us making all these stations. We have a 100-year-old system that was not built for wheelchairs or the ADA didn't exist. We're making all the MTA subway stations, there are 472 of them, ADA-compliant. What does that mean? It means you have elevators or ramps so that parents with strollers, somebody in a wheelchair, somebody with a disability, and even just regular old seniors who don't do stairs anymore can use the system. That's happening again and again and again and every week, as you know, we're rolling that out, but we're investing in new train cars. Those are coming online very, very quickly. We're investing in some more as a result of congestion pricing, electric buses.

Brian, a lot of it is the unsexy stuff that makes the system work better. We have all this infrastructure, tracks, signals, power that was put in when Franklin Roosevelt was the president and we got to replace all that. My predecessors did a lot of great things to try to bring the subway system back from what you and I remember was the graffiti-scarred catastrophe of the '70s and '80s, but they didn't get to everything. We have to keep investing in this great system, which is really old if it's going to keep getting better.

Brian Lehrer: Speaking of vandalism, there was a city council member from Queens last week who posted on social media a way that people can get a device that would disable the toll reading cameras. Should she be prosecuted?

Janno Lieber: No. Listen, it's unfortunate that an elected official, especially one from the part of our political ecosystem that talks law and order a lot to be talking about haha, this is how you break the camera. That's not right. Prosecution, no. What I do want to talk about is the way that in this dialogue, there's crept-in justification for a lot of lawbreaking type behavior covering your license plate. Cover plates are not just a jokey way of avoiding a toll. That's creating an environment of illegality in New York. The mayor has said that 80% of these covered plates and these ghost plates are being used in crime. When you don't know who's in what car, you can't do an investigation of a crime that takes place.

I just hope that the people, whatever they think are congestion pricing, stop saying things that in effect encourage people to engage in lawless behavior. These are some of the same people who yell about fare evasion. They shouldn't be encouraging toll evasion, especially considering it's generally people with cars who are a little bit better off.

Brian Lehrer: They yell about illegal border crossings. Well, this is an illegal border crossing too, if you cover up your license plate.

Janno Lieber: That's a more poetic way of putting it.

Brian Lehrer: Gregory in the Bronx wants to raise another issue. Gregory, you're on WNYC with MTA Chair Janno Lieber. Hello.

Gregory: Yes, thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. Chairman Lieber, I wanted to address the concern. I am from the Bronx. The Bronx has the unfortunate distinction of being out of over 3,244 counties in the United States for decades has been number one in the rate of child asthma. The last time, a few months ago, when Chairman Lieber and you discussed this, you were very dismissive in saying-- your only response was that we're going to have clinics for that. As if somehow clinics are going to ameliorate the already high rates of childhood asthma being exacerbated. Brian, a few weeks ago, a week or two ago, you were discussing the impact of Robert Wagner and his policies on people of color in the Bronx.

Brian Lehrer: Robert Moses.

Gregory: Robert Moses, I'm sorry. Yes, Robert Wagner is another one. Robert Moses and his impact on the people of color in the Bronx, and you lambasted him properly for what has been clearly racist impact upon the people here. You've been notably quiet upon the impact that the increase in the pollution here on the Bronx is going to have on our children.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Well, I think I just raised it with him about three minutes ago. Gregory, you also told our screener you wanted to say something about crime, or did we get that wrong?

Gregory: Yes, that too. One quick thing, more about the childhood asthma. The Americans with Disabilities Act is an extremely powerful tool. In the same way that Robert Moses was very dismissive about the protests against his policies, I noticed that Chairman Lieber has been dismissive about the lawsuits. My hope is that the UFT will ally themselves with the-- We don't have very good representation here in the Bronx. The representatives of those children will use the very powerful American with Disabilities Act in his lawsuits.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Gregory: About crime, that's another thing which Chairman Lieber has been very dismissive about. I'm not the only one who says that. The Transit Workers Union says that. He made the comment earlier this week that crime is in our heads. Brian, you too, like to make it out to seem that crime is not real. The degree to which it is in the streets on the subways is not as real. It's more a question of perception. Every time the subject comes up, you always seem to-- Honestly, I believe you're insulting our intelligence when you say that it's a matter of perception, it's not a reality. There's plenty of crime that's not reported. There's plenty of crime that's not being included in statistics because of things like discovery reform and police are not making arrests just--

Brian Lehrer: Gregory, I have to cut you off there, forgive me. We're going to address your issues. Just that Chairman Lieber is going to run out of time with us in about three minutes, so I want to make sure we-- I do want to also say that we did a segment just this week on how Mayor Adams says crime is more of a perception problem than a real problem on the subways, but we talked about how there was a marked increase in 2024 in both murders and felony assaults on the subways, although crime overall, counting all the other things, is going down. I hope we're presenting the complexity of the picture. Chairman Lieber, to his two concerns.

Janno Lieber: Listen, this idea that I'm being or anyone at the MTA is being dismissive of crime, Gregory, it's just not accurate. Now, there's no question that there's one tabloid newspaper that has decided that that's how they want to portray us in this moment of congestion prices. They actually put in quotes on the front page words I never said. I understand that there's a campaign going on to try to make it look like the MTA doesn't care about crime. I have been really clear about a lot of things. One is the one thing that makes our riders feel safe and is across demographics, across neighborhoods, ethnicity, and income levels, is more cops. I have been agitating for more cops since day one. We want cops, and we welcome that.

Number two, we want the criminal justice system to be more, however they want to do it, I'm not the criminal justice expert, to be more effective in dealing with recidivist subway criminals. It's not just people who commit felony assaults or other violent crime. There's a small group of people who commit misdemeanor offenses of all kinds again and again. We had the top 50 of those people in the last two years have 95 arrests. We need the criminal justice system to get those people out of the public space and into whatever they need, whether it's incarceration or treatment or a mental health hospital, but we cannot have that.

I've been really clear that crime is an issue. It's a real issue, and it's an issue of perception. Why? Because not only do our artists have to be safe, they have to feel safe. They have to feel when they walk into the subway that it's not a place of lawlessness and disorder. When I talk about perception, when I talk about the feeling of safety, it's not to dismiss crime. To the contrary, it's to emphasize that even things that don't, in some people's minds, deserve an arrest or they want to put up with it, make people feel uncomfortable. You see someone smoking, using drugs. Perception matters because people have to feel safe in the public space. The subway is a special version of that. That's number one.

Brian Lehrer: To Gregory's point about me, I have said that it is statistically much safer to ride the subway on any given day than to be a passenger or a driver in a car. That is true. I've said that I personally feel much safer in general when I'm riding the subway than when I'm a driver or a passenger in a car. Go ahead and finish your thought, Chairman Lieber.

Janno Lieber: Subway crime is 1.5% of overall New York City crime, but it gets 81.5% of the coverage. Why? For good reason, because everybody says when something terrible happens and there have been some bad ones recently, really terrible things, they said that could have been me because they ride the subway. It has to feel safe and it has to be safe. Let's just be clear about that.

Number two, Bronx. There has been, as a result of the analysis that was done, significant commitments to invest improving air quality in the Bronx to more than offset any potential impact for more trucks going through the Bronx. The most important of those investments is to get rid of these diesel-powered refrigeration units in the Hunts Point Market, which are murderous for air quality in the South Bronx. When you talk about asthma, those diesel refrigeration units, which are spewing out emissions every day, all day, are a killer, and we're paying to get rid of more than 100 of them. That's going to have benefit.

We are putting in air filters in schools. We are investing in an asthma center because the Bronx has always had a problem with asthma because of air quality issues. We're investing in parks and other natural antidotes to air pollution. We're making the big investments that more than offset any hypothetical impact from truck traffic in the Bronx that's a result of congestion pricing. I love having callers who are as educated on the details as Gregory, so thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Absolutely. Keep calling us, Gregory. I know we're at the end of our scheduled time. Do you have time for one more follow-up?

Janno Lieber: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: This is a clip that I'd like your reaction to. It's Andrew Ansbro, head of the firefighters union in the city. That caller, Gregory, said he hopes the teachers union allies with him. People may not know the teachers union was among those suing to stop congestion pricing. Here's the head of the firefighters union warning that response times might suffer because firefighters will stop using their private cars on the job in the ways they have so far. Here he is.

Andrew Ansbro: All we were asking for was an exemption from members bringing their vehicles into the zone. Those vehicles are regularly used to transport firefighters to and from their detail to another firehouse when there's a shortage in one spot and they need them somewhere else. We were denied at every turn. We have been putting ourselves out there for the city of New York and for the FDNY, and now a lot of our members have asked us, how do we get our money back for this unfair tax burden that's been placed on not only them but every resident of New York City.

Brian Lehrer: Is that worth a specific public safety exemption for the firefighters and anything else you want to say as we come to the end of our time?

Janno Lieber: Listen, there were 130 different requests for exemptions made to the third-party expert board that recommended the tolls. Their view was we're going to have a discount for low-income people. We're going to have an exemption for people with disabilities, full exemption, everybody else, because there are a lot of different situations, most of them you ought to be dealing with your employer.

If the firefighters, and some of this is legit, are being told to drive in rather than take mass transit and then are told that they have to use their personal cars to move around on the job, that's just like when your employer says, "Take a business trip to Albany or White Plains, use your own car." The employer's got to pay you for that use of your car, a mileage charge, pay for your gas, whatever. If the firefighters are being subjected to that, in their union contract, they already are paid for the time when they move between firehouses. I know that's the case, it's in their contract. If they also have to be compensated for the use of their own car at that time, that seems fair to me. The MTA is not the right place to adjudicate the specifics of individual contractual arrangements, who uses what car, when, what employer's instigation. That's not our job. That ought to be collective bargaining agreement, and I respect their concern.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I will say that some public officials do come on when things are hot, like you. Some do not. We really appreciate your accessibility and taking so many listener calls and texts as well as answering questions from me. MTA Chair, Janno Lieber, thank you very much.

Janno Lieber: You bet. Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. More in a minute.

 

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