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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, as usual, on Wednesdays, our lead Eric Adams' reporter, Elizabeth Kim, with fresh excerpts and analysis from the Mayor's Tuesday news conference and to help take your calls and texts.

Headline, it seems the mayor has his own plan to fight congestion in Manhattan Central Business District that doesn't include the word pricing, and that therefore won't pay for improvements in mass transit, but it might produce more parking tickets and change how people get deliveries. The mayor and City Council are also on deadline now for the new fiscal year budget, which begins next Monday with lots of cuts to major city services still being considered. There's plenty to talk about. Hi, Liz. Happy Wednesday.

Elizabeth Kim: Happy Wednesday, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: We'll play the mayor on congestion as our first clip. You want to set this up?

Elizabeth Kim: Sure. I thought this was an excellent question for the mayor, and I'm a little surprised that it wasn't asked earlier. In the wake of the governor's pause on congestion pricing, what can the City do on its own to tackle congestion?

Just to remind listeners, one of the major intended goals of congestion pricing was to remove thousands of cars off the streets of midtown and lower Manhattan. That would have been through the $15 toll and also incentivizing trucks to drive later at night. Now that that's no longer going to happen, there's a lot more pressure or some might view it as an opportunity for this city to step up with its own policy to address congestion.

Brian Lehrer: Here's the mayor.

Mayor Eric Adams: And there are a series of things we're doing from building our bike lanes to ensure proper enforcement. When I was a captain, I was the traffic stat captain, and one of the biggest problems with congestion is double parking. On delivery, double parking, vehicles are double parking. It slow up traffic. It's a safety hazard. We are going to continue to enforce those ways that we believe is preventing traffic from moving forward.

Brian Lehrer: I guess a lot of New Yorkers would find that an attractive notion whether or not they're for congestion pricing, enforcing double parking more, huh?

Elizabeth Kim: Right. That's an age-old culprit and nuisance, I guess, to mostly drivers, but possibly even pedestrians and cyclists. I thought that was interesting and it was a very Eric Adams answer because he's leaning on his experience as a cop. He's saying that as a cop, he had looked at that kind of traffic data and he's talking about enforcement and he's not wrong.

It's not so much what he said. It's what he didn't say. What he didn't say was he didn't mention that the City has a master plan, which was signed into law, by the way, in 2019, that requires the City to build out 150 miles of bus lanes. Brian, we've talked about this issue before. Adams hasn't come close at all to that number. Streets Blog did a count and they found that the City has completed under 30 miles in 2022 and 2023 under Adams. To be fair, this is a difficult issue for the mayor. It's a difficult political issue. It's a NIMBY issue. It's part of this ongoing turf war between drivers and pedestrians.

I think this was a moment that it exposed the mayor that he is not talking about what many transit experts say is the most efficient and quickest way for the City to address congestion. This has been done. It's been proven in other cities to work. I thought that this was an interesting moment for the mayor that he would instead lean on this idea, which I think it is popular and no one likes double parking, but it's what he didn't say.

Brian Lehrer: The congestion pricing, or let's say the advocates for comfortable driving in Manhattan and around the city generally will say the bus lanes and the bike lanes add to congestion as well because you have fewer car lanes in any given crowded area and so traffic is going to move slower. Maybe the point is to just dissuade people from taking cars at all as much as they do now, but you could see the argument as to why it makes traffic go slower in the short term.

Elizabeth Kim: Correct. A lot of the opposition to bus lanes have been from- it's elected officials, it's residents, it's business owners who say that the bus lanes will ultimately slow down cars that have to share the road with buses. I think the City needs to think about, especially in this era of climate change, who are the people that the City wants to prioritize.

Now, over 2 million New Yorkers take the buses, many of them working class, working-class New Yorkers who the mayor often reminds us are his base. That's where his allegiance lies. Are we interested in moving the person who's driving a car to get to wherever it is, or these peoples who are trying to get to work, working in hospitals, working in supermarkets? What's more important for the City as a transit policy priority?

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some phone calls for Liz Kim today on the three topics for Mayor Adams' news conference yesterday that we're touching on his alternative to the congestion pricing plan for now, while it's on pause. Of course, it may yet come back at the state level, but that's not going to happen right away.

On that or on the two things we're about to go on to, crime on 14th Street, in particular, is what raised the topic yesterday, and the continuing presence of people with apparently severe mental illness on the streets, sometimes threateningly so, and also the budget deadline where a lot of city services are still hanging in the balance as the mayor and City Council decide what the next fiscal year's budget is going to look like, that new fiscal year, beginning next Monday, July 1st. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

All right. Next clip, the budget deadline and cuts to city services still on the table. Before we play this clip, can you give us an overview of where things stand?

Elizabeth Kim: Yes. As you said, there needs to be an adopted budget before July 1st, so we're coming up against that deadline. The basic issue around the budget has been whether or not or how much the mayor will restore in cuts. The mayor had basically made some across-the-board cuts in November to some very popular areas, areas like libraries, schools, parks, sanitation, police, fire. What he did, starting in January was he restored some, but not all of those cuts. Now the polls have shown that those cuts have been very unpopular. That was probably one of the driving factors for the mayor to restore some of them.

There's also what he says was that they did find better than expected revenues and that enabled him to restore those cuts. That has been basically what's been driving the budget discussions, is how much does the mayor want to budge on some of this stuff. The libraries, for instance, because of the cut that was imposed in November, most branches were forced to close on Sundays. There are only two branches right now in the City, one in Brooklyn, one in Queens, that are open on Sundays. Again, that's been widely unpopular.

It's been a real political form for the mayor. Every time cuts are brought up and the libraries are brought up, you can see the mayor visibly getting a little annoyed at the mention of that. That's basically the question going into these next coming days. I think we will see some of these cuts restored. It's just a question of how much he wants to restore.

Elizabeth Kim: The question at the news conference was asked in the context of the mayor having gone to do something in the Hamptons while these crucial talks were still going on. He said this.

Mayor Eric Adams: Speaker Adams and I are extremely competent. We are great leaders in the City. We are going to be fierce advocates for what we believe no matter what it is, but we constantly show that at the end of the day, of 95% of the things we both agree on.

Two, blue collar, people came from blue-collar parents. We're going to take care of blue-collar working class people in the City. When I was out in the Hamptons for the day, because I'm allowed to go and rest, we still in constant contact, I have a great team. Jock is doing an amazing job, and these leaders up here. I want to be clear on this. If the only way we could run this city is Eric, look it over everything, then we are in trouble.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a call. This goes back to the congestion pricing topic. Steve in Hell's Kitchen, you're on WNYC. Hello, Steve.

Steve: Hi. Yes, let me get [unintelligible 00:10:45]. Oh, for God's sake.

Brian Lehrer: You sound good. You're fine.

Steve: I'm sorry. I'm on speaker. I'm sorry. Listen, I'm going to be incoherent, but the thing with congestion pricing is it's really a commuter tax which we need, and disguised as this congestion issue the City's done everything it can to make the traffic worse, it seems. More and more bike lanes. I live right off Ninth Avenue. They have a whole lane that's just now painted gray, and it's I guess a sidewalk now. They've eliminated a whole lane in a major thoroughfare southbound. There's the mistiming of lights. Used to be you could start at Washington Square and go all the way to Central Park without ever stopping, because the lights were coordinated. They got rid of that because of what they call traffic calming.

The pedestrian stuff, the zero vision, this is a good thing, but if you go to Honolulu, you cannot cross the street against the walk sign. You can't even talk on the phone.

Brian Lehrer: Jaywalking ticket. Steve, thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, similar to the points we were making earlier, Liz, I guess about the effects of other city policies on the pace of traffic and congestion generally in the city. I guess it strikes me that this was originally called congestion pricing, and the mayor was leaning on the issue of congestion yesterday. It was originally called congestion pricing when it got first proposed in the Bloomberg administration around 2006, but really congestion is I think no better than the third reason that they wanted at this point. It's really mass transit funding pricing, and it's really climate change prevention pricing. Then, oh, by the way, congestion, don't you think?

Elizabeth Kim: I don't know, Brian. I think that the congestion is one of the major issues. I think drivers will see this as an attack on car culture. In many ways, it is, because the policy here, the way policymakers see this is that the future needs to move away from cars. I understand people who own cars, who prefer cars would rather not see that happen, but then again, it's about this turf battle. Who do we prioritize moving in this city? Is it the cyclist? Is it the pedestrian? Is it the bus?

Brian Lehrer: The bus and subway rider.

Elizabeth Kim: The bus and subway riders? Where congestion pricing comes in is that-- I think the thought also is if we can build a mass transit system, and this goes for buses as well as subways, that is comfortable, that is safe, that is fast, that people are not going to want to take their cars, because they're not going to want to sit in traffic because, Steve mentioned, the lights are no longer synced. They're going to want to step onto a bus, they're going to want to step onto a subway.

I think we're not there yet, and there's a lot of skepticism. COVID was a real setback because people didn't feel safe in the subways anymore. The mayor does address that, and that's why for him public safety, he feels, is a core response to this, is that if you can make people feel safer in the subways they're going to ride them.

Brian Lehrer: Andrea, in Lower Manhattan, a congestion pricing advocate wants to respond to Steven, Hell's Kitchen, who was just on. Andrea, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Andrea: Yes. Good morning. First of all, hello.

Brian Lehrer: Hello.

Andrea: I wanted to thank Elizabeth Kim for her comments. I think they were very thoughtful, and thank you for having her on. I just wanted to say that there was a rally this morning across from the MTA headquarters that was pro congestion site pricing, which I attended. There is going on right now a meeting at the MTA headquarters. There is an unprecedented amount of people speaking out in support of congestion pricing. They are espousing, which I believe in, in adhering to the existing law and letting it proceed.

In answer to the man that was speaking previously, the idea of extending the bike lanes is that it reduces the traffic. When there are streets that go down from three or four lanes to two lanes it reduces the congestion because people don't want to drive there. Then the subway can get better if the support is there, et cetera. That's what I wanted to say.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Yes, that's the multi-step theory if it works in practice. One more on this. Kanini in Brooklyn. Are you our Kanini who usually calls from Harlem?

Kanini: Oh, yes. Oh, goodness. Yes, I'm in Harlem, but that's besides the point. I'm thrilled to be on here, because I keep trying to say these things. I think it's magical thinking. I think the MTA cannot be trusted. We already pay federal, state, and local tax. We're triple-taxed in New York City. Where did all of this money go all these years on top of our fare? I was on the 125th Street training platform which you know there was a stabbing there just like last month. It's four o'clock, it's 90-something degrees, which means it's 135 in the train station. Joke, but true. Right? You get it?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Kanini: It was so packed I couldn't even get off the steps. So many people were crowded on the platform. Again, that train station has a lot of mental health issues. The highest concentration of drug-addicted and formally incarcerated individuals in all of New York City is in that district in Harlem. You don't know when you touch someone the wrong way, you bump on someone and "I'm sorry" or "excuse me" is not enough.

I think it's a public health crisis. I think it's a lack of imagination in America, imagination in New York City. Again, Kathy Hochul, that $800 million boondoggle that she gave to the Buffalo Bills who are already millionaire, billionaire football owners to "keep the Buffalo Bills in the state [crosstalk]."

Brian Lehrer: That money could have gone there. Kanini, if I'm hearing you right, I'm surprised to hear you take an anti-congestion pricing position just based on your previous calls to the show where you're always an advocate for marginalized communities in New York, for the Black community in New York, the interest of low income Black and other people, which in the usual political calculation is who would benefit more from congestion pricing that would put more money into mass transit so more people take the subway. Am I hearing you right? If it sounds to me inconsistent with your usual politics, set me straight.

Kanini: Okay. Yes. I thank you for that, because I think that that's also an issue, this binary thinking. It's yes-no, on-off, Bowman versus Latimer. I think we need to expand our notion of what freedom, justice, equality, and value for my taxes looks like. I think it's not competing. I think get that money from all the little pet projects that our taxes go to without my consent, like the Buffalo Bill Stadium. In Las Vegas there's a big fight to have the football stadium and the baseball stadium to be funded by the actual league and the actual team owners. This can get done. There's teachers fighting to make sure that their tax dollars and they get their funding to the school and not to the stadium, right?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, they can get it from people other than the drivers.

Kanini: Yes. To me, the best motivator for people to actually utilize mass transit is clean, safe, reliable, mass transit, and who's lying to sit there and say that New York City mass transit meets those three metrics on any given literal second of the day.

Brian Lehrer: Kanini, I'm going to leave it there for a time. Thank you, as always, for weighing in. We always appreciate your calls. It really does set up the last clip for the last topic that we'll touch on today from Mayor Adams's Tuesday News conference. That's about safety on the streets. People on the streets apparently with serious mental illness, the subways as well.

The mayor had instituted an involuntary removal program, we all remember, for people who were deemed not to be able to meet their own basic needs. There was a follow-up question about that in the context of stabbings on 14th Street recently. We'll hear the mayor here and Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom as well. Do we have the mayor?

Mayor Eric Adams: Really, if you go back and look at the reports, when we talked about involuntary removal, we got criticized from all over the place, but we were steadfast and we continue. I don't know, what is the numbers or how many people we removed off the street. Do you have that?

Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom: I don't have the involuntary removal number, but I also want to remind you, mayor, that there's many, many people who have left the streets voluntarily and gotten connected to services. To your point, this is not something that started in 2022, and it's not something that's probably going to be solved right away. It's an issue that the whole country is dealing it. When you talk about the combination of homelessness, of the opioid crisis, of all of the things that mental health issues that people are dealing with. It needs a comprehensive approach. You're right, it shouldn't be cosmetic, but it has to be constant, it has to be consistent, and it has to be a whole of government and community approach.

Mayor Eric Adams: It needs to be cosmetic as well as substantive because we don't want encampments on our streets and we don't.

Brian Lehrer: That was very candid at the end by the mayor. It has to be cosmetic as well as substantive. I guess that's how people don't have the impression that the streets are unsafe, even if they are safe.

Elizabeth Kim: Correct, Brian. I thought that was such a fascinating exchange between him and the deputy mayor. Anne Williams-Isom, she's the deputy mayor of Health and Human Services. Out of everyone that sits at that table with the mayor, she probably gets the most speaking time. This is because her portfolio includes a lot of pressing issues for the City right now- homelessness, mental health migrants.

What she often does in responding to questions about this is she pushes back on the notion that these are somehow just nuisance and quality of life issues. She's the policy expert trying to connect the dots to other root factors like housing instability. You hear her talk about that there. COVID, mental health, addiction, but herein in this moment, it surfaced the difference between the way she's seeing an issue like this and the mayor.

That's this idea of where she says we can't just be cosmetic about this, we need a comprehensive approach. Then the mayor comes back, he's this law and order mayor who really cares a lot about quality of life issues and how the streets look. He says, no, it does need to be cosmetic in addition to being substantive.

Brian Lehrer: That discussion will go on obviously as crime continues, mental health issues continue, debate continues over respect for the people dealing with those issues, and on and on and on. We leave it there, but only for today with our lead Eric Adams' reporter, Elizabeth Kim, who generally comes on the show on Wednesdays after the Mayor's Tuesday news conferences with clips and analysis and to take your calls. Liz, thanks for today. Probably talk to you next week.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

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