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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, as usual on Wednesdays, our lead Eric Adams reporter Elizabeth Kim with excerpts from and analysis of the mayor's Tuesday news conference, and to take your questions and comments about them. Our topics this week will include Governor Hochul's last minute congestion pricing pause, Trump's support in New York City and the proliferation of mopeds going every which way on New York City streets, which you will hear the mayor call a menace. Hey, Liz. Thanks for keeping this slot open on your Wednesday schedule whenever you can. Welcome back.

Elizabeth Kim: Hi, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Our callers had been obsessed with Governor Hochul's last minute indefinite postponement of congestion pricing. I'm sure a lot of folks are wondering what is Mayor Adams think. It's such an important issue for people in the city, pro or con. The mayor weighed in yesterday in the news conference, but only kind of sort of. Listen.

Mayor Adams: Being the chief executive of the country or the state, you have to make tough choices. No matter what choice you make, there's going to be a large number of people that are going to support it as there's going to be a large number of people that are going to be against. We're opening all these new bathrooms and people are saying, "Well, it's not the color that I like." People are holding press conferences because-- why you didn't do it sooner?

That's just the nature of being a chief executive. She made a decision. We need to support the governor no matter what decision she makes. She's not a Buffalo only governor. Governor Hochul loves the state and that's the place that I come from. How do you feel about the state? She loves the state.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, I guess that's a yes, he does support the pause, but was it really more like, "That's the governor's authority and I like the governor, so I have no comment."

Elizabeth Kim: I think it's more of the first, Brian. The mayor, though, hasn't been enthusiastic about congestion pricing. He has an outer borough base, many of whom own cars and whenever he's been asked about congestion pricing, he's often tried to distance himself from that decision. He says that this is a decision that comes from Albany. It's actually very consistent and convenient in this moment when the governor decided to put a pause on it that he can go back, revert to that argument, this is the governor's decision. I respect it and I think that we should support it as New Yorkers.

I thought what was interesting in his defense of the governor is that he addresses the criticism of her as a governor who doesn't get New York City. This has been simmering for a while, even before her reversal on congestion pricing. Think back to March when she called in the National Guard and there was a backlash over that decision and a debate about do additional uniformed officers with rifles really make subway riders feel safe? Does the governor understand that? He basically addresses that. He says she's not a Buffalo-only governor. She's a governor who loves the state.

Brian Lehrer: You brought another clip for the show today of the mayor on congestion pricing, this one on differing opinions within his administration. You want to set this up?

Elizabeth Kim: Sure. Shortly after the governor announced her decision to pause congestion pricing, we began seeing members of the administration, including top members of the administration, express their opinion on the issue and basically it was in the form of support. It started with Deputy Mayor of Operations Meera Joshi. She was speaking at a transit event and she said to the audience-- it was just the timing was that she was speaking to an event full of transit advocates and she said congestion pricing needs to happen.

Then slowly we saw other people weigh in, the mayor's chief climate officer Rohit Aggarwala, his former chief of staff when he was borough president Ryan Lynch, he's now the chief of staff at the Department of Transportation and then more recently, we saw his health commissioner, Ashwin Vasan, weigh in as well. These are all people, all members of his administration, people who you would consider policy experts supporting congestion pricing. You saw that daylight. There was a clear daylight between the mayor and his policy experts.

Brian Lehrer: He said this about that.

Mayor Adams: I remember speaking with DM Joshi who-- they're very passionate about these issues, Dan, of the many people, Ryan, my former chief of staff over at Borough Hall. There's a lot of passion. These are very passionate issues. I don't want robots in my administration. I want people to be able to respectfully share their thoughts and their opinions. We're an opinionated group, but they will all tell you the same thing. We may have an opinion, thousands of opinions, but there's one mayor. There's one mayor. At the end of the day, after we finish all of our opinions, we're going to look towards the mayor for guidance. The mayor's name is Eric Adams.

Brian Lehrer: Now we know mayor's name. Do you get the impression from that, that the majority of his top advisors think congestion pricing is good for the city and he doesn't really? Yes, he's the mayor. He does absolutely make the final decision on things, but that most of his top advisors disagree with him on this particular one.

Elizabeth Kim: If you look at the list of people, these are people who you would expect to study congestion pricing and give an opinion on it. These are the people who the mayor would go to and say, "What do you think about it?" Because this is a policy that intersects with so many issues, health, climate, the economy. These are the people who you would expect the mayor would lean on to shape his own view on something like this. I think it is significant. I think it's also, though, significant that his chief of staff, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, she has been vocally opposed to congestion pricing.

In the wake of the governor's decision, she told Politico that God had answered her prayers by way of Kathy Hochul. You definitely see who's standing on what side of this issue here and you do see the dissent. I think the mayor, you can see it both ways. Some people would say good policy is good politics. In this particular issue, the mayor says he wants to hear those opinions, but he's going to make a decision at the end of it. Maybe it's good that the mayor is acknowledging that people in his administration don't disagree with him and he's fostering an animated debate about the issue.

Brian Lehrer: You did a story, listeners, have you seen on Gothamist or heard the radio version of this story, following up on Hochul saying she announced the pause based partly on conversations with people in diners. That's right. If you didn't know that, based partly on conversations with people in diners. Not that that's a bad thing, but that's what she said. You went out to some diners yourself?

Elizabeth Kim: I did. When the governor appeared before reporters on Friday night, this was over 48 hours since she made the announcement and she hadn't taken any questions. In the room, she's basically finally facing the music and the question what made you change your mind? Her answer, which was invoking these conversations she had at diners, I think, surprised many people in the room because-- well, it's not a surprise, first of all, I should say that the governor loves diners. She does like to go to diners, but the logic of it, I think, people were very skeptical of. She was pressed to say, "Well, what diners are you referring to?"

She actually did name three diners. That made it very easy for a reporter like myself to just visit those three diners. They were not that far from one another. One was on 38th Street on Second Avenue. The two others were a lot closer to Grand Central. I basically just went there and I asked the owners has the governor been in your diners, is the conversation that you've had with her about congestion pricing, how do you feel about congestion pricing and to see if it checked out. What I discovered was-- well, the first owner did not want to talk about congestion pricing.

His view on it was that, "Listen, I don't like to mix politics with my business." He did confirm that the governor had been there, but he said he wouldn't talk to her about congestion pricing. The second owner did have a lot more criticisms of congestion pricing, and they were very typical to the concerns that we've heard from business owners. The throughline of both of these places was that they both acknowledged that their customers are not largely coming from outside the borough. They're mostly neighborhood residents or workers, and a great many of them are also tourists.

This idea, which was something that the governor suggested, was that owners were coming to her and complaining to her that they were going to lose all their outer borough customers. She even went as far as to say that they might lose their customers who were coming from New Jersey. That was something that neither of the two owners I spoke to mentioned. This idea that there are people coming from New Jersey.

Anyone who's been to New Jersey knows that it's the land of diners. It's considered the diner capital of the country. That idea was a real stretch. I think that it's not wrong.

There are people who are driving into that part of Manhattan for various reasons. I think that the governor wanted to wed that idea to diners because she wants to make this a working-class issue, and she's trying to argue that there are working-class people or middle-class people who are patrons of these types of businesses and that they would be impacted.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I don't know if you did this particular piece of reporting, but the partnership for New York City, which is the main business lobby in the city, is against the pause therefore, congestion pricing, they think it's going to be good for business in Manhattan below 60th Street, which has been hurting since the pandemic and all the remote work and everything. How does it even line up with that, that Hochul says or release claims to have found concern in diners within the district that they would lose business?

Elizabeth Kim: I put that to an owner. We talked about congestion, and that is a big part of what congestion pricing is about. It's about mainly two things. It's to reduce trucks and cars in the busiest part of the city, and it's also to use that money, that toll to finance subway improvements.

Brian Lehrer: And reduce our carbon emissions.

Elizabeth Kim: Correct. There are all these ripple effects from that that have to do with health. Then the way it affects the economy and the argument that the partnership has made is that congestion and subway delays are costly for businesses. When I put that question though to one of the diner owners, the way he perceives it is, yes, of course, I've seen traffic get worse, but he wanted to blame it on the expansion of bus and bike lanes.

His argument was, well, what happened is you had six lanes suddenly shrink to three lanes, so of course you're going to get more traffic. I think everybody's experiencing it a different way. That's what when he walks outside his business, he's seeing but I don't know that everybody is seeing it in this 1,000 foot view that policy experts are.

Brian Lehrer: I guess people will blame, like you say, whatever they want to blame. Also, the tens of thousands of additional Ubers and Lyfts and other for hire vehicles compared to the old limit before that era began.

Elizabeth Kim: That's right, Brian. Coincidentally, the second diner I visited, the owner also happened to own a yellow taxi. He brought that up to me. He said to me, "If the city is so concerned about congestion and they're so concerned about pollution, why did they open up the market to so many Ubers and didn't regulate it properly?" He did have a point. I mean, that's a place where he saw government fail. He's now very skeptical of government's intentions on something like this.

Brian Lehrer: We are a New York and New Jersey Public Radio. On the New York side now, although this that we've been talking about very much affects New Jersey as well. Congestion pricing is a topic at Mayor Adam's weekly Tuesday news conference yesterday. We're going to go on to a few other of the topics now with our lead Eric Adams reporter Elizabeth Kim who joins us on Wednesdays after those Tuesday news conferences. We're going to talk about Trump support in New York City, and then we're going to come back to the city streets and talk about mopeds and what the mayor said about them.

We can take a couple of phone calls if anybody wants to weigh in or ask Liz a question, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. Before we leave the diners topic altogether, I will note this snarky text from a listener who writes, "Diners are known to be popular among climate scientists," and have to ask you, while you were on this diner tour, did you compare the burgers or the omelets or anything? You could start a whole side job as a restaurant critic after this.

Elizabeth Kim: You're right, Brian. I probably could but no, I didn't do that although that was something that is obvious too is the idea that someone from Queens or Brooklyn might travel into Manhattan, which the prices are more likely to be higher than in the outer boroughs, I would think, compared to their local diners. That also was part of the reason why people were so skeptical.

Brian Lehrer: About Hochul's informal and official thoroughly on scientific chemical. All right. You asked the question at the news conference yesterday about the possibility that support for Donald Trump is rising in New York City. Yes, even here in deepest blue New York, based on something the Manhattan Borough President said. We're going to let everyone hear your very specific question, and then a minute of the mayor's response.

Elizabeth Kim: Several weeks ago, Politico had a story in which Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said he was alarmed at the number of people in New York City, he was meeting that were Trump supporters, and that includes people of color. There's been a lot of talk about Trump and Republicans trying to make inroads with Black voters. I'm wondering if you've come across that too, whether you see a lot more Trump supporters than you might think would happen in a city like New York City.

President Mark Levine: I still think this is a Democratic town. I made it clear I support President Biden. I think he has done some very important things from the economy to public safety. When those one or two areas we disagree on, I mean, that's life. I don't agree with myself all the time. I can't expect to agree with--

Elizabeth Kim: It's just one or two areas is what is driving some voters towards Trump?

President Mark Levine: That's a great question because believe it or not, some voters are one issue voters because I've had voters who adored me, but as soon as we had 200,000 migrants and asylum seekers hit the city, and not realizing that we not in control of that until we went to town halls. We walked into town halls where people was hands crossed looking at me saying, "We ready to boo you."

Brian Lehrer: That was really interesting, Liz. You can tell us maybe a little bit more about what Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine had in mind when he originally said that about rising Trump support. It also sounded to me like the mayor was saying, "Yes, there's some rising Trump support maybe and it's because of migrants."

Elizabeth Kim: Right. The Manhattan borough president in that Politico story was basically, he was trying to sound an alarm. He thought that it should be a wake up call to Democrats that even in a true blue city like New York, he was coming across people who said they were going to vote for Donald Trump. I wanted to put that question to the mayor because I think it's always interesting. Everybody is constantly trying to tease something from the mayor about his relationship with the president.

Because here we have the mayor of the biggest city in the country and the president, they're both of the same party and they haven't been seen together in, I would say, more than a year. The president has been to New York City for fundraising events and the mayor has stayed away. Last week, the mayor did not go to the White House with Governor Kathy Hochul when President Biden made an announcement on his executive order to temporarily close the border. That was very interesting because we all know that Mayor Adams has been lobbying the president to do some kind of policy intervention.

In the moment in which he's doing it, the mayor's not even there at the White House. As we get closer to the election, I think it's going to be interesting to see what role does he play? I think likely, probably none at all, because he is considered a liability because of his outspoken criticism on the way Biden has handled the border crisis. At the same time, he has helped shape the president's response.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a question that follows up on something you said in the congestion pricing exchange. Listener on text writes, "You said the purpose or a purpose is to reduce truck traffic. How is that possible?"

Elizabeth Kim: Because trucks would pay the toll as well. The toll is less on certain non-peak hours, like overnight. The idea was that if they could drive the truck traffic to times of the day when there's less cars on the road, that was part of the policy.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, so it's to drive the truck traffic to come in more at night, because I think a lot of people might--

Elizabeth Kim: It goes for cars as well. There's lower pricing. Again, I'm not the expert on congestion pricing, but my understanding is yes, there are the peak hours, but there are overnight hours in which I think for cars, it drops to as low as around $3.75 or $4.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it's low, but I guess [crosstalk].

Elizabeth Kim: Most people are paying the $15. That's the price tag that everybody is fixated on.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. I think one of the images though that people have is that people who are driving in can in many cases change their behavior to mass transit. I realize in many cases they also can't, but that trucks have to get in because they have to deliver this stuff. It would be more about maybe directing them to other times of day.

Elizabeth Kim: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: Tim in Manhattan is going to set up our last clip from the Mayor's Tuesday news conference for this week. Tim, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Tim: Hello, Brian. Brian, you may recall that you and I actually spoke when you had John [unintelligible 00:22:31] on as a guest back in, I want to say January or February. It was on a similar topic. I was actually calling you from the snowy Catskills, but I live in the village and my observation is that the mopeds and the e-bikes do not exist in a vacuum. They exploded on the scene when able-bodied New Yorkers were given permission to order their entire lives for delivery, and it only gets worse day by day by day. We can talk about a moped menace, and we should, because it is terrifying to be a pedestrian or a law-abiding, human-powered cyclist in the city of New York in a way that it has never been.

Brian Lehrer: Tim, I'm going to leave it there for time. I think that also relates to the increase in the number of trucks we were just talking about. Just more people getting more things delivered as a proportion of all things bought, but with that in mind, here is the last clip of the mayor for today, and it is about mopeds and the way they're used being a hazard for pedestrians on city streets. Liz, the first line here might not make sense out of context. He says, "I love the fact that there's a disconnect." Can you set this up just a little more?

Elizabeth Kim: I believe he's talking about some of the criticism that he's received for cracking down so hard on e-bikes and mopeds. The criticism being the fact that some of these vehicles, or many of these vehicles are being used by people who need them for work. These are delivery workers. They have said that not only they're navigating through traffic, but now they also have to worry about police officers giving them tickets or seizing their vehicles. If they're having their vehicle seized, they can't work. This is about their livelihood. I think the mayor is speaking to that issue, because for him, this is not just quality of life, but as the caller said, this is also a public safety issue.

Brian Lehrer: Here we go.

Mayor Adams: I love the fact that there's just a disconnect. Every day New Yorkers, the police department and others, we realize that this is a problem. Yet, you'd be surprised how many people who want to act like this is not a problem. When we remove, I think our number is 41,000. How many?

Participant: Almost 42.

Mayor Adams: Almost 42,000 we removed off the streets of the city of New York, and we have to do more. We need to really look into everything from licenses to if we want to outlaw, we have to look at everything possible to control this menace that has really engulfed our streets. We need to have delivery platforms play a vital role also. They have an obligation. The deputy mayor is really looking into this to see how we can with the police department monitor.

Brian Lehrer: That's a lot of words. Liz, in our last 30 seconds, is he proposing anything new that respects the delivery industry, which, like it or not, Tim's critique of behavior among customers may be apt, but it's not changing right away. Support the delivery industry as it needs to be supported, but also keep the street safe. Is he proposing anything new?

Elizabeth Kim: I don't think so. I think the takeaway from that comment is how he sees this. He's talking about using police. Now, other people including a council member in Jackson Heights who has been very concerned about mopeds coming into one of their open streets, his response is that it's the Department of Transportation that needs to intervene. He's talking about things like better signage. Maybe there is certain infrastructure that can be built into places where these mopeds should not be driving. Better education, for example. The mayor is speaking about it in a very familiar way. He often invokes police as the solution.

Brian Lehrer: There, we leave it for today with our lead Eric Adams reporter Liz Kim, who usually joins on Wednesdays after the Mayor's weekly Tuesday news conference. Usually, the only time all week that he takes questions from reporters on topics not of his own choosing. Liz, probably talk to you next Wednesday. Thanks for today.

Elizabeth Kim: Thank you, Brian.

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