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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYCNow, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, January 9th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill.

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Michael Hill: New York City's bodega owners are fed up after 49 automatic teller machine thefts in 3 months by a group now called the Midnight Smashers. WNYC's Phil Corso has more.

Phil Corso: Using stolen cars, the gang has been smashing into stores, stealing ATMs, and disappearing without a trace. The United Bodegas of America wants action. The association is offering a $5,000 reward for any tips that lead to arrests. Spokesperson Fernando Mateo says the attacks are tearing apart livelihoods and threatening safety. The NYPD has released surveillance video of the suspects and is urging anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.

Michael Hill: New York City Mayor Eric Adams is facing a slew of reelection challengers and is defending himself against federal bribery charges, but the mayor continues to sound a defiant tone and did so during his State of the City address yesterday at the Apollo Theater.

Mayor Eric Adams: There were some who said, "Step down." I said, "No, I must step up." I must step up.

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Michael Hill: Adams spent most of his time talking about policies he says will help those living on the street or experiencing serious mental illness. He also says he's planning on adding more cleaners to city parks and opening up some schoolyards to the general public to make sure more New Yorkers have regular access to green space. The mayor is expected to be on trial in the spring and is running in the Democratic primary in June.

New York City is shutting down a massive shelter for migrant families at Floyd Bennett Field. WNYC's Liam Quigley reports the National Park Service looking to start a new chapter at the historic site.

Liam Quigley: The tent facility on the federally-owned airfield's runway was designed to house up to 500 families, but the city now plans to move everyone out by January 15th, five days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, who's promised mass deportations of migrants. The National Park Service wants to revamp the recreational facilities at the site. They're seeking a new company to run the facilities and golf courses in and around the airfield. Federal parks officials say the space is underutilized and in need of repairs. Whoever takes over the lease will be required to renovate the airfield's buildings, which house everything from athletic fields to swimming pools and an ice rink.

Michael Hill: 28 and clear now. It feels like it's 13. Mostly sunny today and 37, but the wind chill's down to the mid-teens, and then a chance of snow overnight.

Janae Pierre: Up next, our weekly segment of On the Way, covering all transportation news. That's after the break.

Speaker: NYC, NYC, NYC.

?Sean Carlson: It's Friday, which means it's time for On the Way, our weekly segment on all things considered, breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us is WNYC's transportation reporters Stephen Nessen and Ramsay Khalifa. Okay, so it happened. I feel like I'm in a fever dream. Congestion pricing is actually in effect now. It's hard to believe after all the twists and turns that we've been talking about that this thing is actually a reality. We should say, there's pictures all over social media. We can see for ourselves that streets have so few cars on them this week. What does that say?

?Stephen Nessen: Well, anecdotally, we can say this has been a remarkable week. I mean, I myself bike over the Brooklyn Bridge. There was less traffic this week, definitely. People I've heard from that commute from New Jersey say it's faster on the bus, faster to drive back and forth, and just listen to this sound. This is from outside WNYC Studios on Varick Street. It's normally clogged with vehicles heading to the Holland Tunnel. The horns used to start honking around 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. We don't hear any horns.

I would say arguably it's dead quiet. The little few vehicles there are, they go pretty fast. Ramsay and I talked to one of the pedestrian safety managers down there, Shirley Matthews.

Ramsay Khalifa: We usually work right up there, and around this time, we're hearing the honking. We're hearing you guys yelling at cars.

Shirley Matthews: Yes. 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.

?Stephen Nessen: I was going to say, is this like in the summer? Maybe on like a Monday or Sunday--

Shirley Matthews: Sunday mornings.

Stephen Nessen: Yes, Monday morning, but never in the afternoon. Never.

?Sean Carlson: Interesting.

?Stephen Nessen: Look, it is still really too soon to have any meaningful conclusions from just anecdotes. In fact, early data from the traffic monitoring company INRIX that was shared with us shows maybe only half the picture. We can look at traffic in two different ways. There's traffic speed and traffic volume. The data that we got looks at average speeds in the Manhattan zone. Remember, that's everywhere below 60th Street in Manhattan. Those figures don't really show much. Speeds [inaudible 00:05:14] were actually a couple percentage points slower than a comparative January day last year.

What does that actually say? There are many factors that can contribute to traffic speeds like weather events or accidents, not just the toll. What we're looking to find is traffic volume. How many cars have actually entered the Manhattan zone in any given day since the tolls went live? Let's remember that's the key deterrence with this program. Impose a new fee with the hopes that people decide not to drive in anymore. We're still waiting for INREX to give that specific traffic volume data.

We've also looked at Google Traffic data, which shows how slow or how fast crossings at the various bridges and tunnels are. Traffic seems to be clearer than normal. Again, it's still early. Not everyone is back from the holidays, and weather may be affecting car traffic, too.

?Sean Carlson: Yes. Okay, so we know how contentious the rollout of this program has been. We've covered multiple lawsuits against it here, including one from New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. New York State tried to settle with him, but he refused. What's his reaction now?

?Ramsay Khalifa: Our colleague John Campbell and I, we reported this week that the MTA has put a lot on the table. The negotiations were confidential, but two sources with knowledge of the talks, who were not authorized to speak about them said that New York and the MTA offered New Jersey five things. Let me just go through those.

The first thing was expanding this existing crossing credit. Currently, it's $3 for drivers entering Manhattan by the Lincoln or Holland tunnels. From New Jersey, they would expand that to the George Washington Bridge.

The second thing is a commitment to cover half of an estimated $1 billion shortfall for the planned Newport Authority Bus Terminal. I'm not sure heard about that in Manhattan, which serves New Jersey transit buses. A $30 million in funding for traffic and pollution mitigation projects in New Jersey. A commitment to prioritize the New Jersey Transit portions of the New Penn Station project. Also, $1 million for a planning study for the Bergen Loop. That's a project that would connect more New Jersey trains to Penn Station without requiring riders to transfer at Secaucus.

?Speaker: Let me remind you, New Jersey's attorneys declined all of that. They said they wanted a higher crossing credit, and they thought that the traffic and pollution mitigation funding that the MTA is going to provide is too low. That's what sources said. Here's Governor Phil Murphy himself speaking on WYNC.

Governor Phil Murphy: I don't want to get the details of negotiations, but what people are saying out there are patently absurd, and I hate to say it, we're not giving up. We were very reasonable about this, but we're not giving up.

?Speaker: It's not clear what Murphy is not giving up because a judge has already ruled the program can proceed. In fact, the only unfinished business in this lawsuit is clarity on how the MTA is going to use that $9.8 million in mitigation funding for Newark, City of Orange, East Orange, and Fort Lee. That's money from congestion pricing that was going to happen no matter what.

?Speaker: Congestion pricing is in effect. When will transit riders see the improvements they were promised to service?

?Speaker: I got to talk to riders on the first day the program went live on Sunday, and a lot of them are saying, "Hey, are we going to see improvements on the subway already?" Service is slow and it's kind of not that great. It's not up to par of what we're expecting here. Remember, that's another prong of this new program. The money generated from the tolls will be bonded to upgrade many parts of the MTA. It's essentially a $15 billion loan backed by the money from congestion pricing.

Look, that loan won't come through for another year, according to the MTA, but they'll allow them to buy new train cars, start work on new subway elevators at train stations, and more. These are all projects that were in the MTA's last construction plan. There's still a new one that we're looking at.

?Speaker: Remember, the toll was originally going to cost $15 a day. Now it's $9 a day. Hokul cut all the congestion pricing fees by 40% across the board, so trucks are paying less, buses are paying less. That means the full charge, the full $15, won't be realized until the year 2031. She's going to incrementally increase it till we get to there. 2031, I think $15 will probably go a lot less.

?Speaker: Sure.

?Speaker: Remember, this means the MTA has to stretch out all those construction plans as well. It could take a longer time for new ADA signal improvements and new train cars and buses to arrive.

?Sean Carlson: Okay. Every week in our On the Way newsletter, we answer a question from a curious commuter. The little boy in me loves this question. It comes from Erica in Manhattan. What is New York City's fastest subway train and how fast does it go?

?Speaker: Well, buckle up, Erica.

?Speaker: Let's hear it.

?Speaker: Well, I don't have the exact train. Several trains can go this fast, but it's 55 miles per hour.

?Speaker: Sick.

?Speaker: It's only in certain parts of the system, so, slow down, buddy. East River Tunnels and certain express tracks allow trains to go that fast. Think of, say, the Lexington Avenue line, which carries the four or five trains in Manhattan. It can reach those top speeds in those long stretches between 86th and 125th Streets. Also, think about the A train, those Express stops between 59th Street and 125th Street.

I myself was once on a train with an MTA crew that was traveling throughout the system. They were looking for faulty signals that were miscalibrated to be overly conservative. Back in 2018, this was this project by the former transit president Andy Byford, much beloved by many people who listened to workers who told him, "You can actually speed up trains if you fix all these little faulty signals." There were hundreds of them. That really did help speed up train speeds. We are at that zooming 55 miles per hour in some sections.

Sean Carlson: Well, thank you, Erica, for the question, and thanks to WNYC transportation reporters Stephen Nessen and Ramsey Khalifa. You can stay in the know on all things transit or ask a question of your own by signing up for our weekly newsletter at gothamist.com/ontheway. My friends, it's been a banner week for you. Hopefully, you can finally get some rest. Thanks so much.

?Speaker: Thank you.

?Speaker: Thank you, Sean.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYCNow from wnyc. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you this afternoon.

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