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Speaker 1: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, February 28th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill.

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Michael Hill: State corrections officials say two men incarcerated at the Sing Sing State Prison are now dead. WNYC's John Campbell reports the deaths come amid unauthorized corrections officer strikes.

John Campbell: The corrections department says 67-year-old Anthony Douglas, and 35-year-old Franklin Dominguez were found unresponsive in their cells. It remains unclear whether the deaths were, in any way, tied to staff shortages caused by the ongoing work stoppage. Corrections officers continue to strike at more than two dozen state prisons, including Sing Sing. State officials and the officers' union are in mediation to resolve the strike, which the union hasn't officially sanctioned.

Michael Hill: The Westchester County Medical examiner has not yet released official causes of death for either person. The first new immigration detention center, President Trump's second term is opening in Newark, New Jersey at the site of a former detention center. The administration says that the Delaney Hall site will hold a 1,000 beds, doubling local detention space. Amy Torres is the Executive Director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, and she says the development is concerning.

Amy Torres: Delaney hall sits about 10 miles as the crow flies from Lower Manhattan. This is going to be devastating not just for our state, but for the entire region.

Michael Hill: The site will be run by the private prison contractor GEO, or Geo Group under a 15 year $1 billion contract. The company says, the facility will open later this year. Newark's Mayor Ras Baraka says, "Without satisfying city property use requirements, inspections and permits, Delaney Hall cannot lawfully open in Newark at this time."

A new book explores a crime that shook Park Slope in '73 when a man poured sulfuric acid on his four-year-old neighbor's head. The crime blinded and burned Joshua Miele. He went on to become a scientist, earned a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2021. Miele hopes sharing his story will help normalize disability, and blindness for readers.

Joshua Miele: The thing that I hope people take away from the book is that blindness, and disability, in general, are not heroic. They're not tragic, they're just normal. It's just another way of being in the world.

Michael Hill: The book is Connecting Dots, and it's out next Tuesday, March 4th. 41 and clear now, mostly sunny, and 51 today and gusty, and then tomorrow March 1st, mostly sunny, mid-50s, gusty. Cold and windy at night, cold on Sunday. This is WNYC in New York.

Speaker 1: It's Friday. That means it's time for our weekly segment of On The Way covering all things transportation. That's after the break.

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Sean Carlson: On WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. It is time for On The Way, our weekly segment on All Things Considered. Breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us are WNYC's Transportation Reporter Stephen Nessen and Ramsey Khalifeh. Okay, the fight over congestion pricing continues to brew. This week, the MTA revealed how much money the tolls brought in during the first months of operation. Governor Hochul even dropped in on an unusual MTA board meeting. What does this mean for the future of the program?

Stephen Nessen: Let's start with the money. $48 million, that's how much the MTA says drivers paid during the first month. It was a short month, remember, since it did launch a few days into January. The agency says, though, that's a good sign, especially since January is also, typically, a slow month for travel into the city. The financial wizards at the agency say, it puts them on track to hit their goal of $500 million in the first year. Remember, that's the money it needs, so it can sell bonds to fund $15 billion in transit upgrades.

Ramsey Khalifeh: The MTA did say that was still 7% short of their original projection for the month of January. They still do see this as a win, though. Program expenses, so the cost to maintain this program were actually lower than the MTA had thought, had anticipated. If you do a little math, which is not that interesting, net revenue is higher.

It doesn't change the fact, though, that the MTA missed their goal by $3.4 million. Another thing the MTA shared that's interesting was the type of vehicles that contributed to this first month of revenue. A majority of the revenue came from personal passenger vehicles. It's about 68%. Then, about a quarter came from taxis, or for hire vehicles.

Sean Carlson: Now, the Trump administration is ordering the MTA to wind congestion pricing down. You reported this week the feds are giving the MTA a deadline of March 21st to turn those tolls off. We know that the MTA is suing to block the Fed. What is the latest on that?

Stephen Nessen: You'll recall, initially, MTA Chair Janno Lieber said he was going to appeal to Trump as a fellow New Yorker, a businessman focused on the bottom line. To that end, the MTA has trotted out some promising numbers. We've reported on this show, traffic is down, which means people get to drive where they're going faster. Broadway sales are up. Commercial leases are up. Foot traffic is up. All signs, the MTA say, show that congestion pricing is not hurting the city.

Just the opposite. In fact, things have gotten better. Governor Hochul dropped in on the MTA board meeting this week, which they held at Grand Central Madison-

Sean Carlson: Correct.

Stephen Nessen: -just above one of the Long Island Railroad tracks, just to make it fun, and to celebrate the two-year anniversary of that station. I digress. Hochul was there to regale us with tales of her trip to Washington last Friday, in which she brought a glossy magazine with big pictures and simplified data, hoping to persuade President Trump to drop his opposition to the program.

Sean Carlson: All right, well, how'd that work out? [chuckles]

Stephen Nessen: Not great. Not that great. Hochul reported it herself that Trump really wasn't moved by all of that. She did take a dig at him, noting, he's probably never missed a kid's sporting event, because he was stuck on a train, or even stood in a flooded subway station. Here she is at yesterday's MTA board meeting.

Governor Hochul: When someone tries to say, "No, we have another vision for your city." We just have to say what I'm saying, "We respectfully disagree." Take that to the courts, take it to the people, because I know there's a lot of power in that Oval Office, but I'll put that power up against the power of six million pissed off commuters in New York City right there alone.

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Sean Carlson: Whoa.

Stephen Nessen: I think she's hoping the court of public opinion will come out so strongly for congestion pricing, that the administration will have to back down. The Trump administration has argued that congestion pricing should never have won approval in the first place. They say that's because the goal is to raise money, and not reduce congestion. That's what they say. That the federal government doesn't allow for a tolled zone, which is what congestion pricing is.

Ramsey Khalifeh: The MTA is suing, in hopes a court of law will also rule that the federal government can't really rescind its approval, or kill the tolling program. There's no date yet set for the hearing, but we do now know there's a March 21st deadline for someone to make a move.

Sean Carlson: Okay, moving on to another wrinkle. The congestion pricing here. I'm trying to wrap my head around this, Ramsey. You reported this week on an unexpected perk of congestion pricing for Uber and Lyft drivers. What's the deal with that?

Ramsey Khalifeh: Here are the current rules with congestion pricing. If an Uber enters the zone with a passenger, the rider is going to pay $1.50 surcharge. For yellow cabs, that surcharge is $0.75. You know who doesn't get charged? The drivers. That includes when their Uber or Lyft enters that zone without a passenger at all. The MT did confirm that the plates from the Taxi & Limousine Commission on for-hired vehicles and taxis are actually exempt from the tolls. That's more than 100,000 drivers.

Some taxi drivers, they borrow their work cars, and at the end of the day, they drop it off at a garage. For Uber and Lyft drivers, those are people who typically own their own cars, so if they want to free ride into Manhattan to run errands or to hang out, the congestion tools aren't actually stopping them. Here's Ahmed Fanny. He's an Uber driver who says he often takes his car into Manhattan when he's not working.

Ahmed: Sometimes I went down Manhattan to do something with a car. Sometimes I have a doctor's appointment also. Maybe I go for shopping.

Ramsey Khalifeh: I do want you to know. He's commuting from the Bronx often, so other drivers I spoke with told me the same thing. At first, they were confused about what they would have to pay, what they wouldn't have to pay. They were later, and they said, pleasantly surprised to learn that their cars didn't get towed. The Taxi Drivers Union told me that drivers maybe aren't likely to abuse this exemption, since they'd rather be making money when they're driving in Manhattan. They also said that these people work between six or seven days a week, typically.

Sean Carlson: Okay. Finally, we learned about a fascinating experiment the MTA has been doing with Google. The MTA, they put a Google Pixel smartphone on train cars to see if it could detect track defects. What did they find?

Stephen Nessen: This was first reported in the tech magazine Wired. What they did was, they put six Google Android phones on an A train. These phones are recording the sound and vibration data from the train, as it rumbles down the tracks, and it sends that data to the cloud. The cloud is analyzing, using AI, all the vibrations and track data, looking for abnormalities.

Sean Carlson: What happened there?

Stephen Nessen: Well, apparently, 92% of the problems that AI identified, were later confirmed by humans to, in fact, be track defects that were then fixed. They also had one of the assistant track inspectors listen to these recordings himself, and he noted where he heard problems like, say, there's a loose joint, or a loose bolt, or a rail defect. His expert ear only identified 80% of the problems.

Sean Carlson: Oh, no. [chuckles] Is that game over, man, for humanity? Are we obsolete now, and the robot overlords are going to take over?

Stephen Nessen: Well, as a matter of fact, the MTA calls it a game changer, but they're not gonna wipe out their team yet.

Sean Carlson: Okay. [laughs]

Stephen Nessen: First of all, the MTA is still required to have a human inspect every mile of track with their own eyes. The MTA is still running its fancy track geometry cars. Those scan the tracks looking for defects with a high tech computer. It's a promising development. The MTA is always criticized for buying expensive custom technology that's later obsolete. A cell phone, on the other hand, is cheap enough. It's, in fact, looking for other companies with similar capabilities, as it thinks of ways to incorporate this kind of tech into its operations.

Sean Carlson: Yes, interesting stuff. Every week in our On The Way newsletter, we answer a question from a curious commuter. This week's question is from DeShawn from East Orange, New Jersey. Who asks, "I would like to know why there is still not a ferry landing for Coney Island from the NYC ferry. What's going on with that?"

Stephen Nessen: Well, we have an answer. Back in 2019, former mayor Bill de Blasio announced he was going to add a landing that would provide ferry service to that neighborhood. The EDC, that's the New York City Economic Development Corporation that runs the New York City Ferry Service, actually began constructing a dock at the Coney Island Creek, but it abandoned the project in 2022.

The reason it did this, they say, is due to navigation and safety concerns related to sand buildup. Sorry to say. The agency spokesperson, Jeff Holmes said, consultants found constructing a landing at Coney Island would cost five times as much as other parts of the city, so they have abandoned it. This is another way to say the Coney Island stop for the New York City ferry plans are sunk.

Sean Carlson: Well, maybe not the answer that DeShawn was looking for, but in any event, thanks to DeShawn for that question, and thanks to WNYC Transportation Reporters Stephen Nessen and Ramsey Khalifeh. You can stay in the know on all things transit, or ask a question of your own by signing up for our weekly newsletter@gothamist.com/ontheway. Stephen, Ramsey, thanks so much.

Ramsey Khalifeh: Thank you, Sean.

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