Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, September 29th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: Heavy rainfall today. Mayor Eric Adams says he's issuing a state of emergency. He spoke to the media just a short while ago and warned New Yorkers to take extreme caution and to shelter in place. He said the storm was not over and that we could possibly see 8 inches of rain before the day is over. That's like 8 feet of snow. Governor Kathy Hochul has declared a state of emergency in the New York City area as the remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia continue to battle the region.

There's major disruptions across transportation in both New York and New Jersey. MTA service is severely disrupted. The agency says there's only extremely limited subway service because of the heavy flooding blanketing the region. Community rails are also affected. There's also significant flooding on many roadways. Robert Sinclair is with AAA Northeast. He says the safest thing to do is not drive at all.

Robert Sinclair: You have to realize if you're in a sinking vehicle, just about every vehicle made these days has power windows, and once that vehicle is immersed, it's going to short out the electrical system, so the windows won't be able to open.

Michael Hill: The city says 6 inches of water is enough to reach the bottom of most passenger cars, which could cause the vehicle to stall or the driver to lose control. JFK and LaGuardia both have major delays with all inbound flights held this morning. At LaGuardia, Terminal A remains closed. Airport officials are asking travelers to avoid the area. In New Jersey, Hoboken, officials are warning residents to avoid southern roads into and out of the city due to flooding. [unintelligible 00:02:14] look at your forecast now. We're expecting more rain today. Alternate side parking is suspended through tomorrow but pay the parking meters.

Interviewer: On Death, Sex, & Money, we feature interviews with you, our community of listeners, getting honest about uncomfortable things like our relationship with alcohol.

Interviewee 1: Am I having a drink because I need a drink or because I want to drink? Who's in control?

Interviewee 2: There has been times where I grab a beer, go into the bathroom, I lock the door, I crack it, and I drink it.

Interviewer: Does your dad know you call him an alcoholic?

Interviewee 3: He does.

Interviewer: Let's talk about hard things together. Listen to Death, Sex, & Money wherever you get podcasts.

Michael Hill: The plan to put a car-free bus lane on Fordham Road in the Bronx is being left in the rearview mirror. Streetsblog reports City Hall is abandoning a plan to upgrade the crucial corridor after months of opposition from major players in the Bronx like Fordham University, the Bronx Zoo, and city council members. Reporter Dave Colon has been covering the fallout. He joins us now to discuss how the situation has changed.

Dave, let's back up a little bit here. Would you explain to us what the situation for buses is like right now on Fordham Road and why some officials say they need it to change?

Dave Colon: Back in the Bloomberg administration in about 2008 or 2009, the city installed the first version of what we know now as Select Bus Service where you can pay to board the bus when you're on the street, and it came with a brand new bus lane. That really sped up buses. It raised ridership to huge degrees. It was a huge success, but unfortunately, the design got a little outdated.

More cars started coming through onto the road, and bus speeds started dropping as a result of that because the bus lane was blocked, and ridership dropped as well. The city, looking at what was once one of its huge success stories, wanted to come back and say, "Okay, it's time for us to bring something a little bit better."

Michael Hill: Despite that, you and your Streetsblog colleague, Jesse Colburn, report the plan is dead as of last week. What happened?

Dave Colon: In a lot of instances in the city, you get these fights. We had McGuinness Boulevard, my colleagues have been going over that at Greenpoint, where business interests have said they don't want a street redesign for a bike lane. In this instance, you had Fordham University, you had the Botanical Gardens, the Bronx Zoo, the Belmont BID, which is Little Italy, which is not actually on Fordham Road but is near Fordham Road, and they were very adamant they don't want these things because they say that it doesn't allow their customers to drive to Little Italy and pick up goods.

Michael Hill: Dave, was this unexpected?

Dave Colon: No, I don't think that you could say it's totally unexpected. When the city suggests a lot of bus projects, there tends to be some opposition, and especially because what the Department of Transportation had first suggested was three options. There were two suggestions for busways. Busways are designs that make it so that you can't have through traffic on a busy street.

There was also, like I said, the offset bus lane, which is the one that they went with, where there would still be car traffic, truck traffic. First, the business interests said, "No busway," and the city went, "Okay, we have a compromise design for you. It is a bus lane that is off the curb. We will add parking where the bus lane used to be," and the people against the bus lane or the people against the busway, I should say, still were adamant. "No bus lane at all. Just repaint the original bus lane and see what happens."

Michael Hill: Is there any chance to resurrect this plan or to modify it?

Dave Colon: The question is more just a matter of political will. Is anybody going to have the political will to say, "We're going to do this"? What the situation is at this point, the DOT-- allegedly what we reported was that the decision of City Hall said, "We're going to paint the existing bus lane and we're going to send traffic agents up there sometimes to try to make sure that it stays clear, and we're going to revisit things in June and see if it's gotten any better." I think that what you need to keep in mind here is that the offset bus lane, the DOT was saying, would improve bus speeds by 20% on the corridor.

There's no metric that City Hall and the DOT put out with this plan where they said, "Well, okay, if buses are only 5% faster, we're still going to do a better plan." We may end up with the offset bus lane anyway, and it's just kind of disappointing to consider [unintelligible 00:07:13] delay tactic was successful.

Michael Hill: Dave Colon is a reporter with Streetsblog. Dave, thanks so much for joining us on this.

Dave Colon: Oh, thank you. Great to be here.

Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC NOW 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. We'll be back this evening.

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