Free bus pilot coming to NYC under Albany budget deal

Plus: No charges yet in subway chokehold death [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( [VIEW IN BROWSER]( [DONATE]( [WNYC Politics Brief] Free bus pilot coming to NYC under Albany budget deal Plus: No charges yet for man who fatally choked F train passenger. Fare hikes this year will be smaller than expected. And a proposal to ban paper temp tags in New Jersey. [an MTA bus at a bus stop] Marc A. Hermann/MTA A pilot program [making MTA buses fare-free on one route per borough]( won't last as long as Gov. Kathy Hochul previously promised, according to budget bills published by lawmakers in Albany this week. The current budget agreement says the program can only last six to 12 months — shorter than the two-year span Hochul initially announced. Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris, who backed the program, said extending the pilot longer than a year would require the MTA to complete a federal environmental review, which would have delayed the launch of the free rides. The legislation requires the MTA to choose which routes will be free within two months after the budget passes. Three months after that, likely in October, the free buses will go into effect. MTA Chair Janno Lieber said the bus lines the MTA will pick for the pilot can’t share street space with other routes. He said that would make the effects of free buses easier to study, and prevent the free routes from coaxing riders away from money-making lines. "We want to make sure we’re not accelerating fare evasion patterns on the buses," Lieber said. "We don’t want people to be confused about which bus is free and which bus is actually still charging." Overall, the budget deal comes as a relief to the MTA, which had projected an operating deficit of more than $600 billion this year, and more than $1 billion in the coming years. This budget is expected to provide $800 million annually to the MTA by increasing the payroll mobility tax to 0.6% on New York City businesses that make more than $312,500 each quarter. Suburban employers in the Hudson Valley and Long Island would not see a tax increase. New York City's surrounding counties received a carve-out in the budget after outcry from elected officials who said the areas’ businesses shouldn’t be hit with a rate hike. — [Reporting by Stephen Nessen]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- No charges yet for man who fatally choked Black homeless New Yorker on the F train [protesters in the Broadway-Lafayette station] Samantha Max/Gothamist The death of a Black man who appeared to be suffering from mental illness on an F train on Monday is stirring outrage after [a white man who placed him in a chokehold wasn’t charged by the NYPD](. Dozens gathered on the Broadway-Lafayette subway platform Wednesday to protest the death of 30-year-old Jordan Neely. Chants of "Black lives matter" and "the homeless matter" echoed through the station, where Neely had been picked up by emergency workers and taken to a hospital, where he died, police said. The incident is under continued investigation, according to the NYPD and the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Neely died by compression of the neck, or chokehold, according to the medical examiner's office, which ruled the death a homicide. Neely's death touches on some of the most pressing issues facing the city and society more broadly, including safety in public places; the treatment of young Black men; the broadening mental health crisis; and the effectiveness of policing. State Sen. Julia Salazar, a Democrat, said in an interview that Neely was "lynched," adding that Neely likely wouldn't have been perceived as a threat if he wasn’t Black — and that if the perpetrator were Black, he’d likely be in custody. "The mayor’s office have, I think, sent the message for a long time now that people experiencing homelessness are a problem, rather than they are human beings," she said, referring to the sweeps of homeless encampments and police removal of homeless people from the subway. The activist group VOCAL New York released a statement blaming Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams for Neely's death, which VOCAL said was the result of fear-mongering rhetoric about crime and a lack of support for people experiencing homelessness and mental illness. When she was asked about the incident by reporters on Wednesday, Hochul called it "deeply disturbing." [Read more of Samantha Max and Matt Katz's reporting on the death of Jordan Neely here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's what else is happening The tentative budget agreement in Albany would enable the MTA to keep single-ride subway and bus fares under $3 this year. While the transit agency anticipates bringing back regular fare increases following a pandemic moratorium, this year's budget would keep the increase at 4%, rather than the 5.5% initially expected. ([Gothamist]( New York City is adding 50 electric vehicle charging plugs at 13 public parking garages across town. Mayor Adams said he aims to ensure every New Yorker lives within 2.5 miles of an electric car charging station by 2035, when officials want all new passenger vehicles sold in the state to be zero-emission. ([Gothamist]( The city Department of Transportation launched an online portal where you can report instances of double-parking. Unlike a previous initiative for cracking down on excessive idling, civilians won't get a financial reward for snitching. ([Gothamist]( A New Jersey lawmaker is proposing a complete elimination of paper temporary license plates. Assembly Member Annette Chaparro, a Democrat from Hoboken, suggested cracking down on temp tag fraud by getting rid of temp tags altogether. ([Streetsblog]( Would more people actually pay their parking tickets if the fines were issued on a sliding scale based on income? City Councilmember Justin Brannan introduced a bill that would make penalties steeper for top earners and smaller for working-class New Yorkers, arguing that the city is missing out on $2 billion in unpaid low-level fines because the amounts are too high. 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