Tuesday, November 3, 2026
The MTA Wants a 4% Fare Hike. Its Own Watchdog Says the Real Problem Is a Staffing Rule.
Riders will pay more. The MTA's financial plan for next year includes a 4 percent fare and toll increase, with the board voting in December. The bill keeps coming regardless: the Citizens Budget Commission, the city's budget watchdog, now projects a $300 million gap next year that grows to $900 million by 2030 unless labor and health care costs come down. Its fix is unglamorous. Stop paying a second worker to ride trains that already run on automated signals — on the L and 7 lines, the operator's main remaining task is pressing a button about every 20 seconds to show they're alert. Eliminating those jobs would save $36.5 million a year, and phasing out two-person crews system-wide could save $500 million, per the CBC. The transit workers' union calls it the same old pitch to balance the books on labor's back. The legislature passed a two-person-crew mandate last year. Governor Hochul vetoed it.
The takeaway — Riders are being asked to pay 4 percent more while the city's own watchdog points to savings sitting right there in the staffing rules. A mandate that makes you pay a second worker to supervise a machine is a way of spending other people's fares to protect a job description, and the one party never consulted is the one holding the MetroCard. Credit where it's due: Hochul vetoed the two-person mandate last year. The question is whether Albany sends her another one.
Mamdani Threatens to Sue Washington Over a Parking Lot
Zohran Mamdani has found something to litigate. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and ICE officials, the mayor's office says federal agents have been using unstaffed city-owned lots — including one at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and lots near a preschool in Flushing Meadows Corona Park — to stage immigration enforcement. The letter states that “ICE has not secured any authorization from the City to use these lots for immigration enforcement” and warns that continued use will bring legal action. “If they keep coming back, we will see them in court,” Mamdani told reporters. Neither DHS nor ICE has responded in print. Governor Hochul says she is “deeply disturbed by reports” of the practice. City Hall also issued a new Parks policy for staff confronting outside law enforcement. New York has no shortage of problems to litigate. This is the one that made the mayor's desk today.
The takeaway — Every city has finite attention, and it's telling where this one points a lawsuit. Washington is a far more comfortable opponent than a budget gap or a repair backlog (opinion). A mayor who wants to be in court with the federal government will never run short of cases.
Two Storms, Weeks of Frozen Snow Piles — Now the Council Wants a Hearing on Plowing
New York is about to ask itself how it plans to handle winter — a question some residents might have preferred answered before the piles froze. Two major storms hit the city earlier this year, and persistent cold kept snow piles frozen solid for weeks. On Monday, the City Council's sanitation committee was scheduled to review the city's snow-removal preparations, including a bill from Councilmember Ty Hankerson that would require the Department of Sanitation to keep and publish its historical snowplowing records on the PlowNYC website. Right now the site only shows when a block was last cleared; it keeps no history. Federal forecasters expect a warmer-than-average winter, partly thanks to El Niño — though meteorologists say a major storm is still very much on the table.
The takeaway — It takes a Council bill to make City Hall keep a public record of where it actually plowed (opinion). A government that asks for your trust should be able to show its work, and a forecast of mild weather is not a snow plan.