Loopholes in the housing code, fare jumpers on the buses, and drivers blowing through school zones — somebody's actually trying to close all three today. This is New York City Politics and Urbanism Daily — I'm Cassidy, Devin's here, and we've got a full one: landlord penalties in the Bronx, the MTA's new fare enforcement push, and Albany finally moving on the Stop Super Speeders Act. So the theme today is pretty simple: who gets squeezed, and who keeps slipping through. Stick around — we'll tell you who's winning and who's just selling the spin. THE CITY, with Samantha Maldonado:
In the past two years, developers have filed permits for more than 150 residential buildings with that precise number of units, per city data. Why? Because at that size, savvy builders looking to take a major tax break for residential developments can avoid paying a higher minimum wage to construction workers — while minimizing the number of affordable apartments they must include.
THE CITY has been tracking a pattern in permit filings: more than 150 residential buildings in the last two years, all with exactly 99 apartments. Come on. That's not an accident. Of course not. The second a threshold kicks in, developers stop right under it and sit there. That's the whole game. And some are even splitting what is basically one building into two on paper. There's a rendering at 86th and First that's literally one tower, filed as two. Technically compliant, and still completely at odds with the city's goals. Nobody at Buildings is losing sleep over this. The loophole exists because the people who benefit from it are the same people who get a lunch reservation with the people who could shut it down. NYC Mayor's Office writes:
I will cut to the chase: our buildings need serious repairs. We need new management. I have to stress: we need and want new management. But this mayor has shown that he is on the side of the tenants like us, who are fighting against bad landlords and neglect. So today, we finally have some reasons to have hope in our fight for repairs and a more stable home.
Mayor Mamdani and HPD are calling this the largest-ever penalty against negligent landlords in the Bronx. The announcement was in Morrisania, at a building where the Robert Fulton Tenants Association has been fighting for basic repairs. 'Largest-ever penalty' makes for a nice press release. The only question that matters is whether the landlord actually feels it, or just files it under cost of doing business and keeps collecting rent. Fair. And that's the HPD enforcement question that never quite gets answered at the podium. But I will say this: tenants from the building were on stage, not just city officials. That's not nothing. Mamdani showing up in Morrisania in person is a choice. That's not a City Hall backdrop. Whether the repairs actually happen is the next story, and I'll believe it when I see a receiver in that building. 6sqft, with Aaron Ginsburg:
New York City is ramping up efforts to curb bus fare evasion, with agents now using handheld devices to verify payments. During a Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board meeting last week, NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said that with the adoption of the tap-and-go OMNY system, the transit system’s EAGLE fare enforcers will use “onboard validation devices” that check whether customers paid using an OMNY card or cellphone.
MTA is rolling out handheld validation devices on buses — EAGLE agents can now check OMNY payments in real time. This has already been live on Select Bus Service routes for a while, but now they're pushing it to local lines too. Nearly half of local bus riders aren't paying. Half. That's not a rounding error — that's a structural failure, and the MTA is bleeding three hundred million dollars a year on buses alone while Albany fights over the capital budget. Crichlow framed it as 'turning the tide' on subways, with more work to do on buses. That's fair, but SBS routes are already seeing over fifty percent evasion even with this technology in place. A handheld device doesn't fix a packed M15 at rush hour. Right, because enforcement only works if the consequences are real. Until riders believe there is an actual cost to skipping the fare, the gadget is theater. Show me the adjudication rate, not the press release. Streetsblog New York City, with Dave Colon:
Expanding the Fair Fares program, the city’s 50-percent-off transit subsidy for low-income residents, to cover another three-quarters-of-a-million people would cost just $146 million, according to an analysis by a fiscal watchdog, the latest call for the Mamdani administration to beef up the transit discount.
The Citizens Budget Commission has a new read on Fair Fares. They say bumping the income threshold to 250 percent of the federal poverty level would cover about 760,000 more New Yorkers and cost the city $146 million. That's the watchdog's number, and Streetsblog put it on the board. A hundred and forty-six million dollars to get nearly a million more people onto transit at half price — in a city that just spent more than that on a handful of capital overruns nobody remembers? The Mamdani administration needs to treat this like infrastructure, not a favor. The CBC is usually the crowd telling you you can't afford things, so when they're the ones making the case for expansion — even a pretty modest one — that's worth clocking. The eligible pool would climb to almost two million New Yorkers. Two million eligible doesn't mean two million enrolled. Fair Fares has always had an uptake problem. If the city expands eligibility without fixing the signup process, this is a press release, not a transit program. Streetsblog Empire State, with Austin C. Jefferson:
Gov. Hochul’s version of the long-stalled “Stop Super Speeders” bill will be included in the final budget, allowing New York City to require repeat reckless drivers to install devices that prevent the vehicles from being driven at excessive speeds — much like long-established technology that prevent convicted drunk drivers from firing their ignition if they’ve been drinking.
Albany finally moves on this. The Stop Super Speeders Act is in the final state budget, which means New York City can require speed-limiting devices on cars driven by repeat reckless drivers. Streetsblog had this first, just before one in the morning. Sixteen speed-camera violations in a year before anyone does anything — sixteen — and Carl Heastie apparently had to be dragged into the room to sign off. The Senate and Hochul were already there. One man held this up. Credit where it's due: the ignition interlock model isn't new, it works for DWI offenders, and applying it to serial speeders is actually logical policy. The hard part was always the politics, not the technology. Have thoughts on today's stories, a local issue we should follow, or a correction we need to make? Send us a note anytime at nydailyfix at lantern podcasts dot com. We really do read them.
You'll find links to every story we mentioned today in the show notes, so if one grabbed you, that's the place to dig in a little more.
That's New York City Politics and Urbanism Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.