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Dear New Yorkers,

When Billie W. Turner retired in late March after a quarter century with the MTA, she was barely five months removed from one of the most horrific on-the-job encounters a subway train operator can experience.

On Oct. 24, while at the controls of a No. 7 train in Queens, she fatally struck a man who police said was on the tracks at the 82nd Street-Jackson Heights station. He was standing, she said, in a spot where “I couldn’t see him until I got right up on him.”

“I can still hear the sound,” Turner said. “Everything was just ‘Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!’”

That “12-9” — the MTA’s radio code for a person under the train — was among 241 such collisions in 2023, when 97 people were fatally struck by subway trains, according to agency data.

The number of trains making contact with people has surged nearly 30% since 2018 when 189 were hit — even as the current weekday ridership of more than 3 million remains well below the pre-pandemic mark of 5 million-plus.

Multiple train operators told THE CITY that spotting someone on the tracks is terrifying when there is little time to react.

“You try to do everything you can to avoid this, but unfortunately there are certain scenarios where you can’t,” said one train operator. “We operate at high speeds and these trains, they do not stop on a dime.”

Read more about train collisions here.

Weather scoop by New York Metro Weather Thursday’s Weather Rating: 4/10. Cloudy and dreary weather is back. Oh joy. Periods of showers are likely today, with high temperatures in the lower 60s. The vibes are getting increasingly damp out there.

Our Other Top Stories

Manhattan Community Board 5, which covers 14th Street to Central Park South, is in an uproar over members — including the board’s new chair — who are affiliated with a pro-housing development organization. Now, the board is preparing to vote on an emergency resolution aimed squarely at those members: It would prohibit any CB member affiliated with an advocacy group or nonprofit from voting on matters related to their cause. Participatory budgeting is underway through Sunday, April 14, in 24 out of 51 City Council districts. It’s a process by which residents are asked to direct how legislators spend capital funds to improve infrastructure in their communities. Find out more in THE CITY’s guide.

Reporter’s Notebook

Rents Remain (Damn) High

Rents on available apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn remain stuck at near records levels, a situation that may continue until interest rates come down.

Median rent in Manhattan for new leases in March declined slightly to $4,100 and was essentially unchanged in Brooklyn at $3,495, according to the latest Elliman Report released Thursday.

One major factor keeping rents high is that many renters who would like to buy apartments in the city or move to homes in the suburbs are unable to do so because of high mortgage rates. With the latest economic data showing inflation remains above the Federal Reserve Board’s targets, any reduction in rates seems likely to be delayed until later this year.

In the meantime, the legislature and the governor continue to work on a series of proposed changes to boost housing production, but no deal is expected this week. In any event, those changes will take several years to increase housing supply in the city.

— Greg David

Things To Do

Here’s what’s going on around the city this week.

Friday, April 12: Spring First Discoveries, with special activities for nature-lovers age 4 and under. Free with admission on Wednesdays and Fridays through June 14, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Saturday, April 13: The 2024 New York Restoration Project Tree Giveaway. Free trees will be available at various times and locations across the five boroughs. Registration required. Monday, April 15: Written Work: Poetry, Labor, and the Global City, the kickoff event of the New York Public Library’s World Literature Festival — a book party “unpacking the pleasures and pain of working in the city.” Free from 6:30 p.m. online and in-person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library.

THE KICKER: Here are a bunch of historic photographs of the early days of the subway’s construction, via Curbed.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Make it a great Thursday.

Love,

THE CITY

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