Three weeks ago, Ornella Ramos began commuting back to her essential telecommunications job in Midtown from her home in Washington Heights. “When I board the bus in my neighborhood, it’s usually pretty crowded,” Ramos said.
“The overcrowding makes me feel unsafe because at times, there are so many people in one area of the bus,” Ramos explained, adding that most of the people on the bus live in her neighborhood, and that it “clears out” by the time it reaches Midtown.
“People are more cautious and they try to give others their space, but how do you social distance if there isn’t space?” Ramos said.
While Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that the first phase of reopening the city could take place as soon as the first or second week of June, the MTA hasn’t presented anything concrete it will do to increase service or protect riders on crowded subway or buses, other than aggressive cleaning, which has been underway for some time now. Buses continue to have rear door boarding, and plastic curtains that rope off sections at the front of buses to protect the drivers.
“Look, in any transit system in the country, not just New York but anywhere, once riders start to come back, it's going to be really almost impossible to get that six feet of social distance,” Sarah Feinberg, the interim president of the New York City Transit Authority, told CNBC on Tuesday. “So mask usage is gonna be incredibly important and then just being strategic about putting as much space between you and the next person as possible.”
Feinberg, who oversees bus and subway service for the MTA, added that the agency has been “strategizing about it and planning for it for many weeks and really months,” but did not offer any specifics.
“We want to make sure that we are really transparent with the ridership about what they can expect as they return or making sure that we're doing everything we possibly can to keep the system clean and safe for them and for our workforce,” Feinberg said.
One idea officials have mentioned for potentially addressing crowding problems is a reservation system for riders. Another would be using existing cameras to monitor how many people are entering a station. But with just days until the city starts to reopen, it’s not clear how these plans could be implemented or when the MTA would roll them out.
The New York Stock Exchange isn’t waiting for the MTA: they partially reopened with a ban on employees and visitors from even taking public transit.
At the peak of the pandemic, the MTA simply didn’t have enough workers to run a regular schedule, and with ridership down by more than 90 percent under the state’s stay-at-home order, the agency began running what it called “essential service” for essential workers, which is roughly 75 percent of normal service. It has also shut down subway service overnight to facilitate an intense cleaning regime, and so homeless New Yorkers can be removed from trains and stations.
But as the number of MTA workers has risen, with 8,700 workers coming out of quarantine last week, it’s still not clear when “essential service” will return to regular service. In other words, what will come first: more passengers or more trains and buses?
Other MTA properties, like Metro-North, LIRR began increasing service this week. On Metro-North capacity will increase by 26 percent, with 18 peak trains, and the LIRR will add 105 train cars increasing capacity by 15 percent as Long Island enters a “Phase 1” reopening.
The one thing the MTA has said about its planning for fully reopening is that it is waiting for a report later next month from WSP about international best practices for running a transit system during a global pandemic. The report will look at how systems in Asia, Europe, and North America are operating now.
Speaking on WNYC earlier this month, Feinberg mentioned that the MTA was speaking with experts about how to better circulate air on buses and trains, but the agency has said nothing else about this in public.
Complaints about overcrowding have proliferated as riders slowly return to the system, but Feinberg has downplayed the concerns, blaming it on tabloid hype.
“I think there's a lot of uncertainty right now and the MTA clearly has a ton on its plate,” said Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director with Riders Alliance. “That said, the governor needs to release a plan to restore full service, including overnight service, for New York to fully reopen. As he has said, the subway is the lifeblood of the city. If transit's not running at full strength, neither can the rest of us.”
As for addressing overcrowding, Pearlstein said “the MTA should make every effort—backed by state and federal resources—to increase service.”
“Essential workers who rely on transit often commute outside the rush hour, so frequent service starting early and ending late is key to running a safe system,” he added.
The MTA says it’s finding other, novel ways to remove the coronavirus from its subways and buses with its use of experimental ultraviolet lights. If proven successful by a peer-reviewed study, it could be rolled out across the system. The MTA also mentioned slapping some anti-microbial product on surfaces, but no new details about that project have come out recently.
Ramos, the essential worker from Washington Heights, said that no one in her family has contracted the virus: “thank God.”
“Sadly, a few of my neighbors and friends of my parents have passed away,” Ramos said. “Working during the pandemic or being back to work during the pandemic is anxiety inducing. We are all in this together, trying to stay safe and moving forward. I hope that by the time New York City opens up, the MTA will have a plan in place that will keep everyone safe, regardless of the neighborhood they live in.”
