COVID-19

Trains keep running every night, but passengers aren’t allowed on the subway. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

Every few weeks, the absurdity of the MTA’s overnight subway closure is thrust into the spotlight. Sometimes, a tweet describing how the trains are still running even though riders aren’t allowed on board goes viral. Sometimes, MTA executives draw headlines when they admit to state representatives that the agency is not in fact saving any money by denying passengers subway rides from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. each night.

That’s what happened last week during an Albany hearing on the very precarious state of the MTA’s budget. When grilled by Robert Carroll, a Brooklyn Assembly representative who has co-sponsored a bill that would mandate restoration of 24/7 passenger service, MTA CFO Bob Foran acknowledged that the MTA is not saving any money. “That was not done as a cost saving effort,” Foran said. “We are still running trains. They are to get our workforce back and forth.”

This is of course not a surprise to those in the know. It was an open secret for months that the MTA is still running its regularly scheduled overnight service but without passengers, and it was an open secret for months that the overnight denial of service isn’t a cost-saving measure. While the MTA can point to some minimal productivity gains that could have been achieved with FastTrack-esque shutdowns, the agency never intended to use the overnight closures to save money or increase capital work. The system is simply too vast with too many projects that were planned too long ago for a short four-window to do much for productivity.

Rather, the shutdowns were about implementing a legal mechanism to permit the MTA to remove unsheltered New Yorkers from the subway system while bolstering a necessary cleaning regiment that could have continued while essential workers were permitted access to the subway overnight. That trains are still running on a normal overnight schedule gives that game away, and headways are long enough at night that the MTA could take yard most trains at the end of their runs if they truly had to clean them with no passengers on board. The incremental personnel costs wouldn’t be out of line with the costs the MTA incurs running empty trains, and essential workers would have normal commutes rather than the lengthy trips I wrote about in August.

This is neither here nor there right now. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, through MTA leadership, has made clear that 24/7 passenger service will not return to the subways until the pandemic is over, a philosophy that incorrectly views overnight service as more beneficial to leisure, rather than essential, travel. But it doesn’t have to be this way. As the vaccine effort ramps up, Cuomo and the MTA have a very easy way to gracefully usher in the return of passengers to the subways on a 24/7 by tying it to access to vaccination hubs.

This is, of course, not a novel idea. In fact, a group of City Council representatives penned a letter to the MTA last week saying as much. “Not only has the suspension of late-night service and frequency reduction caused a great strain on the commutes of essential workers who every day have been putting their lives on the line, but the subway is now going to play an important role in bringing the City through to the other side of this pandemic crisis,” the letter notes. “With the creation of 24 hour vaccine hubs and, hopefully, accelerated supply from the new Biden Administration, New York City is working hard to ramp up its vaccine roll out. If these Vaccine hubs are going to be operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the city will need its public transportation infrastructure to be operating at the same time and capacity…It is of the utmost important to address the limited subway service immediately and restore 24-hour service.”

The political opening is there for the governor, but it’s not quite as easy as removing the chains blocking the stations at night. It requires some careful public messaging that explains how the MTA will keep cleaning and why the risk of viral transmission on transit remains low, two approaches few leaders in American government have taken throughout the pandemic. In a recent internal survey, the MTA found out that over 75% of current customers believe cleaning and disinfecting efforts make them “feel safe” when using transit. The same percentage has noticed that trains are cleaner since the overnight shutdowns began in May, and 55% of lapsed riders say cleanliness of trains is very important to them as and when they return to the subways.

Even though the virus is largely airborne and surface transmission is rare, keeping the trains clean is important for maintaining public trust in transit. Thus, if the MTA restores overnight service prior to the nebulous end of the pandemic, the agency must continue to stress that cleaning continues, as it does during the day, even if surface cleaning is more about perception than actual risk.

This of course puts the MTA in between a rock and a hard place. While the CDC has told the MTA to continue to disinfect surfaces while combating aerosol-based transmission, the MTA will have to keep spending a lot of money on surface cleaning to insure adequate faith in the system. And the issue of homelessness looms large. The MTA is not a housing agency nor are agency staffers experts in housing policy, but by denying passengers access to the trains overnight, the MTA has temporarily solved the problem of people remaining in the way on trains that need to be cleaned. Restoring 24/7 passenger service will force the MTA to reconsider this approach to removing homeless New Yorkers from the trains.

I don’t have a good answer here; it’s ultimately up to the city and state to house their unsheltered residents. But it shouldn’t be an excuse to deny essential workers a fast ride home or a city itching to escape quarantine access to 24/7 vaccine hubs. Allowing passengers on the trains overnight shouldn’t wait until the end of the pandemic when nightlife returns and things are moving back to normal. Once the vaccine supply is in place, Gov. Cuomo should allow passengers back on the subway overnight as a recognition of the way people need to travel and a symbol of a city on the rebound.

An APTA study led by Sam Schwartz found no link between virus cases and transit usage.

It’s been hard to resist starting every post focusing on the MTA’s current ridership situation and budget woes with the sentence, “It’s been a rough few months for transit,” but it’s been a rough few months for transit. Often associated with the hoi polloi and dirty masses, most transit systems didn’t have reputations for cleanliness before the pandemic and whether fairly or not, quickly become associated with the spread of disease as the pandemic descended on the world.

After a spring in which a spurious MIT study that relied heavily on a correlation/causation error drove the conversation, a group of pro-transit researchers are fighting back, and in a new study released by the American Public Transportation Association, they report no known links between coronavirus cases and public transit.

“As of August 2020, no outbreaks have been traced to public transit in the United States,” the report, authored by New York’s own Sam Schwartz, said. “Based on our data review of case rates and transit usage in domestic cities, the correlation between infection rates and transit usage is weak or non-existent.”

Schwartz’s survey of current pandemic experiences is part of a larger report on transit-related best practices for the COVID-19 era, and you can access the report here as a PDF. It’s very much yet another attempt to change the narrative. The MIT study came out early in April, and despite debunking by Alon Levy and Aaron Gordon, two well-respected voices within the transit community, it set the stage for months of American fears over transit.

Nearly immediately, many one-time transit riders relied upon the MIT study to reinforce ideas that transit isn’t safe and is a source of spread. Even now, seven months after New York started working from home en masse, subway ridership is only around 1.7-1.8 million per day, approximately 30% of normal, and many New Yorkers have said their commute is the biggest barrier to returning to work. The problem is one of psychology and one of science. I understand why people may be hesitant to ride the subway or hop a bus where they may have less control over everyone around them, but sitting in a poorly ventilated office with other people for 8-10 hours a day is more dangerous than the ride shorter to get there. Schwartz is trying to prove it.

Schwartz has to overcome the challenges of proving a negative, and he makes a compelling case. He looks at transit agencies large and small, from NYC to Hartford to the Quad Cities to Northern Kentucky. In each case, after lockdowns eased, increased transit ridership hasn’t corresponded to an uptick in coronavirus cases. Since the spring at least, when mask mandates were instituted and social distancing became the norm, careful transit usage coupled with disinfectant procedures haven’t led to an uptick in positive tests. Here’s Schwartz’s conclusion:

COVID-19 rates appear to be independent of ridership: in Northeast cities such as Hartford, Connecticut and New York, New York where the pandemic has been largely controlled, ridership has grown since peak pandemic low points, but case rates have been significantly reduced. Meanwhile, in Southern, Southwestern, and Midwestern cities, ridership has remained consistent while cases have skyrocketed. These areas are experiencing serious community outbreaks primarily attributed by public health experts to the reopening of bars and restaurants, large gatherings, nursing homes, prisons, and community fatigue of physical distancing practices. In fact, of the fifteen metro areas with the highest cumulative case rates as of August 2020, not one had a typical commuter transit share more than 5%, and most have minimal transit services with very light usage.

What Schwartz cannot ascertain and what will always remain unanswered is whether transit had a role in community spread before we had a better understanding of the science behind COVID-19. It’s generally accepted that the virus was in the U.S. long before the middle of March, and 5.5 million people were riding the subways each day well into early March and long before we knew how effective masks were at slowing the spread. Schwartz even admits as much, noting that “public transit has some characteristics associated with higher COVID-19 transmission risk, including the potential for crowding in enclosed environments on trains, buses and indoor stations.” Ultimately, though, masks, a lack of talking, frequent air replacement and a steady flow of passengers mitigates against risks today whether or not the trains helped spread the virus in March. Based on what we know now, so long as most riders are masked, it’s safe to ride transit.

But will this report matter? That is a question I can’t answer. People’s fears about COVID-19 are fairly baked in right now, and while mayoral candidates are making a show of riding trains, neither Bill de Blasio nor Andrew Cuomo have issued full-throated defenses of subways lately. For better or worse, potential transit riders take their cues from leadership, and leadership is wavering. Still, Schwartz’s study and overview reinforces what many of us have been saying: With proper precautions and a smart approach to personal and communal care, transit trips are no more riskier than any other activity these days.

The final wild card in this psychological battle for the minds of transit riders is, of course, the Trump Administration. Hardly allies to cities and transit riders, the White House has blocked a national order requiring face masks on all transit hubs. Instead, it’s up to localities to approve and enforce these orders. At a local level, the MTA is also prohibited from applying for a federal grant to study how to combat coronavirus spread on transit, as Politico reported late last week.

MTA, the largest transit agency in the country, will be barred from applying for a new federal transportation grant supporting coronavirus research because the Justice Department declared New York City an "anarchist" jurisdiction. @TSnyderDC reporting pic.twitter.com/YxiekkDN9R

— Sam Mintz (@samjmintz) October 9, 2020

We’ll know more about this development on Monday, but this is the heigh of petty politics. Despite its flaws, the MTA is best suited to understand how to combat COVID on transit, and the fact that they can’t apply for this grant because the Trump Administration is playing politics with public health three weeks before the election is a travesty. Still, we know the answers — masks, constant service, less talking, ventilation and high-quality air filters. That’s how transit is safe, and that’s why you could ride the subways today without worrying too much about putting your health at risk.

MTA Chairman & CEO Patrick J. Foye, Interim NYCT President Sarah Feinberg, LIRR President Phil Eng, and NYCT Chief Customer Officer Sarah Meyer hold a press conference at Atlantic Av-Barclays Center on Mon., September 14, 2020 to launch a new public service campaign to encourage mask usage along with the new $50 fine policy for those who refuse to wear face coverings on public transit. (Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit)

For those New Yorkers venturing onto the subway these day, it has become a hobby of sorts to track mask compliance. Jose Martinez of THE CITY runs Twitter scorecards tracking mask compliance using the terminology from the MTA’s own ad campaign, and while mileage may vary by line and time of day, mask compliance on transit in New York City is generally very good with 90-95% of riders properly masked up, according to MTA figures. For public health purposes, that level of mask usage is sufficient to significantly slow the spread of an airborne virus.

Still, compliance – with a mask over both one’s nose and one’s mouth – may have been slipping in recent weeks, and even 90% compliance isn’t good enough for the governor. Why? I’ll get to that shortly, but to that end, earlier this month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a new executive order “directing the MTA to develop a plan to bolster mask compliance across public transportation system’s subways, buses and railroads.” The MTA, in turn, announced a $50 fine for any rider who refuses to wear a mask. In a sense, that’s an academic recitation of events. As Cuomo controls the MTA, he’s the one imposing the $50 fine, and the agency is simply serving its purpose as political cover for the governor’s decision.

“While mask compliance in the MTA system remains very high, we want to make sure that people feel comfortable coming back to public transportation,” Governor Cuomo said in his press release last week.

On Monday afternoon, MTA officials gathered at the Atlantic Ave. subway stop to discuss the enforcement effort and $50 fine. Enforcement of rules in the subway has turned into a bit of a hot-button issue in recent years as the MTA has faced criticism for heavy-handed fare enforcement efforts that seemingly target minorities and a ramp-up of NYPD expenditures at a time when transit budgets are crashing. Yet, during the press conference, MTA leaders took pains to stress the public health effects of wearing a mask and de-emphasize punitive punishment, especially when asked about the impact of a $50 fine amidst an ongoing economic downturn. “We’re not,” NYC Transit’s interim president Sarah Feinberg said, “looking for the police to fine people. We‘re looking for compliance.”

MTA CEO and Chairman Pat Foye echoed this approach. “This is not about revenue,” he said, “and we have no interest in issuing fines and summonses.” Rather, MTA officials said, agency employees and cops will first request that maskless passengers don a proper face covering, and if these riders do not comply, they could face a $50 fine.

On the surface, this seems pretty straightforward: In an effort to drum up confidence in transit, whose reputation has unfairly taken a hit during the pandemic, the MTA is enforcing the state’s mask mandate. The health behind wearing masks is clear: They are one of the single best ways to protect yourself and other people from the spread of COVID-19, and the MTA, which has drawn criticism for resisting permitting its workers to wear masks early on during the pandemic, is trying to be responsible to the riding public and its workers as New York City reopens.

But the intricacies are worth probing because this appears to be a tacit attempt at luring Manhattan desk jockeys back to their offices. Time and again, surveys have indicated that transit rides are a point of contention. Even though sitting in an enclosed office for 8-10 hours a day is far riskier than the 25-35 minute subway rides people take to get there, New Yorkers seem to fear those subway rides – where socially distancing is tough, if not impossible – more than anything. They fear unmasked passengers; they fear buskers and candy sellers. They fear an environment they cannot control, and if even those fears aren’t borne out by the science of the pandemic, they are legitimate psychological fears that politicians and bureaucrats should attack. By mandating masks and making a show of enforcing the mandate, the governor is trying to negate those public fears – and perhaps generate a push to get people back to work. He should ride the trains too. “We have to be able to say to the riding public that everyone will be wearing masks,” Cuomo said, “and if they refuse to wear a mask they will be penalized.”

It’s not quite that easy though, and the pitfalls are obvious. For instance, in late August, when I took a 2 train from Grand Army Plaza to Borough Hall, every passenger on my train was properly masked, but when the doors opened at Atlantic Ave., two cops without masks were patrolling the platform. In fact, some of the most egregious mask violators in the city are cops. Pictures abound online of officers gathered without masks, and a Twitter account tracks those incidents. Mayor de Blasio routinely claims he has spoken with NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea about mask compliance, but cops wear masks only for official press events (and even that’s not a given). Shea says his cops will be a part of the enforcement effort, but will they be wearing masks? MTA officials said only that they’ve requested as much from the police, but they have no authority here. Recently, I have seen an increase in masked cops in the subway, but they still seem to the most egregious and frequent offenders.

Just saw three NYPD officers on a subway platform, two maskless.

Me to one of them: “excuse me officer, are masks required on the subway?”

Officer [glaring at me, gritting his teeth; long pause]: “yes.”

— Steven Mazie (@stevenmazie) September 22, 2020

The second issue concerns enforcement. When asked by Dave Colon of Streetsblog how the MTA planned to avoid targeting vulnerable communities, Foye said he disputed the premise of the question and declined to offer an answer. Will the enforcement effort focus on everyone? Will the cops target minorities as they often do with quality-of-life enforcement in New York City? Or will the cops pull back when video emerges of an escalated altercation as happened in the spring? Policing transit spaces in New York remains a prickly subject, and tensions are high.

Ultimately, as ridership inches toward 1.7 million per day, still just 31 percent of a normal weekday in 2019, and city politicians and business leaders make more noise about getting office workers back to their desks, comfort with transit will become a key issue. That’s why Cuomo and the MTA are going to enforce this mask mandate. Whether this leads to better compliance with public health orders or more flashpoints between the cops and New York’s citizens is an open question, but persuasion first and fines only after refusals is the path to follow. The MTA and the cops instructed to serve as enforcers should adhere to this approach carefully, and politicians should show their faith in the system by making a show of riding. Otherwise, transit will stagnant amidst public health concerns, and the city’s recovery will be that much slower.

Today’s post is an op-ed piece from Mysore Nagaraja, Bob Previdi and Howard Sackel, a trio of New York City-area transit veterans. These post reflects their views, opinions and recommendations. If you would like to contribute your voice to Second Ave. Sagas, you can always contact me here.

Displays showing train car passenger loads could help riders better plan their trips in the age of social distancing. The one shown here is in use in London along the Overground.

The post-COVID 19 world poses a very particular challenge for transit: How do we meet the challenge of balancing the physical capacity of the transit system and its trains and buses with the new safety guidelines calling for proper social distancing?

As the economy slowly reopens and transit riders return, wearing masks in public and keeping six feet of separation will remain in place for the foreseeable future. The MTA must figure out how to manage rush hour and its historic crowding. The solution should include not only maintaining equipment and stations to a new standard of cleanliness but also working cooperatively with riders and businesses to stagger work hours and flatten the peak rush hour curves to meet the social distancing guideline.

Governor Cuomo recalled the challenges posed by the post September 11th and Hurricane Sandy periods and how New York was able to successfully meet these challenges. He suggested a plan to “build back better,” finding ways to use this tragic situation as a means to change how things are done and make them better than before. Nobody likes rush hour crowding, and perhaps NYC can use this situation to eliminate crush loads which would certainly be met favorably by the public.

Key to the return of both customers and employees is giving them confidence that their return is being safely managed. Deploying wash trains, more visible cleaning of stations and buses as well as a broad customer information program to continually reinforce the public awareness of these proactive actions will provide customers and employees with the confidence that they can still get where they need to go, with reliable service, in a healthier environment and with real time information about service status.

Data collected by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council shows that 1.1 million people travel into the Manhattan Central Business District between 7:00 and 10:00 a.m. using public transit trains and buses and the same number leave in the evening. To be able to adhere to the six-foot guidelines without doubling the number of train cars or buses (which is not possible) will therefore require using the existing fleet of buses and trains more efficiently.

The UITP, the International Association of Public Transit, reaffirmed the guidelines for social distancing and is actively advising their members to ask the public to change the time they travel to reduce peak volumes. As the MTA expects 60% of riders to return by September, there is no time to lose.

The interagency task force for transit put together by the governor should use this time while ridership is still only 10 to 15% of normal volumes to work closely with the business community and employers to reduce the passenger load during the morning and evening rush hours, by finding ways to stagger the rush hours to allow a reduction in peak congestion.

Other cities around the globe monitor crowding by subway car and advise passengers where to stand to get seats. The MTA is already testing similar technology on a few Staten Island Express buses. The MTA is also looking into technology that would report crowding conditions in a real-time way so that riders can make their own decision to stay away if crowding is becoming an issue. Working with technology leaders, solutions should be developed now to better monitor patron loading and crowding and provide real-time information to the MTA’s customers.

Another way to inform the system’s patrons about crowding and foster reduced loads is to provide information using social media and entry-point real-time information using existing monitors and new video screens above entrances to enable customers to make adjustments in their trips. Simultaneously feeding this information to social media and all media outlets can allow for real-time updates of conditions, informing customers where to enter the system or where to avoid unsafe conditions.

Transit must find a way to manage its way out this crisis or New York City risks overwhelming traffic if even some people choose to drive instead. According to US census data, 57% of those working in NYC use public transit and only 27% drive. With two million people making work trips to Manhattan each day, New York has to find a way to make transit adapt to this new world where less crowding is paramount. There is no perfect solution here, and the issue should not just be the MTA’s to solve, but the MTA can determine what level of ridership they can manage safely given the new distancing guideline. Using data about rush hour travel to help the business community and riders reshape how crowded the trains and buses get could be a long-term benefit from this horrible crisis.

About the Authors:

Howard Sackel was senior VP at PACO Technologies and a former director for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.