The MTA says that this change is being made to support more frequent cleaning
and disinfection of trains, with frequency increasing from every 72 hours to
disinfecting every 24 hours. The agency also says they will be
"leveraging and evaluating innovative new cleaning solutions such as
antimicrobial biostats and ultraviolet light to eradicate the COVID-19 virus"
and that these measures will be deployed systemwide if proven successful.
 |
| The subway homeless issue has caught significant
press attention in recent days |
However, some believe that the MTA is using the cleaning story as a front for
taking stronger action on the issue of homelessness in the subways.
Homelessness has been a significant issue throughout the region's mass transit
network dating back long before the COVID-19 pandemic started, but as this
disease has taken grip of New York, the number of people taking refuge in the
subway system appears to have skyrocketed. This has lead to terrible conditions throughout the system
for NYCT's employees and those who still need to use the system to get where
they need to go. In a saddening turn over the weekend,
two homeless individuals were found dead on the subways within a 13-hour
period. A whole spat started over a week ago with the de Blasio
administration and the MTA
sparring via the newspapers
over how the homeless situation should be addressed. The MTA should
definitely not be left to solve this problem all on its own—the MTA is a
transportation agency, not a provider of social services. Last week, after insisting that the homelessness situation was under control, Mayor de Blasio
called on the MTA to close select terminals overnight to passengers
to allow NYPD and social workers access to clear the trains of homeless riders
and be better situated to offer them support services (instead of allowing
homeless individuals to ride back and forth on the trains all night
long). While the MTA welcomed the new attention to the city, they lashed
back at the idea of closing stations overnight because of the importance of
keeping service running for essential workers. Fast forward a few days,
and all of a sudden the idea of shutting down overnight service makes its way
to the Governor's office in Albany, and, bam, now we are looking at a full
overnight shutdown.
The intersection of the newfound political attention to the homelessness issue, subway cleaning, and the overnight subway shutdown, and what this all means for the MTA is explored more in these pieces on Streetsblog NYC, Second Avenue Sagas, and City Journal.
Personally, I'm not a 24/7 subway service purist...I think it's a tremendous feature of a
system that's at the core of our bustling city, but it's also too often used
as a crutch or excuse for why improvement projects can't be delivered in a
timely and cost-efficient manner or why the MTA can't take effective action
with issues just like this. And in this case, where there are only
really four or so industries functioning at full capacity, adjusting shift
times and work patterns to allow most workers to not get caught in the
overnight gap should be fairly practicable (hospitals running on continuous
shifts could tweak shift change times to straddle the overnight closure, the
few restaurants that are remaining open can close at 12:00m instead of 1:00a
and lose little to no business, etc.). But the pretense of increasing
cleaning for the sake of kicking homeless people out of the subway doesn't
really sit right. Addressing the homeless issue is certainly a problem,
but it should be a constantly ongoing effort at all terminals throughout the
day, not just once the clock strikes 1. Otherwise people will just sleep
on the street outside stations for a few hours (the weather is getting warmer)
and then head right back into the subways at 5:01a and the trains will only really be clean for the first few hours of passenger service in the morning...
Riders should also be vigilant that this overnight shutdown for the purposes of
cleaning (or kicking out the homeless, take your pick) does
not clandestinely become a permanent end to overnight service on the
subways. The MTA has said that this overnight shutdown would continue
for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, though officials have been very dodgy when pressed for commitments of exactly when that might be (i.e. who says the pandemic is over; will service be restored once overnight ridership exceeds x riders, etc.). This question came up several times at a press conference Tuesday, and officials refused to get specific about what conditions would permit for the return of overnight service. Given that intensified cleaning efforts will likely become a part of everyday life for quite some time beyond the end of the pandemic, the MTA needs to figure out a way to do what it needs to do while still restoring some level of overnight service once ridership begins to return.
The MTA has declined to define what "end of the pandemic" means as far as the return of 24/7 subway service, and has also declined to mention if they even have metrics for it— Good Idea Dave (@DaveCoIon) May 4, 2020
NYCT should also not need a full overnight shutdown to actually clean the
trains.
The MTA is already behind the curve on cleaning practices
when compared to peer systems elsewhere in the world. In Taipei,
frequent touch points are being disinfected three times as frequently (every 8
hours over the course of the day). Under the Essential Service Plan,
service is reduced throughout the day (and overnight service is particularly
infrequent, running at best only every 20 minutes on most lines) that there should be
more than enough surplus rolling stock available to swap trains in and out of
service at terminals over the course of the day to clean them while
maintaining service.
On the railroads, the daily disinfection of train cars will also be extended to the LIRR and Metro-North fleets, though that will take place without any changes to service (one would hope so...the railroad fleets are so inefficient trains have an average of more than 18 hours of down time per day under normal service levels, which means cars have even more down time now). During these overnight periods, the MTA will cross-honor fares on the LIRR and Metro-North, which is helpful, but the railroads don't really operate overnight in the first place (the last Metro-North train leaves at 1:56a and there's no trains again until 5:28a; LIRR ends service to most stations around 1:45a, through most stations in electric territory get an extra train around 3:00a from NY-Penn Station only before service to most stations restarts again between 4:00a and 6:00a). The MTA has not announced any plans to increase service on the railroads within NYC to fill in for the absence of subway services.
At NY-Penn Station, the LIRR has announced that starting this week, access to
the station will be limited during the overnight hours and that only the 34th
Street corridor entrance will be open to passengers to enter and exit the
station during the overnight hours. The West End Concourse has already
been closed 24/7 since April 2.
Starting Sunday, 5/3, overnight customers must enter/exit Penn Station via the 34th St Entrance corridor between midnight and 5am. All other Penn Sta. entrances/exits will be closed overnight until further notice as greater safety precautions against COVID 19 are underway.— LIRR. #StayHomeSaveLives (@LIRR) May 3, 2020
Service on the Staten Island Railway will continue operating hourly around the clock, making it and PATH trains to New Jersey the only rail services operating a regular schedule 24/7. These are strange times, for sure...
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