Public transit must cope with coronavirus fears
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — In cities around the world, public transportation systems are key to getting workers back on the job and restarting devastated economies. Yet methods of getting around, ranging from trains and buses to ferries and bicycles, will have to be reimagined for the coronavirus era.
In Europe, mass transit is shaping up as a new focus of governments working to get their countries back on track while responding to the pandemic that now has a death toll of over 132,000, people across the continent. In the capitals of hard-hit Italy, Spain, France and Britain, standing cheek to jowl with fellow commuters was as much a part of the morning routine in pre-coronavirus times as a steaming shot of espresso or a croissant.
That’s going to have to change as authorities try to address economic considerations without losing any hard-won gains that socialdistancing strategies achieved in controlling the spread of the virus.
Solutions include putting red stickers on the floor to tell bus travelers in Milan how far apart to stand. The Dutch are deploying longer, roomier trains, and many cities including Berlin are opening more lanes to cyclists. In Britain, bus passengers are entering through the middle or rear doors to reduce the virus risks for drivers.
In New York, where millions normally ride on crowded subways, buses and suburban trains daily but where ridership has fallen more than 90%, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has ordered officials to submit a plan for how train and subway cars will be disinfected every night, building on an enhanced cleaning regime put in place in early March.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority head Patrick Foye said last week the MTA is looking at other measures, including expanding a program that has already performed temperature checks on 35,000 MTA employees. Foye urged government and business officials to consider including staggered work hours in any plans to reopen businesses to help reduce crowding.
Amtrak, which carried more than 12 million passengers on its Boston-toWashington, D.C. trains in the most recent fiscal year, already has limited bookings to 50% of capacity and restricted some seating areas in rail cars.
When and how to ease restrictions, keep people safe and prevent a second wave of infections is a matter of intense debate around the world.
“There will never be a perfect amount of protection,” said Josh Santarpia, a microbiology expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center who is studying the coronavirus. “Everybody has to decide, person by person, what risk they’re willing to tolerate.”
Around the world, confirmed infections stood at more than 3.25 million — including 1.06 million in the U.S. — and the confirmed global death toll topped 233,000 according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The true toll is believed to be much higher because of limited testing, differences in counting the dead and deliberate undercounting by some governments.