SMART asks for vaccine priority
Agency urges doses for transit workers
Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit officials are urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to provide early doses of the new coronavirus vaccine to public transit workers, including the district’s train operators.
In a letter to Newsom this month, Eric Lucan, the Novato councilman who is president of the SMART board, said transit workers should get priority for vaccinations “so they can continue serving Californians who rely and depend on public mass transit.”
“Here in Marin and Sonoma Counties, our transit public servants have been on duty 24/7 in the frontline in the field since the start of the pandemic to make sure that other essential workers are able to go to work and serve other Californians,” Lucan wrote.
The petition comes as California officials wrestle with the question of who will be next in line to receive the vaccines made by PfizerBioNTech and Moderna. The limited supply of doses has so far been reserved for health care workers and patients in skilled nursing centers.
A plan for the next phase of the vaccine rollout is expected to be completed on Wednesday by the state committee in charge of deciding how California should distribute vaccines.
Newsom provided a preview of the plan on Monday, saying the next round of shots will be offered to people age 75 and older and some essential workers. But it’s unclear whether that includes transit workers.
State Assemblyman Marc Levine, D- Greenbrae, said priority should be given to workers who are interfacing directly with the public. He said grocery workers and teachers should jump to the front of the line before transit workers.
“The lens we need to apply is who is engaging most with the public right now,” Levine said.
A federal advisory panel that issued guidance to state officials this month recommended including transit workers in the next round of vaccines.
John Costa, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, wrote a letter to the governor of every state urging them to follow that recommendation. He said nearly 100 members of the union — which represents Golden Gate Transit and Bay Area Rapid Transit workers, among others in the region — have died of the virus since the beginning of the pandemic, though he did not specify whether those infections were transmitted in workplaces.
Costa said transit workers around the country are continuously exposed to crowds of riders and are not given the safety gear that health care workers are.
“The least we can do as a nation is to recognize the sacrifices that these workers and their families have made during this health crisis by providing them with early access to the coronavirus vaccine,” Costa wrote to Newsom last month.
About 80 of SMART’s 140 employees regularly interact with the public, according to Lucan. He said that includes track maintenance workers and train engineers, who sit separate from riders but also serve as conductors helping people get on and off the trains.
Lucan declined to say whether any SMART employees had contracted the coronavirus.
In his letter to the governor, Lucan said California’s public transit systems throughout the pandemic have shuttled essential workers to their jobs and provided transportation to elderly, disabled and low-income people.
“As the pandemic subsides, public transit service will be vital to a balanced recovery,” Lucan said, “and the continued health of our public transit workers must be a top priority for the state.”