Is it safe to get back on the train to New York? Casey (not her real name) thought so when, a couple of weekends back, she wanted to see some millennial friends in Manhattan for brunch. But boarding the Saturday morning train she immediately started to worry and texted me.
The train was jammed, she said. Very few empty seats. No way to “socially distance” and many people
were not wearing face masks.
Looking around, she saw large
groups of NY Yankees and NY Rangers fans.
Sure enough, both teams had home games that afternoon. The fans were
tailgating their way to the fun, already drinking (heavily and openly) by 11
am.
Metro-North claims it’s doing
everything it can to attract riders back, but this was just the opposite. The railroad knew there were two major sport
events that day, so why not schedule extra trains, giving people room to spread
out?
The conductors didn’t call out
the non-mask wearers, didn’t ask them to cover their faces and didn’t offer
them free masks. They allowed them to break
the law without so much as a warning.
Forget the latest guidance
from the CDC: masks are still
required on all trains and planes by order of the TSA.
Sure, vaccination levels in
Connecticut are rising. To date 50% of
the state has received full dosing. But
something told Casey these tipsy fans weren’t wearing masks because they’d had
their shots, but because they just didn’t care.
Casey filed an online
complaint with the MTA Police, hoping they would meet the incoming train at 125th
Street and enforce the law. No
response. A complaint on the Metro-North
website generated a boilerplate response but no follow-thru. And a Tweet, detailing her discomfort brought
a tepid reply apologizing for “any unpleasantness” during her journey.
Unpleasant, for sure, but also
potentially lethal. The mask rules are
there for public safety. That’s a Federal
rule with fines
of $250 to $1500. Those not wearing masks should have been kicked off
the train.
Since the pandemic began, weekday ridership on
Metro-North has been crawling back to about 25% of pre-COVID numbers, but on
weekends almost half of the old ridership is back onboard. The trains are getting crowded and more
service is needed now.
While weekday commuters tell
me mask compliance is almost 100%, it’s the weekend warriors, partying and
carousing, that are not following the rules.
And the railroad seems to not care.
They run PSAs but don’t enforce the law. Are they that desperate for
customers?
Last fall the railroad
unveiled a new virus-zapping UV light air filter system to much acclaim, but it’s
only operational on a handful of train cars. Why?
Their TrainTime
app added functionality to advise passengers waiting for
trains which cars were the least crowded.
It’s working on the LIRR and NY sections of Metro-North, but not in
Connecticut. Why?
Every night the railroad
sprays disinfectant in the interior of all railcars even though research shows
that there’s only a one in
10,000 chance of getting the virus by contacting an infected
surface. It’s airborne
transmission that presents the real danger. And that’s why masks will be with us for a
while longer in enclosed public spaces.
NYC Mayor de Blasio wants to
re-open NYC on July 1st. But riders
are not coming back to Metro-North… some because they don’t
have to (as they prefer to work from home), but many others because the
railroad is still making them feel unsafe.
Posted with permission of
Hearst CT Media.
No comments:
Post a Comment