A governor in the metro is not that often. But a governor who cleans the seats of the trains, it is that the situation is serious… Andrew Cuomo, hero of the democrats since the start of the crisis, has himself inspected the wagons last weekend to stage his health security plan in the New York subway.
The governor of the State of New York thus illustrated by practice the decision to close the New York subway every night, from 1 am to 5 am, to clean it completely, from Wednesday. A spectacular decision in the “city that never sleeps”. “We will have to cross the train with a spray bottle and literally spray disinfectant on all surfaces., Andrew Cuomo announced. Some reports say the virus can survive for two or three days on certain surfaces such as stainless steel. You look at the inside of a subway train, the rails, the bars, everything is stainless steel. “ The stations will also be cleaned.
The challenge of distancing
But this is only one of the measures adopted by the state and the city to make transport safer. New York has also asked companies to adapt their employees’ schedules to avoid rush hours, as the telecommuting is always recommended for all companies that can do it.
Users must also wear a mask and respect the necessary distances between them. A real challenge for a network that is more than a century old, where the corridors and platforms are often narrow.
A critical situation
The density of the transport network in New York is one of the reasons given for the speed at which the virus has spread in the city, New York becoming in a few weeks the main global focus of the epidemic . A return to normalcy will not happen without a safe transport system.
However, the agency that manages New York transport, the MTA, is already in a critical situation . She is trying to renegotiate her debt, despite having to settle a $ 1 billion bill before May 15. Part of its network, obsolete, requires heavy investments and neither the city, the state, nor the federal government had agreed, until now, to finance them.
In recent weeks, the MTA has seen traffic drop 93% on its network and expects revenue to halve this year, while its expenses could increase by $ 700 million … To reduce costs, it had has had to lay off in recent years and it may not have the staff necessary to apply the health plan on its 26 lines and 472 metro stations, as well as its 336 bus lines.
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