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The Metropolitan Transmission Authority

By | | Transportation
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“The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now the Metropolitan Transmission Authority,” an MTA subway conductor told CBS News. “They are transporting this virus.” (The video with this statement is on Huffington Post.)

That’s been true for awhile, but the problem now is that thousands of homeless people have discovered the comforts of riding subways empty of commuters and other regular riders. The MTA says it has lost 95 percent of its riders but is still providing 25 percent of regular subway service for “essential workers.” However, those essential workers have to step around homeless people and their carts of belongings. Continue reading →

Expanding Transit’s Mission (& Subsidies)

By | | Transportation
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Due to stay-at-home orders, many small transit agencies that focused on providing transportation for elderly and disabled people are carrying hardly any riders anymore. So, to justify the subsidies they received under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, they are getting into a new business: grocery delivery. They are doing so with backing from the Federal Transit Administration, which has written rules that allow agencies wide discretion for how they use CARES funds.

For example, Island Transit, on Whidbey Island, Washington, is offering free delivery service. “Offering free delivery service for essential items is just another way to fulfill our mission,” says the agency’s executive director.

Apparently, their mission is to take jobs and customers away from existing businesses. Numerous companies already offer grocery delivery, including start-ups like Instacart, Shipt, Peapod, Fresh Direct, and Boxed as well as existing supermarkets such as Walmart, Safeway, and Whole Foods (via Amazon Fresh). On Whidbey Island, for example, on-line shoppers can get deliveries from Instacart, Bailey’s Corner Store, Whidbey Island Seafood, Blackberry Moon, and something run by local high-school entrepreneurs called Whidbey Deliveries. Continue reading →

Anti-Auto Nuts Continue to Act Nutty

By | | Transportation
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Evidence is mounting that urban transit has been one of the main spreaders of COVID-19. New York governor Andrew Cuomo says the virus can survive for days on transit seats and metal surfaces. The head of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority was infected by the virus and the head of New Jersey Transit actually died from it.

In the face of this evidence, anti-auto advocates have given up on their efforts to get people out of their cars and onto transit. As a Huffington Post headline reads, “The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Forcing Cities To Rethink Public Transportation.”

Just kidding. In fact, despite the headline, the story goes on to tell how anti-auto politicians are using the pandemic to somehow argue that more people should be discouraged from driving. Continue reading →

New Virus Research from China

By | | Transportation
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A recent paper from China finds that the vast majority of public transmissions of COVID-19 in that country took place on various modes of mass transportation. The study examined thousands of cases of virus and traced them to 318 different outbreaks, thereby showing where people were most likely to contract the disease.

Most of the transmissions took place in people’s homes from family members or other relatives. Outside of homes, more than two out of three outbreaks were due to transport, which the paper defines to include “train, private car, high-speed rail, bus, passenger plane, taxi, cruise ship, etc.” However, beyond this statement, the paper focuses exclusively on mass transport, not private cars.

I emailed one of the co-authors of the paper, Yuguo Li, asking whether they had detected any virus transmissions in private automobiles. He wrote back saying they had not, though he admitted that some of the infections that they attributed to being in homes might have taken place in a private car. But the outbreaks attributed by the paper to “transport” were all forms of mass transportation such as planes, trains, and urban transit. Continue reading →

When Is a Black Swan Not a Black Swan?

By | | Transportation
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According to Wikipedia, a black-swan event is “an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalised after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.” The Antiplanner’s policy brief about black swans was condensed into an article in the Federalist this week.

Almost as if in response, Nassim Taleb, the person who coined the term “black-swan event,” says he doesn’t believe this pandemic is a black swan. Why not? Because he predicted it!

He might have predicted that a pandemic would eventually take place. Tom Clancy predicted that someone would fly an airplane into important buildings in the United States. The Weather Service predicted that Hurricane Katrina would hit the Gulf Coast. Many, including the Antiplanner, predicted that the housing bubble of 2006 would lead to a financial crisis. Continue reading →

Did Autos or Transit Spread the Virus to NYC?

By | | Transportation
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Last week, the Antiplanner reported on a study by an MIT economist that found that the New York City subway “was a major disseminator — if not the principal transmission vehicle — of coronavirus infection.” Now, as if in response, a so-called market urbanist named Salim Furth, has published an article blaming the spread of the virus in New York on automobiles.

First, I have to say I am skeptical of the term “market urbanist” because many (though not all) of the people who claim to be one seem to approve of free markets only so long as they achieve the results that they think are right. They seem to be perfectly willing to interfere in the markets to achieve the “right” results if the market won’t produce that result. For example, they complain about single-family zoning but never mention urban-growth boundaries; they complain about subsidies to highways but don’t mention that subsidies to transit are a hundred times greater per passenger mile.

Anyway, Furth presents the following chart to show that automobiles spread the virus. The chart compares coronavirus cases in New York City zip codes as of April 1with the percentage of residents in those zip codes who drove to work in 2014 through 2018. Continue reading →

MTA Forbade Employees from Wearing Masks

By | | Transportation
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Last week, I pointed out a recent report that blamed much of the spread of COVID-19 in New York City on the subway system. Recently, I’ve collected a series of memos suggesting that New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is specifically culpable in this spread.

During the 2012 influenza epidemic, the MTA issued a policy directive stating that the agency would keep a six-week supply of sanitizer wipes, sanitizer gel, and N95 respirators on hand for use by employees. The directive specifically stated that the masks would be available for bus drivers, station attendants, train conductors, and cleaners, among others.

The first COVID-19 death in America was reported in Washington state on February 29, 2020. Rather than make its supposed six-week stockpile of masks available to its employees, MTA issued a memo on March 6 forbidding employees from wearing masks, even if they had their own masks. The memo worried that, if bus operators and station attendants were allowed to wear masks, it could lead to “panicked purchasing of facemasks . . . thereby putting health care providers and their communities at greater risk.” Continue reading →

Transit: The Urban Parasite

By | | Transportation
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Far from being vital to American cities, public transit is a parasite, draining the wealth of those cities and producing little in return. A paper released today by the Cato Institute notes that ridership is declining despite increasing subsidies and the usual justifications for those subsidies no longer apply.

Click image to download a PDF of this report. Click the link in the previous paragraph to read an HTML version of the report.

Needless to say, the paper was written by the Antiplanner and brings together in one place many Antiplanner policy briefs published in the last few months. These include the briefs on 2018 transit commuting, 2018 transit ridership, transit’s lack of energy efficiency, recent transit history, transit capital costs, and transportation costs and subsidies by mode. Continue reading →

NY Subway “Major Disseminator” of COVID-19

By | | Transportation
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“New York City’s multitentacled subway system was a major disseminator — if not the principal transmission vehicle — of coronavirus infection during the initial takeoff of the massive epidemic that became evident throughout the city during March 2020,” reports an MIT study published two days ago. “Maps of subway station turnstile entries, superimposed upon zip code-level maps of reported coronavirus incidence, are strongly consistent with subway-facilitated disease propagation.”

The study notes that MTA’s decision to reduce train service may have actually “accelerated the spread of coronavirus throughout the city” because it prevented social distancing aboard the subway cars. Buses don’t escape notice, as the study suggests that they “may have served as secondary transmission routes out to the periphery of the city.”

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One More Reason Not to Ride Transit

By | | Transportation
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Isn’t it wonderful how urban transit gives people a sense of community as they are collectively yelled at and berated by self-officious transit employees? Case in point: On Thursday morning, April 9, the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), Philadelphia’s main transit agency, announced that it “urged riders” to wear masks, but did not require them. (In fact, elsewhere SEPTA’s web site said that masks were prohibited.)

Sometime during the day, SEPTA changed its mind and, without any formal announcement, decided to require riders to wear masks. As a result, we have this video of a maskless SEPTA employee ordering riders (some of whom had masks, but apparently not good enough ones for SEPTA) off of a bus, and another video showing several white police officers dragging a black man off of a bus for not wearing a mask.

SEPTA was right to be worried even if it was wrong in its enforcement tactics. On Friday, New York’s MTA announced that 1,900 of its employees had tested positive for coronavirus (about three times the rate for New York City as a whole) and 50 had died (slightly higher than the New York City rate which itself is twelve times higher than the national rate). Ridership was down 93 percent on the subways, 95 percent on Metro-North commuter trains, and 97 percent on the Long Island Railroad–but bridge and tunnel auto traffic into Manhattan was down by “only” 66 percent. Continue reading →