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.
Asparagus is said to be rich buy sildenafil online in fiber, iron, protein, and vitamin E as well as recommended by Benjamin Franklin. The severity of Erectile dysfunction greyandgrey.com cialis for sale australia There are various ED causes which includes aging, high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, depression, medication side effects, nerve or spinal cord damage, alcoholism or other medications abuse, pelvic surgery which include radical prostatectomy, penile/perineal/pelvic trauma including pelvic fracture, pelvic radiation, Peyronie’s disease, and low testosterone akin can advance to bargain libido. Temporary dig this buy cheap viagra tattoos serve a number of purposes. There are endless factors http://greyandgrey.com/medical-treatment-guidelines/ best online viagra accountable for formulating erectile dysfunction whereas the pathological cause is insufficient blood delivery in the erectile state, the veins of the penis and response in muscles, fibrous tissues, veins, and arteries in and around the penile organ. The correlation between COVID-19 and transit may be even higher. According to this Census Bureau map, the New York urban area includes New York City and the urbanized portions of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties, New York, plus the urbanized portions of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, and Union counties, New Jersey. In 2019, this region accounted for 44 percent of all transit ridership in the nation. According to this coronavirus tracker, as of April 12, these counties also accounted for 47 percent (10,415 out of 22,129) of all COVID-19 deaths in the country.
According to the latest ridership data released last week by the Federal Transit Administration, coronavirus hadn’t yet depressed ridership in February. In fact, February ridership was 6.1 percent higher nationwide in 2020 than 2019, an amount that can only partially be accounted for by the fact that February had one more day in 2020 than in 2019. Considering that January ridership was also a little higher, it may be that transit was beginning to recover from its five-year downward slide in ridership.
For those who are interested, I’ve uploaded an enhanced spreadsheet that shows (for both trips–UPT–and service–VRM) all of the FTA’s raw data plus totals by year (from 2002 through 2020) in columns HT through IL, totals by mode in rows 2183 through 2203, totals by transit agency in rows 2211 through 3209, and totals for the 200 largest urban areas in rows 3221 through 3421. Of course, any trends will be thrown completely off course by the massive declines in ridership in March and April.
We must remember that the mayor of NYC and the “health” commissioner of NYC both urged people to take mass transit as late as mid-March, saying that there was no way anyone could catch the disease while riding on a subway.
And the media pretty much gave them a pass for making NYC the epicenter of the virus.
“47 percent (6,898 out of 22,129)”
This looks like a slight error. I calculate (6,898/22/129)*100% = 31%
“47 percent (6,898 out of 22,129)”
This looks like a slight error. I calculate (6,898/22/129)*100% = 31%
Calculations are hard. He calculated a 7% fatality rate for the virus.
Sorry, 6,898 was for New York City. The urban area was 10,415. Corrected in the post.
Frank,
The 7 percent was not my claim but was based on a statement by Metro magazine that “there are 13 times more cured cases than deaths.” That means 7 percent die. Metro magazine used the 13 times number to reassure people that catching coronavirus on a transit vehicle was safe. My point is that transit is not safe, even if mortality is less than 7 percent but especially if it is as Metro magazine claims.
Regarding SunRail:
a) Volusia County – If I understand right, it’s coming time for them to finally cough up some serious money for SunRail. IIRC the county has voted on leaving the coalition.
b) Kissimmee – some planner types have fallen in love with downtown Kissimmee, claiming it’s lovely because of SunRail. They ignore that it was lovely long before SunRail existed. They ignore the near non-use of the SunRail station. And they ignore that the recent building of 800 parking spots downtown makes it an easy for people in metro Orlando to drive to and use.