How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - Printable Version
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How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - martyup - 05-08-2020
I guess the answer is 19,000. Until yesterday, the NYC subway system was being cleaned in normal fashion every 72 hours while in service. Even while residents were being told to shelter in their homes and businesses were shuttered, the subway kept running. The homeless kept sleeping in the subway. The "essential" workers kept riding the trains to work. Over 100 of the MTA workers have died of the virus.
Last night the wise leaders of NYC finally shut down the subway system for a thorough deep cleaning. They had to remove hundreds of homeless residents of the tunnels to pull this off.
Why did it take so many deaths before this was done?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/nyregion/subway-shut-down-cleaning.html
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - Mick - 05-08-2020
(05-08-2020, 08:37 AM)martyup Wrote: I guess the answer is 19,000. Until yesterday, the NYC subway system was being cleaned in normal fashion every 72 hours while in service. Even while residents were being told to shelter in their homes and businesses were shuttered, the subway kept running. The homeless kept sleeping in the subway. The "essential" workers kept riding the trains to work. Over 100 of the MTA workers have died of the virus.
Last night the wise leaders of NYC finally shut down the subway system for a thorough deep cleaning. They had to remove hundreds of homeless residents of the tunnels to pull this off.
Why did it take so many deaths before this was done?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/nyregion/subway-shut-down-cleaning.html
Political will surrounding the homeless is always an iffy proposition, due to the intractable and conflicting issues surrounding:
1) The causes of homelessness (drug addiction, financial pressure, personal preference to live outdoors).
2) Social dichotomy between a there-but-for-the-grace-of-god compassion for the homeless against a genuine disgust for the same group.
3) Remedies, which by default are controversial.
And that's why there were so many deaths before it was done. And why otherwise sane politicians think it's perfectly acceptable for tens of thousands of people to defecate in the street and shoot up drugs in public, even providing the syringes.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - martyup - 05-08-2020
I live in a county that has had 62 confirmed cases and zero deaths. Nonetheless, I have been standing 6 feet apart at the Lowes checkout while the cashier cleans an acrylic safety panel between each transaction, while at the same time over the past 45 days people have been standing in subway cars holding hand rails that have been touched by thousands of other people in the previous 24 hours in the worst Covid-19 hot spot in the world.
I don't mind doing my part to protect others and myself. I wish NYC leaders had better protected their citizens.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - burger - 05-08-2020
(05-08-2020, 08:37 AM)martyup Wrote: I guess the answer is 19,000. Until yesterday, the NYC subway system was being cleaned in normal fashion every 72 hours while in service. Even while residents were being told to shelter in their homes and businesses were shuttered, the subway kept running. The homeless kept sleeping in the subway. The "essential" workers kept riding the trains to work. Over 100 of the MTA workers have died of the virus.
Last night the wise leaders of NYC finally shut down the subway system for a thorough deep cleaning. They had to remove hundreds of homeless residents of the tunnels to pull this off.
Why did it take so many deaths before this was done?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/nyregion/subway-shut-down-cleaning.html
I can't find it now, but there was a study that swabbed for the virus on seats, poles, etc. in the subways, and I don't believe they found any.
I suspect a bigger problem was just all those people breathing in confined spaces. Nightly cleanings wouldn't fix that. Maybe they should've shut down the subways, but that would be tantamount to firing hundreds of thousands of people (maybe millions?) who can't get to work otherwise.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - martyup - 05-08-2020
(05-08-2020, 09:44 AM)burger Wrote:(05-08-2020, 08:37 AM)martyup Wrote: I guess the answer is 19,000. Until yesterday, the NYC subway system was being cleaned in normal fashion every 72 hours while in service. Even while residents were being told to shelter in their homes and businesses were shuttered, the subway kept running. The homeless kept sleeping in the subway. The "essential" workers kept riding the trains to work. Over 100 of the MTA workers have died of the virus.
Last night the wise leaders of NYC finally shut down the subway system for a thorough deep cleaning. They had to remove hundreds of homeless residents of the tunnels to pull this off.
Why did it take so many deaths before this was done?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/nyregion/subway-shut-down-cleaning.html
I can't find it now, but there was a study that swabbed for the virus on seats, poles, etc. in the subways, and I don't believe they found any.
I suspect a bigger problem was just all those people breathing in confined spaces. Nightly cleanings wouldn't fix that. Maybe they should've shut down the subways, but that would be tantamount to firing hundreds of thousands of people (maybe millions?) who can't get to work otherwise.
Millions of jobs have been lost in the goal of saving lives. Why should NYC be treated differently. Given the number of deaths in NYC, they should have been more agressive than the rest of the country in mitigation efforts.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - 2006alum - 05-08-2020
Here's a recent article in Wired that indicates that they've been swabbing since late March and don't seem to have found the virus on the subways:
Quote:And as for the subways? Mason’s team has found plenty of genetic material from humans, the flu virus, and some bacteria, but so far, no sign of SARS-CoV-2. That’s good news, he says, and probably reflects the enhanced cleaning and disinfection the Metropolitan Transit Authority enacted in mid-March. As MTA starts making plans for how it will reopen the subway once state officials relax stay-at-home orders, Mason hopes his swabbers can help the agency respond more nimbly to head off potential new outbreaks. Regular environmental sampling could flag surfaces that need more thorough cleaning and aid the city’s forthcoming army of contact tracers. It could also allow city officials to partition public spaces into zones that are safe for people to enter and ones that have a high risk of infection, rather than just keeping everything shut down.
So contra Marty's unsubstantiated claims, it seems the MTA has been protecting its citizens from picking up SARS-COV-2 on seats, handrails, etc.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - martyup - 05-08-2020
Are the 19000 NYC deaths substantiated? If so, and if tests of sufaces in the subway showed no sign of the virus, then wouldn't it had been prudent to shut it down because the transmissions were happening person to person?
Also, ask the families of the 100+ dead MTA workers if the MTA has been protecting citizens .
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - BostonCard - 05-08-2020
For what it is worth, Taipei did not shut down it's MRT:
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3917253
Ridership in Taipei was down 52% in mid-April, compared to an 87% decline in NYC's subway ridership.
That being said, Marty does bring up a good point. If you really want to shut a city down and maximize people sheltering in place, shutting down the transport system is probably the best way to do it. On the other hand, you have to balance that against allowing essential workers to make it to work. I think NYC could have handled things a lot better (not just with regards to the Subway). You could probably put a system in place that allows delegation of essential workers who can use the subway, and everyone else is locked out.
BC
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - 2006alum - 05-08-2020
(05-08-2020, 10:20 AM)BostonCard Wrote: For what it is worth, Taipei did not shut down it's MRT:
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3917253
Ridership in Taipei was down 52% in mid-April, compared to an 87% decline in NYC's subway ridership.
That being said, Marty does bring up a good point. If you really want to shut a city down and maximize people sheltering in place, shutting down the transport system is probably the best way to do it. On the other hand, you have to balance that against allowing essential workers to make it to work. I think NYC could have handled things a lot better (not just with regards to the Subway). You could probably put a system in place that allows delegation of essential workers who can use the subway, and everyone else is locked out.
BC
While I agree with you that there could be good reasons to shut down the subway system, I wonder if either of you has ever lived in NYC and commuted daily on its subway system? Speaking as someone who was doing so a mere three months ago, I can tell you that in my view, it would be next to impossible to do what you're proposing in the days-to-weeks that it would have been necessary for it to be effective at slowing transmission.
Staffing: There are apparently 1,868 distinct entrances to the NYC subway's 424 unique stations. You'd need to man each of those entrances 24/7 to prohibit those without the right ID from entering. That, alone, seems highly unfeasible.
Designation: Who would be responsible for deciding who is designated as an essential worker? And once you do that, how do you distribute the proper IDs to the tens of thousands of them to flash to be admitted? If you don't have such an official designation, should each MTA employee manning those entrances just make a guess as to whether that person's hospital badge, etc., looks official enough?
Everyone else: How do you propose everyone else getting around? Even with subway usage down 87%, that's still approximately 500,000 people who need public transportation via the subway on a given weekday. How do you propose for them to get around? What about adult children seeking to check in on their parents, or deliver meals or prescription drugs? What about home healthcare workers? Etc.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - BostonCard - 05-08-2020
(05-08-2020, 10:32 AM)2006alum Wrote:(05-08-2020, 10:20 AM)BostonCard Wrote: For what it is worth, Taipei did not shut down it's MRT:
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3917253
Ridership in Taipei was down 52% in mid-April, compared to an 87% decline in NYC's subway ridership.
That being said, Marty does bring up a good point. If you really want to shut a city down and maximize people sheltering in place, shutting down the transport system is probably the best way to do it. On the other hand, you have to balance that against allowing essential workers to make it to work. I think NYC could have handled things a lot better (not just with regards to the Subway). You could probably put a system in place that allows delegation of essential workers who can use the subway, and everyone else is locked out.
BC
While I agree with you that there could be good reasons to shut down the subway system, I wonder if either of you has ever lived in NYC and commuted daily on its subway system? Speaking as someone who was doing so a mere three months ago, I can tell you that in my view, it would be next to impossible to do what you're proposing in the days-to-weeks that it would have been necessary for it to be effective at slowing transmission.
Staffing: There are apparently 1,868 distinct entrances to the NYC subway's 424 unique stations. You'd need to man each of those entrances 24/7 to prohibit those without the right ID from entering. That, alone, seems highly unfeasible.
Designation: Who would be responsible for deciding who is designated as an essential worker? And once you do that, how do you distribute the proper IDs to the tens of thousands of them to flash to be admitted? If you don't have such an official designation, should each MTA employee manning those entrances just make a guess as to whether that person's hospital badge, etc., looks official enough?
Everyone else: How do you propose everyone else getting around? Even with subway usage down 87%, that's still approximately 500,000 people who need public transportation via the subway on a given weekday. How do you propose for them to get around? What about adult children seeking to check in on their parents, or deliver meals or prescription drugs? What about home healthcare workers? Etc.
Since the MTA has turnstiles that require a valid pass to enter, it seems that would be a reasonable way to limit entry (yeah, you would still be susceptible to turnstile jumpers, but it would be helpful); just temporarily inactivate all existing NYC Metrocards and institute a new Metrocard that can be delivered to essential workers. This would be a heavy lift, of course, but these are extraordinary times, and just as I think assembling an army of contact tracers is extraordinarily challenging, but necessary, limiting access to the subway might have dramatically reduced transmissions.
BC
BC
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - 2006alum - 05-08-2020
(05-08-2020, 10:59 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Since the MTA has turnstiles that require a valid pass to enter, it seems that would be a reasonable way to limit entry (yeah, you would still be susceptible to turnstile jumpers, but it would be helpful); just temporarily inactivate all existing NYC Metrocards and institute a new Metrocard that can be delivered to essential workers. This would be a heavy lift, of course, but these are extraordinary times, and just as I think assembling an army of contact tracers is extraordinarily challenging, but necessary, limiting access to the subway might have dramatically reduced transmissions.
BC
Do you seriously think that in a matter of days-to-weeks the MTA could reprogram its entire system to reject metrocards, create a new different metrocard that would only be accepted instead, identify the hundreds of thousands of essential workers who are eligible for the new card, and then get those cards to them (how? mail? courier? at workplaces they can't get to without said card?)? What happens if someone loses their card? Wait two weeks until they can get a replacement mailed to them?
BC, I love 98% of your ideas, but as someone who's lived and worked in NYC for years and rode the subway everyday, I think you really don't appreciate how infeasible that would be in the time period it would have been necessary for it to be useful.
And you still haven't explained what happens to the other 500,000 people per day that doesn't just transfer points of transmission to buses, etc.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - JustAnotherFan - 05-08-2020
(05-08-2020, 09:50 AM)martyup Wrote:
Millions of jobs have been lost in the goal of saving lives. Why should NYC be treated differently. Given the number of deaths in NYC, they should have been more agressive than the rest of the country in mitigation efforts.
I generally agree with martyup here (how about that!?). They should have shut down the subways.
However, if you were going to keep them open you should have done the following:
1. Do not require people to go through turnstiles or even touch the displays to buy MTA cards. You can do this by ...
2. Make it free to travel the subway by opening all of the gates at each station. Anyone who has lived in NYC knows how often the gates are open for people leaving the station. Just cut the alarms and keep them open all the time. Don't worry about who has the right badge.
3. Do not cut the number of trains. In NYC they cut service so the people coming from poorer neighborhoods into Manhattan to work were still crammed together in cars, breathing down each other's necks (more likely form of transmission than touching surfaces), even though ridership supposedly dropped.
4. Get the cops out of the subways. NYPD has been one of the primary vectors and they are too touch feely.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - chrisk - 05-08-2020
They basically waited too long to put SiP measures in place. There either needed to start at least 3 weeks earlier or go to the draconian Chinese lockdown measures.
It seems like no Americans have the political will for the Chinese method.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - Farm93 - 05-08-2020
I love that this board is exploring this in May. Everyone does understand that this very question was asked throughout March and April. Right?
The quick answer - the only viable way many healthcare and other essential workers could get to the hospitals was by the public transportation system. Take it away and staff shortages would have created far more dramatic problems in health care facilities and grocery stores.
As risky as the system might be it was still better than the alternatives, remember not every healthcare worker in NYC has a private vehicle. So if the public transportation system was closed the workers would need to take taxis/ubers/lyfts at much greater cost.
And does anyone really believe a lyft driver transporting dozens of workers in and out of COVID treating hospitals would stay COVID-free? Of course not. If MTA was closed, the relatively inefficient private driver model would likely cause even more deaths in that sector.
As a native New Yorker, I can assure you if they closed the MTA during the peak of the outbreak the government would literally have killed thousands of people. As the workers would have failed to get to their jobs and many aspects of local health care would have seized.
Oh and FWIW - there are racial and neighborhood discrimination problems in NYC with taxis, Ubers and Lyfts. I can only imagine how long it would take an African American nurse to secure a ride from her home in the Bronx to get to her 4AM shift at a hospital overflowing with COVID patients and death. The number of reasons a taxi or a gig driver would skip that ride request are depressing, but real.
To bring it back for the native Cali types it is kind of like telling Los Angeles residents to continue working at their jobs sites but to get there each day without using the area freeways. In theory a few people could successfully navigate surface streets, but if every resident in LA had to take surface streets the region would fall into chaos in a few minutes.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - JustAnotherFan - 05-08-2020
(05-08-2020, 01:31 PM)Farm93 Wrote: I love that this board is exploring this in May. Everyone does understand that this very question was asked throughout March and April. Right?
The quick answer - the only viable way many healthcare and other essential workers could get to the hospitals was by the public transportation system. Take it away and staff shortages would have created far more dramatic problems in health care facilities and grocery stores.
As risky as the system might be it was still better than the alternatives, remember not every healthcare worker in NYC has a private vehicle. So if the public transportation system was closed the workers would need to take taxis/ubers/lyfts at much greater cost.
And does anyone really believe a lyft driver transporting dozens of workers in and out of COVID treating hospitals would stay COVID-free? Of course not. If MTA was closed, the relatively inefficient private driver model would likely cause even more deaths in that sector.
As a native New Yorker, I can assure you if they closed the MTA during the peak of the outbreak the government would literally have killed thousands of people. As the workers would have failed to get to their jobs and many aspects of local health care would have seized.
Oh and FWIW - there are racial and neighborhood discrimination problems in NYC with taxis, Ubers and Lyfts. I can only imagine how long it would take an African American nurse to secure a ride from her home in the Bronx to get to her 4AM shift at a hospital overflowing with COVID patients and death. The number of reasons a taxi or a gig driver would skip that ride request are depressing, but real.
To bring it back for the native Cali types it is kind of like telling Los Angeles residents to continue working at their jobs sites but to get there each day without using the area freeways. In theory a few people could successfully navigate surface streets, but if every resident in LA had to take surface streets the region would fall into chaos in a few minutes.
However, if you were going to [keep subways] open you should have done the following:
1. Do not require people to go through turnstiles or even touch the displays to buy MTA cards. You can do this by ...
2. Make it free to travel the subway by opening all of the gates at each station. Anyone who has lived in NYC knows how often the gates are open for people leaving the station. Just cut the alarms and keep them open all the time. Don't worry about who has the right badge.
3. Do not cut the number of trains. In NYC they cut service so the people coming from poorer neighborhoods into Manhattan to work were still crammed together in cars, breathing down each other's necks (more likely form of transmission than touching surfaces), even though ridership supposedly dropped.
4. Get the cops out of the subways. NYPD has been one of the primary vectors and they are too touch feely.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - 2006alum - 05-08-2020
JustAnotherFan, have you ridden the NYC subway much? What you have described is literally the lawless Joker's dream world. No law enforcement, no crowd monitoring, the prospect of lots of near empty cars that are a sure recipe for crime and homeless, and no revenue stream for the MTA. That is a sure recipe to run the MTA into the ground in weeks.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - JustAnotherFan - 05-08-2020
(05-08-2020, 05:35 PM)2006alum Wrote: JustAnotherFan, have you ridden the NYC subway much? What you have described is literally the lawless Joker's dream world. No law enforcement, no crowd monitoring, the prospect of lots of near empty cars that are a sure recipe for crime and homeless, and no revenue stream for the MTA. That is a sure recipe to run the MTA into the ground in weeks.
Rode the subway nearly every day for years. The cops in NYC are terrorizing people and spreading the disease. This is not the time to worry about people not paying their fare. This is a time to focus on stopping the spread of the disease. Open up the gates. Of all the things in the world to wring our hands over the amount of money the MTA loses is not it.
RE: How many had to die in NYC before they shut down the subways? - 2006alum - 05-08-2020
THIS is what folks should be criticizing NYC leadership for:
[tweet]https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1258946757872037890?s=20[/tweet]