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New York City Transit Chief Sarah Feinberg blamed media on Sunday for low subway ridership – saying the media stoked fears of contracting COVID-19 on trains.
“[The subway system] has been really poorly served by some of the initial coverage of the pandemic, ”said Feinberg, MTA’s interim transit chairman, in an interview with ABC 7, referring to news footage at the era of crowded subway trains.
“So I think people started to think, the last place I want to be is in a crowded subway car,” she says.
Feinberg said the data shows that – despite more than 28,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the Big Apple in the past year – public transportation is not a hot spot for the transmission of the virus.
“Well, a year later, now there’s study after study that shows that the subway system, the transit system, not just in New York but really everywhere, really isn’t a place that transmits the virus, ”she told the station – without referring to specific studies.
His comments come as New York’s subway ridership plunged this month to around 70% of February 2020 and city bus ridership plummeted by 50%.
The plummet of straphangers also comes amid a spate of subway attacks that left two homeless people dead last week and countless others injured.
The loss of employment may also be linked to the decline in the number of motorcyclists – more than 550,000 New Yorkers have lost their jobs in the past year and others have switched to remote work.
Public transport officials, including Feinberg, have also cut metro service lines such as C and F trains and cut hours over the past year.
A study commissioned by the agency predicted that metro ridership will not return to pre-COVID-19 levels until at least 2024.
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