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COVID-19 devastated public transit, and underscored how indispensable it is
COVID-19 devastated public transit, and underscored how indispensable it is
PERSPECTIVE: APR 19, 2021 COVID-19 AND CITIES, HEALTH, TRANSPORTATION
CHRISTOF SPIELER
Ridership and revenues plummeted during the pandemic, but transit service remained essential for many frontline workers. After the pandemic, it’s important that the lessons learned are used to create better, more equitable transit networks. ... Last year was a tough one for public transit. Thousands of train operators, bus drivers, mechanics and other staff were infected; the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in New York alone experienced the deaths of 136 employees. ... With office workers doing their jobs from home, restaurants, bars and shops closed, events canceled, and many of the ordinary parts of life paused, U.S. transit agencies were in the strange position of actively discouraging people from getting on board. Ridership in April 2020 was 80% lower than it was in April 2019. That triggered a financial crisis as fare revenue dropped and tax revenue decreased. And through it all, agencies had to keep operating service, increasing cleaning, requiring masks and putting more buses in service on busy routes.
It’s easy, after a year of the pandemic, to assume that transit is changed forever, to imagine a future where downtown skyscrapers stand empty because everyone works from home, where those who do commute use cars out of fear of infection, where people flee the cities where transit ridership is highest. Not surprisingly, many of the people who were declaring transit irrelevant in 2019 are still saying the same thing, except now citing COVID-19 for the irrelevance. ... We’ve learned through the pandemic, though, that the initial assumptions about COVID-19, transit and cities have proven to be incorrect. As it turns out, the risk of transmission via surfaces — the fear cited by elected officials in New York for overnight shutting down subway service — is minimal. In fact, there’s very little evidence linking infections with transit at all — being in a well-ventilated vehicle with people wearing masks appears to be far less risky than social events or restaurants. Population density also has little impact; it’s crowding within households that matters.
{snip}
Hopefully, the COVID-19 pandemic leaves us with the resolve to make things better, not simply to restore the service we had before 2020, but to create more useful, more equitable networks. Hopefully, agencies that adjusted on the fly this past year and figured out new ways to operate will apply that same level of ingenuity to recovery. But that will take political resolve, and that’s where I fear for the future. Federal funding bills have largely filled the gaps left in agency budgets by cuts in fare revenue and higher costs for operating service. But some elected officials already are saying that transit is less relevant in the post-COVID world, and suggesting that there is no need to fund it, and we’re seeing NIMBYs who say transit lines will spread disease. In the long term, pundits may be a bigger danger to transit systems than any issues around public health.
In 2020, the most devastating year transit has experienced in our lifetimes, COVID-19 proved just how important it is, and transit agencies showed what they are capable of doing. But COVID-19 is also reminding us that we can’t take transit for granted, and testing how much we value it.
Christof Spieler is a vice president and director of planning at Huitt-Zollars, a senior lecturer at Rice University, and author of “Trains, Buses, People: An Opinionated Atlas of US Transit,” published by Island Press in 2018. He served as a member of the Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority’s board of directors from 2010 to 2018.
Get Urban Edge updates
If you’re interested in stories that explore the critical challenges facing cities and urban areas — from transportation, mobility, housing and governance, to planning, public spaces, resilience and more — get the latest from the Urban Edge delivered to your inbox.
PERSPECTIVE: APR 19, 2021 COVID-19 AND CITIES, HEALTH, TRANSPORTATION
CHRISTOF SPIELER
Ridership and revenues plummeted during the pandemic, but transit service remained essential for many frontline workers. After the pandemic, it’s important that the lessons learned are used to create better, more equitable transit networks. ... Last year was a tough one for public transit. Thousands of train operators, bus drivers, mechanics and other staff were infected; the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in New York alone experienced the deaths of 136 employees. ... With office workers doing their jobs from home, restaurants, bars and shops closed, events canceled, and many of the ordinary parts of life paused, U.S. transit agencies were in the strange position of actively discouraging people from getting on board. Ridership in April 2020 was 80% lower than it was in April 2019. That triggered a financial crisis as fare revenue dropped and tax revenue decreased. And through it all, agencies had to keep operating service, increasing cleaning, requiring masks and putting more buses in service on busy routes.
As part of the Urban Edge’s ongoing “COVID-19 and Cities” series, the Kinder Institute for Urban Research is examining the urban landscape a year after the pandemic began. These stories take a look back at the past year and ahead to what will be different in the years to come.
It’s easy, after a year of the pandemic, to assume that transit is changed forever, to imagine a future where downtown skyscrapers stand empty because everyone works from home, where those who do commute use cars out of fear of infection, where people flee the cities where transit ridership is highest. Not surprisingly, many of the people who were declaring transit irrelevant in 2019 are still saying the same thing, except now citing COVID-19 for the irrelevance. ... We’ve learned through the pandemic, though, that the initial assumptions about COVID-19, transit and cities have proven to be incorrect. As it turns out, the risk of transmission via surfaces — the fear cited by elected officials in New York for overnight shutting down subway service — is minimal. In fact, there’s very little evidence linking infections with transit at all — being in a well-ventilated vehicle with people wearing masks appears to be far less risky than social events or restaurants. Population density also has little impact; it’s crowding within households that matters.
{snip}
Hopefully, the COVID-19 pandemic leaves us with the resolve to make things better, not simply to restore the service we had before 2020, but to create more useful, more equitable networks. Hopefully, agencies that adjusted on the fly this past year and figured out new ways to operate will apply that same level of ingenuity to recovery. But that will take political resolve, and that’s where I fear for the future. Federal funding bills have largely filled the gaps left in agency budgets by cuts in fare revenue and higher costs for operating service. But some elected officials already are saying that transit is less relevant in the post-COVID world, and suggesting that there is no need to fund it, and we’re seeing NIMBYs who say transit lines will spread disease. In the long term, pundits may be a bigger danger to transit systems than any issues around public health.
In 2020, the most devastating year transit has experienced in our lifetimes, COVID-19 proved just how important it is, and transit agencies showed what they are capable of doing. But COVID-19 is also reminding us that we can’t take transit for granted, and testing how much we value it.
Christof Spieler is a vice president and director of planning at Huitt-Zollars, a senior lecturer at Rice University, and author of “Trains, Buses, People: An Opinionated Atlas of US Transit,” published by Island Press in 2018. He served as a member of the Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority’s board of directors from 2010 to 2018.
Get Urban Edge updates
If you’re interested in stories that explore the critical challenges facing cities and urban areas — from transportation, mobility, housing and governance, to planning, public spaces, resilience and more — get the latest from the Urban Edge delivered to your inbox.