NYC Transit Interim President Sarah Feinberg appeared live on WCBS Newsradio 880 with Michael Wallace to discuss the return to 24/7 subway service and the future of public transit.

A transcript of the interview appears below.

Michael Wallace: Governor Cuomo announced today 24/7 subway service will resume on May 17. Joining us live on our Newsline is the Interim President of New York City Transit, Sarah Feinberg. Sarah, thanks for joining us.

Sarah Feinberg: Hey, thanks for having me.

Wallace: So how are you preparing for the resumption of full-time service in two weeks?

Feinberg: Well, look, I mean, like anything else operationally, you know, we will prep and we'll practice and we'll drill and then it'll happen and we'll be pretty good that first day and then we'll be a lot better the second and we'll be close to perfect on the third and we'll sort of go from there. That's generally how things work when we're doing something new operationally. So, I think our main challenge will be making sure that we can continue to clean 24/7, even with, you know, riders in the system 24 hours a day as well. We've gotten really efficient, really effective at cleaning and just need to be able to make sure that we can still do that even with folks in the system at all times.

Wallace: So, the loss of those couple of overnight hours where the trains aren't running, you don't see that as a problem to keep everything clean?

Feinberg: Look, it's going to be a challenge but, I think that we'll be able to deal with effectively. You know, I usually just use the example of, you know it's a lot easier to clean your kitchen when there's no one standing in it - than it is to clean your kitchen when there are a bunch of people in it. So, look, we've gotten really good at cleaning, we've been cleaning 24 hours a day, seven days a week for more than a year now, so I think we've gotten pretty good at it, we know how to do it and it'll just mean that we need to be even more efficient.

Wallace: Sarah, what about safety? A recent MTA survey found a lot of riders are concerned about subway safety. You've been adamant about the need for more NYPD officers down there but the NYPD, and the City, and City Hall don't seem to agree with you. They say subway crime is at historic lows right now. Is that a fight you'll keep fighting?

Feinberg: Well, yeah, I mean, look - my job is to advocate for my workforce and for our customers and so I'm going to continue to do that as long as I'm in this gig, so I’ll absolutely continue to advocate for additional police officers. You know the customer survey that you're referring to, you know, we do this quarterly, we go out and we ask tens of thousands of our customers - you know, how they're feeling about this system, are we doing a good job, what can we improve, what are they thinking about? And overwhelmingly our last customer survey said that our customers are worried about two things: one safety from COVID and two: safety from crime and harassment. When they come back to the system, when they re-enter the system and have come back to their commute, they are no longer worried about COVID because they see everyone wearing masks, they see how clean and disinfected the system is. They continue to worry about crime and harassment in the system because we're not where we need to be on that yet and so until, you know, my customers and my workforce are saying, we feel really good, we feel as safe as we could possibly feel, I'm going to continue to bang the drum on it.

Wallace: Are you concerned, Sarah, that no matter how clean or safe you can make the subway some riders just won't come back and the budget implications of that?

Feinberg: Oh, sure but look I can't worry about that right now. I have to continue to focus on how do I get as many people back as possible? And at the end of the day when I've done everything I possibly can and when my partners like the City and NYPD have done everything they can, and we still haven't gotten everyone back, then we'll worry about what that means but for now, we've got to continue to do everything we can to bring back folks to transit because coming back to transit means that New York is going to come back.

Wallace: Sarah Feinberg, Interim President of New York City Transit, Sarah thanks for joining us.

Feinberg: Great to be with you. Thanks.