MTA New York City Transit Interim President Sarah Feinberg appeared on NY1 Mornings on 1 to discuss the phased reopening of overnight subway service and the MTA’s request for 1,000 additional NYPD officers to patrol the transit system.
A transcript of the interview appears below.
Annika Pergament: Today the subways have extended ridership hours to now 22 hours a day. That's after they had been reduced, they were not operating between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Now they're only not operating between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., which is welcome news to many who need those trains to get around during the overnight hours. Joining me now to talk about this and other topics is the Interim President of New York City Transit, Sarah Feinberg, who is joining me from Union Square. Good morning, Sarah.
Sarah Feinberg: Hey, good morning.
Pergament: So, let's start talking about these expanded hours. So, how many more people will this serve? How many people do you expect were not able to use the trains during those two hours that were shut down that are now going to be open for riders?
Feinberg: Well, look the truth is we'll get ridership numbers later this morning or later today and so then we'll have an actual number, but the reality is you know was just a couple of 1,000 people because since we're still in the pandemic, just a couple of 1,000 people we think were sort of missing service in these couple of hours. A lot of them have turned to the bus. You know, look, they may stick with the bus for a couple of days until they, you know, are really prepared to come back to the subway, we'll see. Usually it takes a couple days when we make service changes for people to sort of catch on and decide what they want to do so we'll see.
Pergament: But ridership when you look at it as a whole is still substantially down from where it was this time last year, and I just want to put up a graphic showing what numbers we're talking about and it shows for example, Thursday, there were 74% fewer riders than a Thursday in February last year. Talk about the drastic fall off and what can be done to give people the confidence that you hope will get them back on the trains?
Feinberg: Yeah so generally on the subways we're seeing, we're at about 30% ridership, 32, 33% ridership. You know, last week we were down and specifically because of the snowstorm. I think a lot of people smartly decided to stay home. But look, ridership has been down, it's almost been a year now, and that's taken a huge hit on our revenues, it's taken a huge hit on our finances and so we're doing everything we can to bring people back. The great news is New York City is starting to come back. Restaurants and bars are staying open later, people are starting to come back to the city, you know, hopefully offices and companies will start to reopen, and as the city reopens we want to make sure that the subway system is there to meet them.
Pergament: And the confidence piece among the ridership is such an important part. We were just looking at some video of pre-pandemic subways when you saw those crowds. There is that fear factor that, especially in the early days of the pandemic we were told, you know, we didn't know how this thing spread, that the subways were a great sort of super spreader. What do you want people to know about riding the trains now and what you're doing to keep them safe?
Feinberg: Agree 100%, confidence is everything. So I want commuters as they're dipping their toe in their commute and considering coming back and just you know even the essential workers who have been using the system every day, they have to feel confidence in the system. Confidence that service is good and reliable. Confidence that this system is safe and secure from COVID but also from crime. So that's why when you look around our system, we're seeing 96, 97, 98% mask compliance. Everyone is masked, it's the law, it's really important. We continue to clean 24/7 even as we are, you know, closed for fewer hours overnight, we continue to claim 24/7 to give people that confidence, show our work, show that the system is clean and safe, and again, that's part of asking for additional police too. I'm not comfortable with the upticks we've seen in crime, I want a police presence in the system let's squash that as people are trying to come back to the city.
Pergament: And let's talk about that uptick in crime. Where does that number stand right now compared to a year ago? And also, you've asked for I think it's 1,000 additional officers, you've got 600, a little more than 600. Is that enough, do you think, to make the safety piece of fall into place?
Feinberg: In terms of where we are on crime rates now versus a year ago, look some numbers are up some numbers are down. The NYPD will tell you that crime is down overall, which is great news. My understanding is that's mostly based on burglaries being down. Again, great news, I'm glad that burglaries are down. Some other crimes are up and again, I want to squash that as quickly as I can as riders are coming back to the system. So, you know look at the end of the day, Commissioner Shea is a wonderful partner, he's incredibly responsive, we are in constant touch. Same with Chief O'Reilly who runs the Transit Bureau, the NYPD Transit Bureau. So, they have to make their deployment decisions, we have to make our deployment decisions with MTA Police and security personnel. I would like to see more police officers. I'd like to get back to the level where we were a couple of decades ago when NYPD took over policing the subway system. I'd also like to see a uniformed presence on buses sometimes you know. Officers just stepping onto a bus looking around, checking in with that bus operator, that driver saying is everything okay? Do you need anything? I just generally think that's going to help bring people back.
Pergament: Yeah, to feel safe is a massive part of it as you point out, not only from the virus but also safety in terms of crime. Sarah Feinberg, thanks so much for joining us this morning, we appreciate it.
Feinberg: Okay, great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
