The MTA will test “real-time” air filtration on trains when the city begins to reopen next week, as part of a 13-point plan “for a safe return” to the city’s subways, transit officials said Friday.
Officials are “experimenting” with technology that “assists in filtering in the air in real-time,” an MTA official with knowledge of the effort said.
“It complements the disinfecting and cleaning that is happening multiple times a day in every car, and the requirement that everybody wears a mask,” the source added.
Transit officials announced plans to return to regular, pre-pandemic service earlier this week with the start of New York City’s Phase 1 reopening next Monday.
Subway service, which was limited during the height of the coronavirus crisis, has increased slowly over the course of this week and will be at 95 percent pre-pandemic levels by the time the city reopens on Monday, Interim Transit President Sarah Feinberg told 1010 WINS on Friday morning.
Full, pre-pandemic service levels will be in effect by Tuesday, she said. The Long Island Rail Road will increase to 90 percent normal service next week as well.
Metro-North will resume full service on June 15, officials said.
The MTA projects Phase 1 ridership will be 10 to 15 percent pre-COVID levels on subways, and 30 to 40 percent on buses.
In anticipation of increased ridership next week, the MTA has begun rolling out hand sanitizer dispensers and PPE vending machines on platforms and installing floor marking and decals to assist with social distancing, officials said at a Friday afternoon press conference in Grand Central Terminal.
Starting Monday, transit workers also will distribute masks at station kiosks and other locations, the MTA said.
But officials rejected Mayor Bill de Blasio’s demand that they block off seats and limit the number of people on trains and in stations. The said the mayor’s demand would require even lower ridership than in the depths of the coronavirus crisis.
“We only have so many trains. We only have so many seats. We only have so many lines and so many tracks,” Feinberg said.
“I take the mayor’s advice very seriously and his guidance very seriously, but to suggest that the New York City subway system, as ridership is growing, can allow for social distancing I think suggests an unfamiliarity with the system or a lack of sincerity.”
Feinberg added that New Yorkers should leave confronting fellow straphangers who aren’t wearing masks to the cops — who the MTA has asked not arrest or issue summons to mask-less riders.
“We urge everyone to wear a mask. It’s absolutely required,” she said. “We don’t need people to take on confrontation on their own.”