The coronavirus pandemic has New York City shaping up. For the first time in its 115-year history, the New York City subway system was deliberately shut down early Wednesday morning for a deep cleaning.
“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures,” MTA Chairman Patrick Foye said late Tuesday, according to CNN.
While the New York City subway has been shut down because of weather (Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012), this is the first time officials have planned a shutdown.
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The cleanings will be done on a nightly basis, from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. When the cleaning is done, every single subway car in the system will be disinfected.
“This is critical to ensure the health and safety of our employees and customers,” said Foye.
For those who depend on the subway system during those hours, MTA is adding several hundred buses to its usual overnight routes to accommodate the loss of train service and make sure essential workers have access to transportation.
New Yorkers have been warned that there may be hiccups in executing this unprecedented closure of the subway system.
“If this were a normal moment, we would have planned this for months,” New York City Transit President Sarah Feinberg said.
Keep in mind, this shouldn’t be too much of a burden on riders as Subway ridership during the coronavirus crisis is down 90% from pre-pandemic times. But about 11,000 people still have used the subway from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. daily during the pandemic, according to the MTA.
The pandemic already had forced changes to the way the MTA does business. MTA has installed vinyl shields on buses to further separate passengers and drivers, and it is checking more than 3,500 employees a day for fevers.
More than 80 MTA employees, including at least 50 who worked in the subway, have died from complications related to coronavirus, according to the MTA.
We’ll keep you posted on any updates.
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