New York subways will soon resume operation late into the night, traffic officials announced on Monday, marking a step towards a full reopening of city life amid the coronavirus pandemic.
As of next Monday, the subway system will only close for cleaning from 2 am to 4 am instead of the current daily close from 1 am to 5 am, officials said during a news conference. They described the change as the start of a “phased reopening”, although they did not say when the trains would operate again 24 hours a day.
“New York is starting to return to normal,” said Sarah Feinberg, acting president of the New York City Transit Authority, which runs the subways.
The regular overnight closure – the first in the system’s history – began last May, when the pandemic hit New York. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which oversees traffic in New York City, ordered the city’s 24-hour subway system to be closed at night to allow the entire system to be disinfected, a move he said necessary to reduce the spread of the virus.
Nightly cleaning of trains will continue during shortened closings, officials said.
The pandemic has decimated city finances across the country and has emptied its transit agencies – in some smaller cities, fledgling systems could be forced to close completely. In Minneapolis, the number of passengers on urban trains dropped more than 98 percent in May compared to the previous year, according to the city’s public transport agency.
On Monday, Metrorail in Washington reduced its service frequency to three lines during rush hour to “better match customers’ travel patterns during the pandemic” and to manage costs, the transit agency said in a statement . Its hours of operation will remain unchanged, he said, although the number of passengers on the Metrorail has decreased by almost 90 percent from pre-pandemic levels.
In New York, Cuomo and other officials had previously said that the subway would not fully reopen until the end of the pandemic. The phased opening seemed to signal a new approach.
In the past few months, the governor has received growing criticism from traffic activists, who argued that the closure was hurting thousands of essential workers, who were forced to find alternative ways to travel at night.
About 80 percent of overnight subway passengers are people of color and a third are low-income, activists and several New York City council members, noted in a press release last week asking Cuomo to restore the service .
As icy weather washed over the city this winter, supporters of homeless New Yorkers also expressed concern about the closure.
For decades, the city’s extensive subway system has also provided a last-resort shelter for thousands of homeless New Yorkers who are concerned about the city’s often crowded and sometimes violent shelters and prefer to seek refuge on 24-hour trains.
Now, homeless people living on the streets are facing a dangerous mix of winter weather and a lack of closed public spaces, such as subway stations, trains and fast-food restaurants, which previously offered a nightly rest.
Critics of night closings also noted that scientists have long since concluded that coronavirus spreads mainly through inhaled droplets, not surfaces. There is little evidence that contaminated surfaces can spread the virus.
Still, on Monday, Cuomo said cleanliness was important.
Clean trains can also help the public transport agency to attract passengers back, as people return to work, but remain concerned about crowded spaces. The number of passengers on the subway system has reached about 30% of pre-pandemic levels in recent months.
Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the Riders Alliance, a transit group, praised the decision to shorten overnight closings. But he asked the governor to completely reopen the subway system.
“Tens of thousands of passengers depend on the night metro service,” he said. “The partial reopening of the governor is an important step. Passengers will continue to push for the full reopening, in light of the MTA’s clear ability to clean trains and the urgent need for more attention in the system to keep New Yorkers safe. “