Daily commuters can expect to see free and discounted rides, shorter wait times and even new technology this summer as part of an effort by transit systems to recapture ridership.
Noam Galai / Getty Images fileThose returning to the daily commute this summer can expect to see free and discounted rides, shorter wait times and even new technology to provide greater safety and convenience — all part of an effort to recapture ridership as the coronavirus recedes and the U.S. reopens.
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority — which touts itself as the largest in the country by ridership — took in an estimated half of its revenue from fares and tolls before the coronavirus hit. But by the spring of last year, subway ridership alone had plummeted by nearly 90 percent.
“The bigger you get, the more likely you are to see that those funds were fully spent really quickly,” he said, referring to federal assistance.Public transit ridership has started to bounce back this year, but it’s still at around half of pre-pandemic levels, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
“It may not be exactly what we were doing back in 2019,” but the MTA is “very, very optimistic,” Rinaldi said. Still, trade groups like the American Public Transportation Association are lobbying for more. The group favors the funding levels in the House-passed surface transportation bill, which would provide $109 billion for public transportation, plus $32 billion for Amtrak. That bill faces an uncertain future in the evenly split Senate.The MTA added two dozen new trains to the Metro-North line in June — mostly at peak times.
The Covid-19 pandemic “underscored what our community had already said” when the redesign first began a few years ago, he said: that essential workers are among the most reliant on public transportation, and “every hour is rush hour for somebody.”
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