Plans to Speed Up Buses Slowed as the City Gets Set to Reopen planetizen.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from planetizen.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Hiram Alejandro Durán/THE CITY
The MTA’s signature plan to revamp bus routes has been stuck in the slow lane for over a year because of the pandemic delaying long-planned efforts to speed up rides as the city begins reopening.
Agency officials say the citywide bus network redesign which launched on Staten Island Express routes in 2018 will eventually resume, though the MTA could not specify an exact timetable.
While Staten Island’s overhaul was completed nearly three years ago, The Bronx’s redesign was just about to hit the streets when COVID slammed the brakes. The MTA had started public outreach on its Queens plan, while Brooklyn’s redesign was in a preliminary phase. Manhattan will be the last borough to have its bus routes reimagined.
NYCT Restores Overnight Subway Service railwayage.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from railwayage.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Hiram Alejandro Durán/THE CITY
The transit workers who kept the city moving through some of its darkest days took a sizable hit during the pandemic, with more than 160 MTA employees dying from COVID-19.
Agency data shows that 41% of the more than 70,000 MTA employees have received at least one vaccine dose about the same rate as city and state residents. But officials concede it won’t be easy to sway vaccine holdouts, even with the MTA offering workers four hours pay to get the shots.
“Yeah, nah,” Richard Richards, a 46-year-old subway train operator, told THE CITY. “I don’t trust it.”