It has been a while since we provided an update, so lots of ground to cover. Let’s start with today’s news:
NEW: Californians are now REQUIRED to wear face coverings in public spaces.
Together — we can slow the spread.
Do your part. Wear a mask.
LEARN MORE: https://t.co/xtXFwVeWc2
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 18, 2020
From the state: Starting June 18, Californians must wear face coverings in common and public indoor spaces and outdoors when distancing is not possible. Learn more about the guidance and limited exceptions here.
Our overall messaging remains:
To protect each other from #COVID19:
• wear a face covering 😷 while riding Metro
• maintain 6 feet distance from others whenever possible
• wash your hands frequently and avoid touching your face
• stay home if you don’t need to go out pic.twitter.com/eECTQxNUyI— LA Metro (@metrolosangeles) June 1, 2020
Our city, our agency, and our country are in the middle of a turbulent and painful time. On the heels of the unprecedented shutdowns and economic devastation caused by COVID-19, we are faced with alarming examples of long-standing racial injustice. https://t.co/yN2aLj12Tv pic.twitter.com/PKO89vwxyL
— LA Metro (@metrolosangeles) June 12, 2020
•The Metro Board of Directors will be considering several motions this month concerning policing and use-of-force by law enforcement on our system. Streetsblog LA has a good rundown.
•Metro has started giving face coverings to the riders at busy transit stations/stops. We estimate that about 95 percent of riders are wearing face coverings and we obviously want to get that number higher.
•Service changes take effect this Sunday, June 21. Overall we’re boosting service levels by about 11 percent with 1,101 more trips on 95 bus lines. We’re also reducing service on a few bus lines that have had low ridership. Metro Rail will continue the same service we’ve been running since mid-April.
In response to safer-at-home orders and the county’s reopening, Metro is restoring service in four phases. This is the first phase. We’ll have a Source post up with all the details very soon.
•Metro continues to update its list of employees, contractors and vendors who have tested positive for the Coronavirus — 107 as of Wednesday. As you’re likely aware, we’ve had one bus operator and one contractor (a security guard) who have died of COVID-19.
•Metro held its State of the Agency on Wednesday. The video is here.
•Below is Metro CEO Phil Washington in a conversation with ITSA on equity and access in transportation. ITSA is a company that promotes intelligent transportation solutions.
•Metro is in the midst of a fare pricing study. Here’s a presentation being given to the Metro Board this month.
•Scenes from transit outside of our region:
#MovilidadCDMX
Entre todos hagamos el transporte seguro #ProtégereYProtegeALosDemás 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/61oz2k8GbV— Metrobús CDMX (@MetrobusCDMX) June 18, 2020
In the news…
•In the Atlantic, transit advocates point out that evidence is thus far scarce tying mass transit to Coronavirus outbreaks. Their fear is that if the public wholesale avoids transit in the future, we’ll likely get one big traffic jam as a result. Excerpt:
Far from scaling back on public transit, cities across the country need a massive transit expansion that will enable them to avert the mobility meltdown that threatens to swallow them if even a fraction of former transit commuters take to cars. The nation won’t recover if it adds a traffic crisis to the ongoing health and economic crises.
•A good look in the NYT at the New York Subway as the city begins to reopen. Ridership is still down 80+ percent and riders are finding a system transformed with far fewer people and far cleaner cars and stations than in the past.
•Remember climate change? One byproduct of the safer-at-home orders has been reduced emissions.
April set new global temperature records, and it's more likely than not that we're living through what will be the hottest year ever measured on our planet.
One crisis doesn't stop when another startshttps://t.co/BY4tjohKs2— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) May 6, 2020
•On the subject of telecommuting, the Washington Post runs through the list of challenges involving put a lot of employees in close quarters in an office.
•Check out the remarkable work of Philadelphia-based photographer Isaac Scott, who covered the Black Lives Matter movement and protests. Here’s a selection of images in the New Yorker and here is Scott’s IG stream.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_2FdBdHAry/https://www.instagram.com/p/CAunHLJqOVU/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_2FdBdHAry/https://www.instagram.com/p/CAunHLJqOVU/
Categories: Transportation Headlines
Don’t tell me to stay 6 feet away from people until you include enough space on your buses to allow me to do so. You are continuously operating buses which are overcrowded (#206 line, #20 and 720 lines, #2 line)..
Don’t keep telling me to wear a face mask until you can get ALL of the other bus passengers to wear one also. Look at yourself—don’t look at me. I always wear a face mask on the bus, but you are letting people ride without a mask.
And don’t keep playing the recording on the bus that the bus is for “essential trips only”. If any activity is “essential” enough for Metro’s board of directors (such as the mayor) to reopen, I will consider that activity “essential” enough to take the bus to.
If you are reducing service on some lines on Sunday, I would say it is really late to announce that information. It is difficult for people to change their plan with such a short notice