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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Governor Cuomo has announced that businesses may reopen fully on May 19th, as we've been discussing, with social distancing or vaccine or negative test requirements or partitions and restaurants, which everybody says don't do anything. The governor also says if you reopen economic and social activity, you also have to have transportation available. We're going to coordinate the MTA's resumption of service with the reopening. He said that yesterday. The subways, which have been closed for a few hours overnight for cleaning and disinfection, will resume 24-hour service on Monday, May 17th.

Ridership is still way down compared to before the pandemic, but also way up from the lows in ridership that were hit last year. With us now Jose Martinez, transit reporter for the news organization The City. His latest article is appealingly titled "A Push to Unlock Subway Bathrooms as the City Gets Moving Again. A section of the article is called No Place to Go. Jose, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Jose Martinez: Thank you, Brian. I really appreciate the invitation to join you.

Brian Lehrer: There are many tasteless jokes we could make off your headline, but we won't. What percentage of subway stations even have bathrooms?

Jose Martinez: Just about 16%. That's out of 472 stations throughout the system, and that amounts to really just a fraction of the available restrooms. When you combine that with the lack of restrooms at street level in restaurants and coffee shops, it really makes for hard times, so to speak, for anyone looking for a place to go. In the article, we focused quite a bit on the homeless population, which of course is sizable in parts of the subway, and the pressure that puts on them when they just want someplace to go.

Brian Lehrer: Were the bathrooms closed because COVID spread was considered too likely inside those enclosed spaces used by one person after another?

Jose Martinez: This goes back to the early days of the pandemic when the restrooms in the subway stations were closed because of a concern among the MTA and at the time along the thinking among public health officials that you should stop the spread of COVID. There's also the issue of having staffing at that time when the pandemic was peaking in the city last spring, in terms of keeping them clean. Some bathrooms in the past have been recommended to be closed by the NYPD because of concerns over vandalism or crime. There are any number of reasons why restrooms in the subway system are closed.

When you go around and look at those few bathrooms a lot of them still say with signs taped to the doors that the restrooms remain closed, and there are some that say to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Brian Lehrer: Your story includes reports of lack of options for homeless people who used to use those bathrooms in the subway system. More than 500 reports so far this year, of people who relieve themselves inside subway cars, is that a higher rate of those incidents than before the pandemic?

Jose Martinez: It's not, it's actually a decrease from that same or an equal time period from earlier years. What you have to consider, of course, is the ridership on weekdays now is just about 40% of what it was pre-pandemic. Also, this was happening during the time when there has not been for almost a year now full 24/7 subway service. For several months going back to last May, there was no service between 1:00 and 5:00 AM. More recently, that window has been closed down to two hours a night when there is no passenger service in the subway. You're seeing this even in spite of the cessation of subway service to the public during some of the hours during the overnight.

Brian Lehrer: It might be a lower number of incidents but it might be a higher rate, I'm not sure. What options exist in the city generally for people who are street homeless?

Jose Martinez: Generally, it's places like Starbucks and McDonald's. There are very few public restrooms in the city. When you talk about going in places like the transit system, you have to go within the system but outside of the subway system, and by that places like Penn Station, those are a draw among people who want to go to the bathroom. The bathrooms at Grand Central, the bathrooms at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown. You have to know your spots. There are also places within the transit system that are not maintained by the MTA, some bathrooms, say for instance, that Fulton Center.

That one to my knowledge has remained open, as well as the one at the Time Square Station, that one has remained open, but that's maintained not by the MTA, but by some of the building property owners in Times Square. There're just one or two or three, four places where you can go, number one or number two, sorry about that Brian. Couldn't resist. There just those few places where you can go but it really creates a lot of pressure for those who have limited options and who do ride the transit system because they really aren't going elsewhere.

Brian Lehrer: Disturbingly, your article reports that the de Blasio administration plays 12 portable restrooms and handwashing stations around the city during the pandemic, but two problems. 12 for all of New York City is such a tiny number. Also, all 12 were taken out of service after being vandalized, people were destroying portable public restrooms on purpose.

Jose Martinez: That is correct. They were taken out of service and they have yet to be put back in the service. That's an additional layer of pressure because of vandalism on public restrooms. As you know, there are places here and there in the city, I can think of one in Greeley Square, I can think of one off of Madison Square Park, where you have some public restrooms, but it's really a small number when compared to other cities around the world and in the country. Last summer, my colleague Reuven Blau at thecity.nyc did a terrific report on the lack of options at street level for people just looking for a place to go.

To speak as I did with some of the homeless who felt they have no choice but to relieve themselves on a platform, that's really, it's gut-wrenching. They know that it's dehumanizing for them. The gentleman I spoke to said, "I don't want to do that. I don't want to have to duck behind garbage can on the subway platform but I was left with no choice." Really, that's grim.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC-FM HD and AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcom, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are in New York and New Jersey, Public Radio with Jose Martinez, transit reporter for the news organization The City. Listeners, we can take a few phone calls on really the three things that we're touching on with Jose. We've only done one of them so far, subway bathrooms. You can call about that or public restroom availability in general in New York City. I know that people who've been in other world capitals, big cities around the world, say New York is so far behind many of the best.

Also, the safety of the subway from COVID and from crime which we're about to get to, and the reopening plan for May 17th, 24 hours. Your questions, comments, or stories at 646-435-7280. Just to finish up this bathroom's thread, Mayor de Blasio and Senator Schumer are calling for this reopening of 24 hours subway service on May 17th to include the reopening of subway bathrooms. Is the MTA against that?

Jose Martinez: No, the MTA has in fact in recent years reopened some subway bathrooms, but I think at this point they are just going to move with recommendations on when they should go with this. They want to give people more options, but at this point I think their focus is going to be on May 17th, that for the first time in 377 nights that will be 24/7 subway service.

Brian Lehrer: All right. I think I just said May 17th, because Cuomo has announced that businesses may fully reopen on May 19th with social distancing or vaccine or negative test requirements. He also added this.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: If you reopen economic and social activity, you also have to have transportation available. We're going to coordinate the MTA's resumption of 24-hour service with the reopening.

Brian Lehrer: Now, Jose, I don't have to tell you that many people have believed the overnight closures have been unnecessary for months as the science has shown COVID spread comes so much more from breathing shared air than it does from touching surfaces like subway poles, though they say there can be some risks from that. How widely held among public health experts is the belief that this overnight cleaning was really preventative as opposed to what some people disparagingly call hygiene theatre?

Jose Martinez: That term has been used quite a bit, hygiene theater, in terms of this being a maneuver to work around the issue of homelessness in the subway. The MTA has said that intense cleaning will continue, but at the very least we're now going to have subway service available around the clock, which we have not had since early May of 2020.

Brian Lehrer: Have you looked at COVID infection data from people riding crowded subway cars? The ventilation is generally good from what I understand, but six-foot distancing is impossible in so many cases, rush hour, et cetera. I've read reports of low infection rates, but I'm curious if you know how good the studies where for rush hour conditions and things like that during different positivity rates in the city? Any way that we can say how secure or not people can feel going back?

Jose Martinez: Well, you'll recall that early in the pandemic there was a study. I believe it was from a professor at MIT, and it was not peer-reviewed, but this study got a lot of pickup in terms of calling the subway vector for the transmission of coronavirus, that study was widely panned. People continued to ride the subway. The MTA's insisted all along that it's safe, that people should cover their faces with masks. They should do their best to keep some distance, as much distance as possible from each other, or to go wait for the next train if you're not comfortable with the one that comes in. Now we're up to the point where on weekdays, you regularly have more than 2 million people riding the subway.

We're at the point where you can ride in the afternoon and say to yourself, "This looks familiar." That's how I was feeling yesterday when I was on a train in the afternoon and thinking, "Well, this looks the way things used to look." That's not at all what it was like last April, last May, even in June, because ridership had disappeared. The MTA is pushing the idea that the city reopened, that the city that the subway have to be an integral part of that. Anyone who lives in New York who relies on mass transit knows just how important the subway is to the life of the lifeblood of this city. It's how we move. It will be interesting to see just how many people do not come back, but there's certainly some mental hurdles to be cleared here, still.

Brian Lehrer: Mental hurdles, but the data on subway spread still ambiguous as far as you know, or if you haven't looked into it you can just say that?

Jose Martinez: No, I wouldn't know. I could tell you about the ones from last spring but beyond that, I can't tell you off the top of my head where we stand there.

Brian Lehrer: Juliette in East Harlem, you were on WNYC with Jose Martinez transit reporter for The City. Hi Juliette.

Juliette: Hi. Thanks for having me on. I've been in Europe and also in Japan where the public bathrooms are clean and plentiful. With regard to being in New York, I'm on medication which means I have to go to the bathroom regularly and it's a real struggle, and I take public transportation. There's a medical issue with regard to having public bathrooms that people can use.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. It's a medical issue, not just a convenience issue or not just a basic provision for street homeless people. Even for people like Juliette who have to go frequently, as she says, because of medication that she takes, if you're on a subway trip and maybe you're not even going to get off the subway in the middle of your trip just to go to the bathroom at a station that you know has one. Even before however long you might have to walk to your home at the end of it. There are so many reasons to have them, right, Jose?

Jose Martinez: That's right. They're really important. I've spent enough time in the subway system for long hours that I came to know it quite well in terms of go-to spots, if you will, in the subway system, some that were fairly reliable in terms of cleanliness. That's a big challenge too, for the MTA is to keep the places clean, to keep them somewhat inviting to those who need to use the restroom while in transit.

Brian Lehrer: Celis in the Bronx. You're on WNYC. Hello Celis.

Celis: Hello. I'd like to know if they're going to go back to 24/7, when are they going to clean the subways? What's the timeframe?.

Brian Lehrer: Good, straightforward question. If they're cleaning them overnight now in those closed hours, and they're going back to 24/7, when they do that cleaning that some people consider hygiene theatre, but other people say it's really good to do?

Jose Martinez: It's going to continue at terminal operations. At terminals at end of line stations, you will continue to see some cleaners in the yards when trains and subway cars are not running. This also points to an article that I had on thecity.nyc today that the transport workers union says how are they going to be able to cover all of this when they're understaffed in terms of the number of car cleaners that are employed by the MTA? It's about 8% fewer than New York city transit employed about two years ago.

Brian Lehrer: Why is that the case? I noticed your article from last week about a general decline in the number of subway workers from the usual 30,000 down by 2,600, which is a lot of people. What are the implications of that?

Jose Martinez: Well, at this point with the ridership being what it is, the impact hasn't been felt to the level that it might be if the ridership were, say, at pre-pandemic levels, when we were carrying more than 5 million people a day on the subway. When you have fewer car cleaners, when you have fewer train conductors, when you have fewer train operators, that all adds up at some point. That catches up with you. That's what the union has been warning about. In my story today, they warned that you're just not going to have, if the MTA does not hire and fill some of those open slots, they're not going to have the car cleaners to keep up with the grime. That was the phrase we use, the looming grime wave in the subway system unless, as the union says, more car cleaners are hired.

Brian Lehrer: There's the grime wave, and we'll close with one more issue and that is the alleged crime wave and the dispute between the MTA and the NYPD over whether more cops are needed in the system. The NYPD says, no, that the MTA is just fear-mongering, but the MTA says the fear has to be addressed. Here we will hear that. So desperate governor.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: I relate to it because, as you know, I am a New Yorker born and bred. I am smart. I am New York tough. Don't lie to me and don't play me as a fool. "Come on the subway, it's safe." Really? Have you been on the subway? I have, and I was scared. "Tell your child to ride the subway. It's safe." I'm not telling my child to ride the subway because I'm afraid for my child.

Brian Lehrer: We will overlook that the governor in that clip said, "I am smart." Are there good data on subway crime rates during the pandemic compared to before, Jose, that you're aware of?

Jose Martinez: Absolutely. I've done a lot of reporting in The City about crime in the subway. There were points when robbery had really spiked early in the pandemic to the point where some transit officials even floated the idea, pondered the idea of calling to have the national guard brought in to supplement security in the subway system because there were so many instances of terrible things happening when it comes to robberies. I reported on the number of people ending up on the tracks, which was higher than a previous time. All of this has done against the backdrop, as we noted earlier, of significantly decreased ridership.

Yes, there are numbers that point to significant problems within the transit system when it comes to crime. At the same time, as you noted Brian, the NYPD, the officials with the transit Bureau which patrols the subway system, they have butted heads, if you will, with the leadership of New York City transit and the MTA. Then you have the governor remarkably chiming in yesterday. Here is a city in the state that is pushing the reopen, that's restoring 24/7 subway service, that has municipal workers going back to the office, and the chief executive of the state, who I should note is a very, very, very inexperienced subway rider, at least in the last couple of years, saying that he doesn't feel safe in the subway.

It's really a lot of different themes and messages that you're hearing, when it comes to crime. The MTA had a survey that reported that concerns over safety were significant to a lot of riders who have not been in the system over the last year or so. This is an issue that isn't going away and it's certainly something that reporters like myself who cover the transit system, we're going to be keeping an eye on because it's not going away anytime soon, even as the ridership returns.

Brian Lehrer: We're just about out of time, but it's politically weird on both sides of it, isn't it? For the governor who wants to promote reopening and everybody go back to normal as quickly as possible to be saying but the subway aren't safe. Isn't it unusual for the NYPD to be against deploying its people rather than arguing that they are needed?

Jose Martinez: There is a lot of hot political language have both sides there. It is interesting that the governor would say something like that and also that the NYPD, which of course is under the care of Mayor de Blasio, has said opposite what MTA leadership has said in some cases. It's quite a jumble, it really is. Again, this isn't one that's going to go away all that easily and even before the pandemic you'll recall, Brian, that the MTA had pushed for the hiring of more police officers from their own police department, the MTA PD, that would go into the transit system, including some in the subways.

Brian Lehrer: Jose Martinez, great transit reporter for the nonprofit news organization The City. Jose, thanks for all this.

Jose Martinez: Thank you very much Brian.

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