Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. MTA ridership is still down between 60 and 70% compared to this month last year. According to the latest stats that I've seen, a figure that's been holding roughly steady throughout the pandemic, as people fear crowded mass transit. Over the weekend two more reasons for some people to fear the subways, the NYPD deployed 500 more police officers to the subway system after a series of stabbing incidents at different points on the A-line. Now, MTA officials are asking for even more cops, 1000 more officers to be exact. Some people fear the crime, some people fear the cops. Even with the additional officers deployed, two more attacks were reported yesterday. According to Pix 11 people said two Asian women were assaulted during separate incidents on the subway in Manhattan.

Wait a minute, is there a media malpractice issue here of over-reporting a few horrible incidents and missing that actual crime rates may be declining? The NYPD says crime was down underground last year. Joining me now to talk about the latest news on subways, including the crime reports, a shorter overnight shutdown, and the very challenged MTA budget is Sarah Feinberg, interim president of New York city transit. President Feinberg, we always appreciate you giving our listeners access. Welcome back to WNYC.

Sarah Feinberg: Hey, thank you. Good morning. Good to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Over the weekend four homeless people were tacked on A train and two died. The NYPD apprehended, a suspect, a 21-year-old man from Brooklyn, and charged him with murder and attempted murder. A heinous isolated crime spree obviously or not isolated, indicative of something larger?

Sarah Feinberg: First, I want to commend, the NYTD for the quick apprehension. I'm told that the perpetrator confessed, and so I'm grateful to them for all of their work. Look, this was to your point a one-off situation and I'm thankful for that. I think what we're hearing from our customers though and what you're seeing in the media is, an uptick generally in crime in the system and one that we're very anxious to make sure that we turn back as quickly as we can, particularly, as we're trying to welcome more people back to the city and more people back to the system.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe I read a quote wrong from the New York Post. I think it said, "Major felonies in the transit system dropped 56% in 2020 compared to 2019." Those stats coming from the NYPD at last month's MTA board reading. Do I have that right?

Sarah Feinberg: I don't have those numbers in front of me. I'll tell you this. In my couple of years working both as president of transit and on the MTA board, I will tell you that those crime statistics, sometimes they feel like they can tell you whatever you want them to tell you. Look, we have a great partnership with the NYPD. I think that chief O'Reilly who's the chief of the transit Bureau is doing a great job. Some crimes are down, other crimes are up significantly. Ridership is way, way down as you know but to the extent that crime is either up or staying steady, we would like to see it be down as much as ridership is. Look, the reality is I want to make sure that every single person in the system, my workforce, and those who are riding the subways and riding the buses are not only totally safe and secure, but they feel safe and secure and they have confidence in the system. That's going to be critical to bringing the city back and critical to bringing more riders back.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have the specifics on which categories of crime are going up and which are going down since you cited some one way, some of the other way?

Sarah Feinberg: Burglaries are way down, which is great. Unfortunately, felony assaults are up, misdemeanor assaults are up and then look, murders and rapes are up. I don't want to spend a lot of time on that. Thank God that they continue to be few and far between, but they are up.

Brian Lehrer: The MTA has called for an additional 1000 officers I see to be added to the subways on top of the 500 from this weekend. The Post reports that would bring the total number of officers in the system to 4,000 on par with 1995. Are the subways as dangerous now as they were in 1995?

Sarah Feinberg: Well, to be clear, [unintelligible 00:04:49], it would bring us to about 4,000. I think it would actually bring us through about 3,800 or 3,900. That is about where we were in the '90s. It's about where we were when basically the NYPD and Transit merged in terms of the NYPD taking over policing the subways. Part of that agreement, the MOU that exists between the two organizations is that the NYPD will continue to keep up staffing levels.

Again, look, I'm the last person who wants to over police the system or make the system feel in any way like it's militarized. The most important thing is that people not only are safe and secure, but they feel safe and secure, particularly, as we're trying to bring the city back. At this moment in time, with this uptick that we're seeing with the fact that worker assault, assaults on the workforce of the MTA is at all-time highs. I want to be able to beat this thing back as quickly as possible so that folks are feeling safe about coming back.

Brian Lehrer: Reportedly, the additional 500 cops not to mention the additional on top of that thousand that are being requested are expected to cost a billion dollars over 10 years. With the MTA's budget challenges, how will these extra officers be funded?

Sarah Feinberg: There's a little bit of apples and oranges there. I'll try to take you through it really quickly. More than a year ago, the governor called for and the MTA board approved the addition of 500 officers at the MTA police so for us to be hiring our own police officers. We started that process. We got about less than halfway through, maybe a third of the way through, our finances fell off a cliff because of COVID. We were in a financial crisis so we started a hiring freeze. We stopped hiring. Since then crime has continued. We have called on the NYTD to add officers. That is not our budget, that's the city budget. They said over the weekend they were going to add 500 officers.

By the way, I don't believe that they're hiring new officers. I'm not sure that this is a new budget line item. They're just moving officers from doing something else to being into the transit system. It's the same with the thousand officers that we called for. I don't think anybody has suggested that we should go out and hire a thousand new officers. It's let's just talk about deployments and redeployments to make sure that we are focused on some of the issues that we have at hand.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, there's concern by a lot of people these days that there's too much policing. There's too much policing in general, in ways that wind up disadvantages Black and brown people, because yes, these horrible huge crimes like stabbings need to be prevented. Then a lot of people who are doing not much wind up with criminal records when there are too many cops around.

Sarah Feinberg: No, look, I couldn't agree more. Again, that's why I said, I'm the last person who wants to over police or the system or make it feel like it's militarized. This is not about putting a bunch of uniformed police officers at fare arrays to make arrests on fare evasion. This is about making sure that there's a presence in the system. These officers are standing on platforms, they're stepping onto trains. They're looking around to make sure that they are basically a uniformed presence in patrolling stations platforms and the area generally. We hear this from our customers over and over again. Before the pandemic, we were serving more than nine million people a day, even during the pandemic, we are serving three million people a day.

They are by and large essential workers, they are nurses, they are grocery store workers, they are healthcare workers, they are transit workers themselves, they are city workers, they are sanitation workers. They're the folks that have literally carried the city on their backs during the pandemic, they continue to serve today. What we hear from them overwhelmingly in all of our customer surveys is that their top priority is to feel safe and secure in the system. They mentioned two things, safety and security from COVID. They want to see people wearing masks and safety and security from the potential for any crime. They want a uniformed presence in the system. I have a big job to lead a transit system, but part of my job is to make sure I'm listening to my customers too.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners we can take some phone calls for Sarah Feinberg, interim president of New York city transit 646 435-7280, 646 435-7280, or tweet, a question @BrianLehrer and John in Brooklyn you're on WNYC with Sarah Feinberg. Hi John.

John: Hi, Brian and Feinberg. I take the number two, which is in the Brooklyn area of Midwood. I take the train about four times during the week. I noticed that quite a bit of people come in without masks. Some of them eat while they're in the cars, in the car of the conductor and they leave their food there, and they walk out of the train. What I feel the police should walk in the trains and not standing at stations like Totem Poles, which one individual had jumped over the turnstile, and I wanted to see what the police were going to do. They did absolutely nothing.

Brian Lehrer: John, thank you very much. On COVID safety in the trains, in particular, Sarah?

Sarah Feinberg: Yes. John, first of all, thanks for being a customer. Look, this has been something we've been working hard on for 11 months now, almost 12 months, it's hard to believe. Every time I see someone in the system who's not wearing a mask I can't believe my own eyes because of everything that New York has been through, but here's the reality, we are in the system every single day checking mask compliance. We've got folks who are out in the system, they're boarding trains, and they're simply looking around, "Okay, there's 20 people in this car, 19 are wearing masks. There's 25 people in this car, 25 are wearing masks." We tally that data every single week, and we have consistently been at 96%, 97%, 98% compliance on the subway so we're not perfect. We're not perfect, but we are darn near close perfect.

I'm sure you do friends and family members throughout the country who live in communities where people are not wearing masks, and they can't believe that in New York City, everyone wears a mask. What I usually say is, "Look, New York is not the kind of city where everyone just decides to do the exact same thing, and we're just millions of rule followers. It's that we got religion on this last spring." I'm thankful that we did, and we certainly got it the hard way. Yesterday, I rode, I think I was on four different trains, and I had saw 100% mask compliance, and it was fabulous, but it also look, that doesn't happen very often, but I'm surely happy when it does.

Brian Lehrer: Back in September, Gothamist reported on a study commissioned by the American Public Transportation Association, that quote, "Found that there is no direct correlation between public transit use and COVID-19 spread, either worldwide or in New York City, as long as people wear masks and trains and buses are well ventilated." Do you have good stats as to transmission rates of COVID-19 in more recent months compared to the beginning of the pandemic?

Sarah Feinberg: That's exactly right. We've always taken this all-of-the-above-approach to cleaning and to COVID safety because the reality is, we knew a whole lot less a year ago. We'll probably know a whole lot more a year from now, but we've continued with this, let's do everything that the experts tell us to do. Let's do everything we possibly can, and if at some point we've got medical and scientific experts who are saying stop doing something that you're doing, then we'll cut it out, but for now, we continue with our all-of-the-above-approach.

You're exactly right, there has been study after study at this point showing the COVID transmission is not happening on mass transit. I think the entire certainly New York City's transit system but every transit system in the country was very ill-served by a lot of the media coverage in the beginning of this pandemic that I actually don't think it was intentional at all but story after story would talk about how COVID was moving through the country, and it seemed like every piece of B-roll, every piece of film footage was of a crowded subway car or a crowded bus. That just became the way that the media would show crowded conditions, and I don't think it served mass transit well, so we've been fighting back from that for a long time.

Brian Lehrer: Now, you're reducing the four-hour-a-night closure for cleaning to two hours. It'll just be 2:00 AM to 4:00 PM but how much extra did the MTA spend on subway surface cleaning, despite the fact that studies have been saying that COVID-19 transmission in mass transit isn't really the issue?

Sarah Feinberg: I don't have the most recent numbers of what we've spent on cleaning in front of me, but I'm looking at someone in my office, seeing if they can find me those numbers while I'm on the phone with you, so I might be able to come back to you on it. Look, we've been cleaning 24/7 this entire time. We don't only clean between 1:00 and 5:00, we clean 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Being closed 1:00 to 5:00 makes it much more efficient for us to be able to clean. As you can imagine not having customers in the system from 1:00 to 5:00 makes it a lot easier and a lot more efficient to clean.

We're moving that back to 2:00 to 4:00. We're going to continue to be cleaning 24/7 and we're going to continue to be really efficient those two hours of closure instead of four hours of closure. I'm sure that there will be impacts to that, but we believe that we'll still be able to do everything that we need to do to keep the system clean, and safe, and disinfected. To this point on hygiene theater. We've got a bunch of folks out there who have decided that somehow they have become the experts on how to clean and disinfect mass transit and surfaces. Until the CDC and the EPA and others say, "Stop all the disinfecting, stop all of the cleaning, it's unnecessary," we're going to continue to do everything we can to keep people safe.

There's a lot of talk about hygiene theater. Yes, we all know that aerosols are a much more likely way for COVID to spread but to be clear, we are not just making this up on our own. We went to the EPA as recently as two weeks ago, maybe a week and a half ago, and said, "I just want to double-check, are we still supposed to be cleaning surfaces the way that we're cleaning?" They keep saying, "Yes, keep doing what you're doing." As long as that's their guidance to us, I'm not going to second guess it, I'm going to keep doing what we're doing.

Brian Lehrer: Michael in Washington Heights, you're on WNYC with Sarah Feinberg, interim president of New York City Transit. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hi, how are you doing? Thanks for taking my call. I had a quick question that's in relation to the stabbings that just happened here on Friday, I think it was. I live up by the 184th entrance of the 181st subway stop, and I'm always going in and out. There's always someone holding the door open to the entrance and they look homeless or I'm not 100% sure they are, but I always have a buddy that I talked to and give $1 to every once in a while. Actually everybody, all the homeless people up here or the people that are by the subway entrance, they're the loveliest and nicest people when you're talking to them. I'm worried that I haven't seen my friend that I usually see every day, and I'm worried that he may have been possibly one of the victims in the stabbing.

Brian Lehrer: You want to know how you can find out the identity of the victim at 181st Street Station?

Michael: I guess so. Yes. I'm not sure. We've seen each other for years, and I always chat with him a little bit, but I don't even really know his name.

Brian Lehrer: Sarah, can Michael find that out?

Sarah Feinberg: Look, my best advice would be to look at some of the news reporting on the incident that happened on Friday and take a look at that. Look, I would say just because you haven't seen your friend in a couple of days, I don't think that you should necessarily expect the worst there because there has been a heightened presence in the system for quite some time now. It's possible that your friend has just moved on, and will be coming back. I wouldn't view too much into that.

Brian Lehrer: Adrian in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Sarah Feinberg. Hi, Adrian.

Adrian: Hey, Brian. Great show and Sarah, it's a big job. Thanks for doing it. My question is, why would we send more NYPD officers to the subway when fewer people are using the system?

Sarah Feinberg: Thanks for the question. There are fewer people using the system, but look, I think we've got three million people a day using the system and those folks have told us clearly that they would like an increased presence in the system. We've been asking for it for some time, and plus, we have a workforce of 55,000 men and women who have carried the city on their backs during the pandemic, and worker assaults and harassments are way, way up. Yes, there are fewer people in the system but they all deserve protection I think.

Brian Lehrer: Listener wants to know and Adrian, thank you for your call. "According to a recent story in the Daily News in January of last year, transit officials pulled a fleet of subway cars serving the A and C lines due to a door malfunction which required some F-line trains to be moved over. Those cuts were supposed to be temporary I'm told but have persisted even as service on other lines has been restored. Do you know the plan with the C and F trains, and will the reduction in service be made permanent?"

Sarah Feinberg: [chuckles] Brian, we're really getting into the weeds here. I do know the service plans for the C and F-lines. Most of that is exactly right. Back in January, we changed service on the C and F-lines, then we went into the pandemic, we went into what we call essential service, which you may remember from April, May and June is basically somewhat scaled back service. We were running as much service as he could with the crews that we had available, given quarantines and illness. Then as we came back to full service, ridership was very low and that was pretty low on the C-lines and the F-lines. By the way, this is going back to the summer so this is a little bit old news [chuckles]. We brought to service back full service and then kept service a little bit scaled back on the C-lines and the F-lines.

The union then asked us to run a line pick, which is where you run a specific job pick for those lines. We're in the process of doing that now. I know there's some frustration feeling like, they would appreciate if additional crews would be working on the C and the F lines so that we could bring service back a little bit faster. The reality is ridership is pretty far down on the C and the F. We're always watching for crowding, looking for issues.

If we need to bring service up a little bit higher we will, we can flex that pretty easily but that's where things stand for now. I think we've added about 90 seconds to the headways of those trains. Just to put it into context, no one's standing on a platform for 20 minutes.

Brian Lehrer: Question from Twitter. Can we hear a bit about how MTA workers who got sick or died from COVID or their families are being compensated?

Sarah Feinberg: Sure. Sadly more than 140 MTA workers passed away from COVID. Speaking for New York city transit, one of the first things that we did here was create what I call the family liaison program, where every single family, who lost someone has a senior New York city transit person assigned to their family and their job is to make sure that they have whatever they need, answer any question that could come up.

That's to help with paperwork, that's to help with pension benefits, healthcare, any items that might've been left in their office or their locker, all of those issues that can come up and basically to answer any questions and to be a sounding board. Additionally, for all MTA employees, we created a family benefit which pays the family of anyone who's passed away from COVID $500,000, which obviously can never replace the people that we've lost but it is a generous benefit that we've been able to provide to the families.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. With the budget crisis, I see and I'm getting this from the Wall Street Journal, maybe it's general knowledge that the MTA is expected to raise bridge and tunnel tolls by a little over 7% in April to fund the losses to the system created by the pandemic. Can you just tell people in our last 30 seconds or so where those tolls are going to increase?

Sarah Feinberg: Sure. All of the major crossings. I have to say, I'm a little bit out of my lane because I don't do bridges and tunnels. I just do subways and buses but it will be all of the major crossings. This is a 7% increase. I think it's been a while since those tolls were increased. I think it's actually below the rate of inflation. Hopefully, that's helpful to people and helpful background for people.

Brian Lehrer: Tough job, not what you ever expected when you signed up to be interim president of New York City Transit a little bit before the pandemic, but we're still in it and good luck trying to accomplish many, many difficult things. Thank you for coming on with us. We always appreciate it.

Sarah Feinberg: Thanks, Brian. It's good to talk to you. 

Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.