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New York MTA is battling COVID-19 with UV lights and infrared sensors:
New York City may be opening back up for business, but that doesn't mean everybody's ready to hop aboard its trains and buses yet. While daily ridership on subways and buses is up 380,000 compared with the period before the June 8 reopening date, that's still a fraction of the millions of riders who commuted in the pre-pandemic days.
[...] Last month, the MTA began shutting down the subway system between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.daily -- the first time it's ever done so -- to disinfect the cars. Foye made the point that it wasn't simply a cleaning, but actually disinfecting the cars, and noted it happens twice a day.
At the same time, the agency launched a $1 million pilot program to use ultraviolet light to sterilize its cars. The MTA plans to deploy 150 mobile devices at stations and rail yards to test the effectiveness of UV, and Foye said that the early research conducted by Columbia University has been promising.
Meanwhile, cycling naturally enforces distance, is faster, and costs nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2020, @04:52PM (4 children)
Bicycles work best in flat places where there's not much traffic. You have to have so many bicyclists that you can justify having their own dedicated signals that reduce the number of times that cars need to cross cyclists as they ride. There's ways of doing it, but by and large it's not economical. You'd be better off just building proper mass transit and then encouraging people to cycle the last little bit.
The fact that there's a substantial number of cyclists that blatantly ignore traffic laws just makes matters worse. I've seen all sorts of craziness from cyclists riding the wrong way down dedicated bike lanes to them riding on the wrong side of the street so that they can turn at a higher speed. For optimal safety on the streets, there needs to be a substantial agreement about what kinds of behaviors are and aren't reasonable to expect from other road users and there's enough ill-behaved cyclists that it makes it very difficult to share the road with any of them.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Sunday June 21 2020, @12:07AM (1 child)
Bad drivers are a danger to cyclists. Arrogant cyclists, not uncommon, are a danger to everyone on the road. Try following a cyclist on a 40 mph posted road, going 7 mph for a quarter mile and blocking the cars behind him; he thinks it's O.K. because he's going to turn left some day soon.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday June 21 2020, @04:38AM
Is it any better if the cyclist is sustaining 12 to 18 mph (19 to 29 km/h), depending on hill and wind conditions, and keeping to the right* half of the right through lane until hand-signaling a left lane change about a block in advance of a left turn?
* Assumes USA and other countries that drive on the right.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday June 21 2020, @06:10PM
That's not so. I previously lived in kyushu and only got around by bike. there not only was no bike infrastructure, but most times there weren't even shoulders to the roads, and sidewalks were inaccessible because of pedestrian fencing. Yet biking there was fine.
I will confess that I prefer dedicated bike infrastructure, such as beijing has, but it's not a prerequisite.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday June 21 2020, @06:16PM
I disagree. you don't need flat places to bike. NYC is hillier than most people realize, and it's not a problem to bike here. also, I biked in japan a lot, and it's quite hilly. now, if you live in a very hilly place like san francisco or pittsburgh, you'd probably have to work up to it, but I'll leave it to those who live there to comment.
Washington DC delenda est.