Federal lawmakers from New York say funding they helped secure for an MTA study could result in improved public confidence in mass transit.
Democrats U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney say the $600,000 is for the Metropolitan Transit Authority to study aerosol dispersion, or how COVID-19 moves through the air, in mass transit. The lawmakers say the project is designed to improve passenger safety and strengthen public confidence to return to mass transit during the pandemic. On Metro-North, ridership was down around 95 percent during the first peak of the pandemic, and by December had climbed some 15 percent, carrying about 20 percent of its pre-COVID numbers.