When COVID-19 comes for your bus

It turns out a transit system can catch coronavirus. The question is, can it be vaccinated?

WMATA announced this week that bus services will have to be cut back, again, dramatically. Not enough staff are in compliance with its own vaccine mandate and a testing alternative (which some would call rather forgiving, given that covid can be transmitted days before a positive test). WMATA says that 230 workers are out of compliance; they will be suspended beginning January 16, while 172 staff have tested positive and thus cannot work, leading to the staffing shortage.

As of Jan. 10, tens of thousands of riders who rely on Metrobus daily will see their main means of mobility—to jobs, to appointments, to schools—scaled back to Saturday-level service (As of this post, Metrobus service is currently operating on a moderate snow service plan due to today’s (Friday’s) snowfall). In the meantime, WMATA’s told non-compliant workers to get vaccinated or comply with weekly testing within 30 days, or be removed from service permanently.

It’s been nearly a year since vaccines for the biggest pandemic in a generation became available. Now, repeatedly exposing people who choose to neither vaccinate nor test to the public and to their colleagues is yielding a sick enough workforce for WMATA to take serious action.

But it’s too late to prevent another round of service disruptions for many, at a time when Metro rail services are down as well, leaving riders with few options.

A sliding scale?

It’s not been an easy two years. WMATA went from scrambling, more than most agencies had to, to immediately protect its frontline workers and riders while still serving the public; to re-planning services around rapidly-evolving priorities; to existential financial threats due to plunging ridership; to the 7000-series wheel safety fiasco; to omicron suddenly making it rather obvious how important it is for frontline public service workers to be vaccinated.

One can understand why there wasn’t a ready-made Plan B for some of these eventualities, or why managerial attention may have been distracted over the past two years. Who among us, etc.

But the best Plan B, as they say, is a good Plan A. The greater Washington region doesn’t work with a continuously faltering transit system any more than it works without children at school. We can count on short-term fixes for so long, and then what?

Everyone ultimately needs the bus, whether we’re taking it to work, or we’re merely relying on those who do to keep our essential services running smoothly. District and regional riders can’t be left in the cold again.

Time for some good disruption

Economic and social recovery will happen in some form for cities, including in the Washington region; history’s a pretty good guide in this sense. But where, and how? A robust urban recovery depends on lots of people deciding that spending time with others outside their own home—including on transit—is a good idea.

Cars won’t get us there: drivers drive in, they park, they work, maybe buy a sandwich, drive home, and order things online. An auto-centric recovery is not a resilient recovery: the closures of businesses and schools across the region this week due to the snow-fueled failure of the highway system, leaving travelers with few options, should close that case for good.

The scale of mass public engagement that will make our region roar again is a different phenotype: it features transit, density, and public spaces that invite as much socializing, commercial activity, and physical movement (which is fundamental for public health) as possible.

Urban resilience means cities that can move lots of people around, even in hard times. There will be more climate-related disruptions and even another pandemic, to say nothing of potential threats from terrorism, such as the homegrown version we saw just one year ago. It will take big ideas, and leaders willing to take risks. An election year is as good a time as any to look for who’s ready to meet the moment, though many decisions about leadership are made outside the electoral process.

In a time when disruptions become the norm, we need a transit system that’s “vaccinated” against the greatest threats to operations, as a core facet of how we think about public services.