The Metropolitan Transportation Commission voted on Wednesday to advance a coronavirus safety plan for Bay Area transit agencies despite strong criticism by riders and unions.
Representatives from several transit employee unions lambasted the plan and the commission for recommending only 3-foot distancing between passengers as opposed to 6 feet, and for not mandating stricter measures.
James Lindsay, vice president of the Amalgamated Transit Union International, called the plan “outrageous” and said that five union members in California have died of COVID-19 in the past two months.
“Expect that we are going to turn around and we will fight every transit agency that decides to implement this plan and we will fight you,” Lindsay told the commission. “And under our contracts, we have the right to shut the service down because of safety. Guaranteed that will happen.”
The “Riding Together: Bay Area Healthy Transit Plan” outlines basic safety guidelines that all 27 transit operators in the region are expected to implement. The guidelines include mask mandates, sanitation and contact tracing for infected employees.
Transit agencies are also expected to adopt resolutions and commit to sending monthly reports to MTC on their health policies as well as data on mask-wearing compliance, passenger loads and contact tracing.
Officials from Golden Gate Transit, Marin Transit and the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, or SMART, say they are already complying with most if not all of the guidelines and will be adopting resolutions in the coming days and weeks.
Unions and transportation agencies called for the plan to include stronger measures such as specific passenger limits; supplying masks to all passengers; installing hand sanitizer in vehicles; hazard pay for employees; and stronger enforcement against agencies that do not adhere to the guidelines.
However, MTC staff and commissioners said these responsibilities are outside their agency’s authority and that enforcement of the individual transit agencies should occur through counties and the state.
“We really shouldn’t be involved in further discussions related to health and safety enforcement,” said Jim Spering, the commissioner who chaired the panel that drafted the safety plan. “It’s really just taken up a lot of time in an area where really don’t have any true authority.”
That said, Spering, a Solano County supervisor, and commission Chairman Scott Haggerty, an Alameda County supervisor, both suggested that the commission could withhold funding from agencies that fail to meet the standards. This enforcement provision was not included in the motion adopted by the commission in a 13-0-2 vote on Wednesday.
Commissioners Nick Josefowitz, a civic activist, and Libby Schaaf, the mayor of Oakland, abstained from the vote. Josefowitz questioned why MTC could not require agencies to have masks available for passengers. He also argued that some of the plan’s guidelines are vague to the point that it would be “impossible” to determine if transit agencies are complying.
Schaaf said she had unanswered questions about the plan, but did not elaborate further.
Other commissioners stressed that the safety plan is just a first step and that the guidelines can change.
“This is not the end-all,” said commissioner Gina Papan, a Millbrae councilwoman. “We expect more and we expect it from those providers and those agencies. I don’t want them just to say, ‘We did what was in your plan.'”
Several union representatives said the MTC’s stance of not being a health and safety enforcer is shirking its responsibility to protect transit workers and employees.
“We refuse to continue to be your test subjects,” said Yvonne Williams, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192 in Oakland.
The plan is online at healthytransitplan.org.
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August 27, 2020 at 04:40AM
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Transit unions blast looser Bay Area coronavirus safety plan - Marin Independent Journal
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