MTA stops tracking NYC mask-wearing as Kathy Hochul’s mandate remainsBy David Meyer
August 2, 2022
The MTA quietly stopped keeping track of whether riders are wearing masks on the subways, even as Gov. Kathy Hochul doubled down on her mask mandate for public transit just a few weeks ago.
The agency hasn’t taken a straphanger mask survey since April, and after being asked about it by The Post on Tuesday, updated its site to say officials “are no longer maintaining recurring statistics on compliance.”
“The subways are a public space used by millions of people each day, any of whom can assess [the] level of compliance with the ongoing mask requirement,” MTA rep Tim Minton said in an email.
While the federal government in April stopped enforcing the face-covering requirement for airports, planes and other modes of transportation, Hochul has opted to keep it for public transit in the Empire State.
Mask-wearing — which has been mandatory on MTA trains and buses since April 2020 — had plummeted by the time the agency stopped its surveys. In April 2021, some nine in 10 subway riders were found to be wearing masks correctly, but that number had dropped to 64% by the same month this year.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/08/02/mta-not-tracking-nyc-masks-kathy-hochuls-mandate-remains/
