{"id":26280,"date":"2020-03-24T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=26280"},"modified":"2020-04-08T10:55:20","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T14:55:20","slug":"public-transit-and-viral-plagues-in-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/24\/public-transit-and-viral-plagues-in-the-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Public transit and viral plagues in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As soon as the coronaplague hit Massachusetts, Boston&#8217;s government-run public transit system (MBTA) cut its schedule. Despite the reduced number of people trying to move around, the result was packed trains (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alainapinto\/status\/1239885139682918400\">March 17 photos<\/a>), perfect for spreading more plague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I wonder if this is a good argument for why we need completely automated trains. As the U.S. gets more and more packed with humans (see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/hispanic\/2015\/09\/28\/modern-immigration-wave-brings-59-million-to-u-s-driving-population-growth-and-change-through-2065\/\">&#8220;Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S., Driving Population Growth and Change Through 2065&#8221;<\/a> (Pew)), coronavirus-style plagues are inevitable. If mass transit systems have to cut schedules, perhaps due to human workers choosing not to show up and expose themselves (see <a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/14\/with-unlimited-paid-sick-leave-for-coronavirus-symptoms-why-will-anyone-work\/\">&#8220;With unlimited paid sick leave for coronavirus symptoms, why will anyone work?&#8221;<\/a>), the result will be a government-run service spreading the plague that other government agencies, e.g., public health, are trying to contain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New York City (&#8220;Wuhan on the Hudson&#8221;?) seems to be the worst-hit region of the United States and it is also the place where Americans are most likely to take subway trains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(Anecdotally, U.S. trains are far more packed than the ones I rode on Chinese metro systems in Shanghai (metro population pushing 35 million) and Suzhou (comparable to Boston). The Chinese trains run so frequently, often every 1-3 minutes, that they are less crowded than Boston and New York City trains. It might also help that there are a lot of lines and that the trains are fast.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Readers: What do you think? To reduce the impact of the next plague in the U.S., should we invest in automated transit systems that can run with good amounts of social distance during plague periods?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Related:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/08\/11\/business\/new-york-shanghai-metro-subway.html\">Shanghai metro compared to New York City subway<\/a> (NYT, 2017)<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/04\/08\/nyregion\/coronavirus-nyc-mta-subway.html\">&#8220;41 Transit Workers Dead: Crisis Takes Staggering Toll on Subways&#8221; <\/a>(NYT, April 8, 2020): &#8220;Crew shortages have caused over 800 subway delays and forced 40 percent of train trips to be canceled in a single day. The average wait for some trains, usually four minutes, has ballooned to 40 minutes.&#8221;<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As soon as the coronaplague hit Massachusetts, Boston&#8217;s government-run public transit system (MBTA) cut its schedule. Despite the reduced number of people trying to move around, the result [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronapanic"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Public transit and viral plagues in the U.S. - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/24\/public-transit-and-viral-plagues-in-the-u-s\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Public transit and viral plagues in the U.S. - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As soon as the coronaplague hit Massachusetts, Boston&#8217;s government-run public transit system (MBTA) cut its schedule. 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