BOSTON (WHDH) – MBTA officials are hoping that by the end of the week they will have protocols in place to have “contact areas” at stations and onboard vehicles disinfected every four hours and all buses, subway cars, paratransit vehicles, and commuter rail trains disinfected every day as the number of coronavirus cases in the United States continue to grow.
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The effort was announced by MBTA General Manager Steven Poftak during a news conference at the State House.
“This is something we’ve been planning for in collaboration with the governor’s office and with the guidance of the Department of Public Health, we’ve obviously ramped up our communication system with the communications that come from the governor’s office and DPH,” Poftak said.
In addition to using electronic messaging signs and physical messaging signs to promote “common-sense good personal hygiene steps,” Poftak said the agency is laying out a plan to have hand sanitizer equipment installed in MBTA facilities and “ramp up” the disinfection of trains, buses, and other vehicles.
“Today we’re going to put a protocol in place where each of our stations, all the contact areas, where people are touching — for instance, guard rails, handrails, fare equipment — will be cleaned every four hours,” Poftak said. “And subject to getting enough disinfectant in place, we will be moving to a protocol where we will be disinfecting every vehicle every day. Right now we have enough equipment on hand to be doing that on the commuter rail, we expect by the end of this week to be able to do it across the system, buses, subway cars, and paratransit vehicles.”
New York City has already started cleaning subway trains and buses in an effort to guard against the potentially deadly virus.
The first coronavirus case in Massachusetts was reported weeks ago. Since then, one presumptive positive case has been reported.
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