NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – As people slowly return to mass transit in New York City, agencies are finding the traditional rush hour might be a thing of the past.
Previously on mass transit, everything revolved around the morning and evening rush.
But as riders are coming back, there are no more a.m. and p.m. peaks, said Ben Fried, of the TransitCenter.
“We’re seeing flatter travel patterns throughout the day,” he said. “It’s more even travel from morning to night.”
Fried said there are clearly still a lot of people working from home.
“There also may be some avoidance of transit when people think it’s going to be crowded, so we think there could be hangover from that that could last awhile,” he said.
Additionally, MTA numbers show subway ridership on the weekend is recovering faster than on weekdays.
“I think that indicates that people are more willing to use transit than we might think,” Fried said.
He said the pandemic has dislodged the long-held belief that commute times were rigid and inflexible.
“There’s just a lot of inertia built up in our transit schedules, and this has been a shock to the system,” Fried said.
He thinks this might be the disruption that transit agencies need to start rethinking service patterns, like spreading service more evenly during the day.
“Because 80% to 85% of trips are not commute trips, and even a lot of commute trips are not 9-to-5 trips,” he said.