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OpEd: LIRR Steps Up Efforts To Keep Riders Safe from COVID-19

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A Car Appearance Maintainer with the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) demonstrates the disinfecting methods of a train car from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Hicksville Station on Long Island in New York, U.S., March 19, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

At the Long Island Rail Road, our team has experience handling all types of situations: from hurricanes to power outages to managing massive amounts of infrastructure expansion. 

Pandemic? Not so much. But our workforce is rising to the challenge. 

As we adapt to this rapidly changing public health crisis, we cannot forget the thousands of transportation workers across the MTA’s agencies: the LIRR, Metro-North Railroad, and New York City Transit, who are working hard each day to keep our system open and safe for those who need to use it. 

Our workforce is on the frontlines, playing a key role in the response to this pandemic. We are making sure we are here for the heroes of this crisis, which include our own employees, as well as the nurses, the doctors, the police and first responders, the grocery store, pharmacy and transportation workers, and so many others who are helping us live. 

Together with our labor partners, we’re ensuring that employees and customers alike remain safe, as we maintain an aggressive, ramped-up cleaning schedule, disinfecting stations across the system twice daily, and getting to each one of our train cars (more than 1,000) at least once every 72 hours. 

Read the full OpEd at amNewYork.com

Eng is president of the Long Island Rail Road.