Name: Free rides are coming to an end on Metro. Boarding without a mask could, too.
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Free rides are coming to an end on Metro. Boarding without a mask could, too.

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateMetro riders soon may need more than their Q card or $1.25 to board buses and trains as transit officials weigh making face coverings mandatory for all bus and rail users in a new set of safety procedures.Transit officials will resume collecting fares along all routes on July 12, as ridership rebounds and more routes return to normal, according to a briefing for Metropolitan Transit Authority board members.When fares resume, Metro will adjust the safety protocols it set in March, said Andrew Skabowski, Metro's chief operations officer. Those included requiring riders to enter and exit via the rear door and placing signs on some bus seats to space riders accordingly.With the resumption of fares, riders will enter from the front again, where Metro will provide hand sanitizer.What remains unresolved is whether riders will need a mask. Metro’s board is expected to consider on Thursday a measure that would make face coverings mandatory on all buses and trains and at Metro facilities.More InformationMounting costs of COVID-19Metro's installation of hand sanitizer and plastic shields for bus operators will cost the agency more than $575,000, and lead to an expected $70,000 monthly bill for the sanitizer.ShieldsBuses: $340,000MetroLift: $90,000SanitizerBuses: $111,000Metrolift: $17,500Trains: $17,500TOTAL: $576,000Source: Metropolitan Transit Authority“It’s a health and safety measure and, if approved by the board, would be modeled after what other transit agencies across Texas and the U.S. have adopted,” Metro spokeswoman Tracy Jackson said.Many riders said while they understood the adjustments Metro made in March, including hanging signs and rear-door boarding, the measures seemed tepid.“Either require people to wear masks or don’t,” Lucas Fisher said as he waited for a bus along Washington Avenue on Friday morning.Fisher said sanitizer was a good idea, particularly if riders need to get out their Q cards or cash to pay a fare.Metro will install hand sanitizer stations on all buses and trains, including park and ride and MetroLift vehicles. Pumps on local buses will be just inside the front door.“It gives you just enough to address your hands,” Skabowski said.Liquid sanitizer will be used on buses, while officials opted for a foam sanitizer on trains, Skabowski said, to avoid liquid landing on the floor of the train and causing a slipping hazard.Installing sanitizer pumps on Metro’s roughly 1,200 buses and trains is expected to cost $146,000. Monthly costs are estimated at $70,000, mostly the 1,000 gallons of sanitizer and 480 foam cartridges officials expect to use.To protect drivers once the front door reopens, Metro is installing plastic shields so drivers are closed off from passengers. The barriers will consist of drapes of heavy plastic held in place with magnets. Installation is expected to cost $430,000.Though the agency says none of the cases have been traced to exposure on the transit system, 45 Metro employees or contractors — including 28 who interact with the public — have tested positive for COVID-19 since mid-March.As transit officials adjust to new costs to keeping buses running, Metro is softening its previously dour predictions of a massive drop in revenue. In May, Metro’s budget analysts estimated the agency’s 2020 sales tax revenues — usually more than three-quarters of Metro’s annual income — would fall from $806.8 million to $704.8 million. One month later, with May sales tax revenues $12.3 million more than predicted, analysts revised their calculations and now expect $759.4 million.Metro’s fiscal year starts Oct. 1, with the agency typically finalizing the budget in late September.The slightly rosier financial outlook, however, is not enough to ease concerns that new projects will be slow to materialize from the $7.5 billion list of new services that voters approved in November.“Obviously, this is not the situation we were thinking about the Wednesday after the bond,” said Sanjay Ramabhadran, a Metropolitan Transit Authority board member and head of the agency’s capital projects committee.Metro officials had planned to spend this summer readying early projects, such as bus rapid transit along Interstate 10 from Loop 610 near Uptown to downtown, upgrades to shelters and streets along Westheimer and better access for disabled passengers through targeted sidewalk and bus stop improvements.Now some of those designs will wait, as Metro focuses strictly on the projects that already have money, such as the I-10 dedicated bus lanes paid for with federal money, said Roberto Trevino, Metro’s executive vice president for planning, engineering and construction.Other projects in the pipeline such as the work to improve Westheimer service will come back, but could face some delays moving to design as Metro looks at its checkbook.“We will have to revisit what we can and cannot do,” Ramabhadran said.dug.begley@chron.com

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateMetro riders soon may need more than their Q card or $1.25 to board buses and trains as transit officials weigh making face coverings mandatory for all bus and rail users in a new set of safety procedures.Transit officials will resume collecting fares along all routes on July 12, as ridership rebounds and more routes return to normal, according to a briefing for Metropolitan Transit Authority board members.When fares resume, Metro will adjust the safety protocols it set in March, said Andrew Skabowski, Metro's chief operations...

Free rides are coming to an end on Metro. Boarding without a mask could, too.

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