PORTLAND, Ore. — "We miss you, but thank you for not riding. You're keeping the Portland region safer. And for those of you who still have to ride – there's plenty of room to spread out and social distance," says a TriMet Facebook post.
Service itself remains as regular now, as it did prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. At one point this morning though, with the marked decrease in ridership, TriMet experimented with running single-vehicle trains. They decided better of it for the remainder of the day "...single-vehicle trains may get more crowded, so siding on safety, we have returned to our regular train lengths."
Plans were in place to step up cleaning before cases of COVID-19 starting appearing in our area. Now, TriMet crews are disinfecting the touchpoints on buses, MAX and WES trains and LIFT paratransit vehicles nightly. Crews are also wiping down the main touchpoints at rail stations and transit centers daily, including Hop validators, ticket machines, payphones, elevator doors and elevator buttons.
Still, as they point out, "....a surface is only clean until someone touches it or sneezes or coughs nearby. We urge riders to follow the precautions outlined by health experts including not touching your eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands and washing hands frequently."
But the greatest piece of advice, from Regional Health Officer Dr. Jennifer Vines, “...we're encouraging everybody to stay home if you're sick. And again today we're saying please avoid anything that is not essential. You really should not be out and about."
A hundred forty thousand of you did that on Wednesday, allowing buses and MAX trains the ample spacing recommended for the rest of the community that simply must get to work.