New York City's MTA is starting to fine anyone riding on city trains or buses without a face covering - enforcing the mask mandate more than a year after it went on the books.
Any straphanger caught traveling on the MTA without a mask is subject to a $50 fine, the agency announced Wednesday.
'While the fine has been in place since last fall, we began ramping up enforcement on Sept. 7 to drive compliance,' MTA Chief Safety Officer Pat Warren said at a press conference.
'That includes stationing MTA police and staff at strategic subway railroad hubs and bus terminals to meet workers heading back to the office and students coming to school for the first time in person.'
The MTA's mask mandate was initially instated in September 2020 to protect riders from the spread of COVID-19, and since then, the agency's transit police force has issued only 41 summonses to maskless straphangers, according to the New York Post.
The agency also has handed out hundreds of thousands masks to riders.
The MTA will begin to enforce a mask mandate for anyone riding on city trains or buses, and while the rule has been on the books for over a year, the agency says the grace period is over
Any straphanger caught traveling on the MTA without a mask is subject to a $50 fine, the agency announced on Wednesday
MTA officials said they are looking out for their employees as well, in a city where 34,102 people have died from COVID-19 and over a million others have contracted the virus since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
Data obtained by the New York Times shows that from late May until early July, the rate of new daily coronavirus cases steadily dropped to some of the lowest levels since the start of the pandemic, before
