Editorial: Port Authority needs to find answer
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If you get a flat tire, you can put on the emergency doughnut to get to the garage for a real repair.
You can’t just accept that the little round rim of rubber is going to do the job of a full-fledged tire. A half-solution can end up being no solution at all. You have to really fix a problem before you can move on from it.
That’s why it’s so important for the Port Authority of Allegheny County to figure out what is happening in its West Mifflin garage.
The public transit agency has had 12 employees test positive for coronavirus as of Tuesday. Ten of those worked in the West Mifflin location. Eight of those are maintenance workers. Two are bus drivers.
“We are concerned,” spokesman Adam Brandolph said, “but right now we are working with local health officials. We are taking their advice and taking all the precautions that are deemed to be necessary to stop the spread.”
Taking steps is good. Following advice is good. The problem is the authority has taken the advice before. There were “deep cleanings” of the garage Friday and the weekend of April 18-19. But to put this in the kind of terms a garage might understand, this is a blinking light on the dashboard. The only thing that will stop the flashing is figuring out what the light is trying to indicate.
The Port Authority is doing the right thing with checking temperatures, having employees tested and making those with symptoms stay home. They are doing the right thing by encouraging social distancing and other precautions among passengers on buses.
But the light on the dash is still blinking.
With coronavirus restrictions set to be slowly rolled back, that means more people will be back on those buses. The Port Authority has an opportunity to do more than just protect its own employees by fixing the problem. They can protect every passenger who boards those buses.
Maybe it is as simple as the fact that “deep cleaning” isn’t that easy in a garage where lots of things are greasy by necessity, and Allegheny County isn’t alone in seeing these kinds of cases.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has had employees — including the executive director — test positive. Each of the three Department of Sanitation of New York garages on Staten Island had cases of coronavirus as well as more than 100 sanitation workers being diagnosed, and an infected mechanics supervisor for the Fire Department of New York died.
If this is a case of the realities of the environment, it should be made clear and a solution that isolates the danger from those who will come in contact with the public could be determined.
But the stress and exposure on the transit system is only going to increase as lockdowns are lifted, and a real answer is going to be needed to stop that light from blinking.