By Bay City Nfews Service

Public transit agencies in the South Bay on Monday detailed their plans to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors to welcome back passengers amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Caltrain chief operating officer Michelle Bouchard said the rail service plans to expand its number of active weekday trains to 70 by mid-June, after the agency cut its rail service from a pre-pandemic 92 trains on weekdays to just 45 as ridership plummeted in March, April and May.

Much like BART, Bouchard said Caltrain plans to rely heavily on federal support funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to cover operating costs into the fall.

Agency officials expect to receive a small fraction of standard fare and parking revenue during that time. The agency's 2021 status remains up in the air and additional local, state or federal triage funding could be necessary, according to Bouchard.

"We are implementing new cleaning protocols. We are implementing more trains in order to enforce social distancing," Bouchard said. "We will require masks on board the train as we currently do and we're going to continue to monitor the situation."

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority General Manager and CEO Nuria Fernandez said the agency has continued operating throughout the pandemic in spite of a nearly 77 percent ridership loss. Assuming current conditions, the agency will be able to continue operating through at least February 2021.

"We understand that in times of stress and emergency as well as in good times, public transit is critical to many," she said. "So we need to be available to serve essential workers and get transit-dependent customers to the doctor, to the grocery store and to work."

Fernandez said the agency has significantly increased its sanitation capacity, providing disinfectant stations to employees and VTA stations, increasing the frequency with which train cars and buses are cleaned and using new technology like ultraviolet light to rapidly sanitize high-touch and high-risk areas.

Vehicle rental and carpool services such as Enterprise and Scoop have implemented company-wide guidelines to ensure vehicles are sanitary and customers can feel safe using them.

Enterprise vice president of fleet management Ray Ansari said the company's employees are following a 24-point sanitation pledge for each rental vehicle, cleaning everything from key fobs to trunk latches.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters Joint Council 7 political director Doug Bloch said the union's members, which include Bay Area transportation workers, still struggle with obtaining proper personal protective and sanitization equipment.

He added that he hopes local governments throughout the Bay Area will go further than just releasing recommendations for health and safety as the pandemic progresses.

"We need more enforcement and stronger regulations," he said. "Not just recommendations."

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