John Santamaria is the former VP and chief mechanical officer of car equipment at New York City Transit.
Over 15,000 OMNY readers have been installed at the agency’s 472 stations, on all 5,800 buses, and at Staten Island Railway stations.
The partnership builds upon regional transit operators’ comprehensive efforts to keep customers and employees healthy and safe throughout the pandemic.
The technology will be installed inside rail cars for MTA’s Metro-North and Long Island Railroads.
The multi-year agreement for an estimated 25 million gallons of Clean Energy’s Redeem™ RNG will reduce greenhouse gas emissions annually by 25,351 metric tons.
One bill requires all new transit bus purchases starting in 2029 to be zero-emission buses, while the second would create contracting incentives for agencies to procure these buses from manufacturers that utilize labor from high-need communities within New York State.
The robust amount of contracting is a result of changes to the allowable size of assignments to the firms, with the maximum rising to $1 million from $400,000.
Since bus-mounted camera enforcement began last year, there have been improvements in M15 bus speeds on First and Second Avenues, with increases of up to 34% in some segments.
The initiative also includes the recent deployment of Mercury, a new communications platform that enables location-specific, targeted content to be sent to screens outside and in stations.
The installation of new barriers across the fleet is expected to be completed by the fall. The MTA will resume front door boarding on all buses in August.