The pandemic could remake public transport for the better

We need to get comfortable with germs again 

Sponsored by Darktrace The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology A rare opportunity 04.26.21 Good morning! Today: what the pandemic could mean for the future of public transport, and why excessive hygiene practices may be doing more harm than good. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. The pandemic could remake public transport for the better   Back in April 2020, New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority faced a gargantuan task. To slow the rapid spread of the coronavirus, the subway would start closing every night for the first time in 115 years. That meant the MTA needed to create a huge bus network to mirror 665 miles of track. That’s roughly equivalent to a line stretching from New York City to Chicago, for a system that was serving around 5.5 million people each weekday. And they had to do it fast. In the end a process that would have usually taken weeks, if not months, was finished in just a few days. The bus network launched on May 6. That’s at least partly thanks to Remix, one of the most popular transportation planning platforms in the world, cofounded by MIT graduate and user experience design expert Tiffany Chu (above.) Using data on the frontline workers who used the night service, and their needs, planners were able to plot the most efficient bus routes and maybe even serve these commuters better than the subway ever did.  It was an early battle in the worst existential crisis for Western urban public transportation in our lifetimes. Ridership has plunged amid pandemic travel restrictions. The traditional hub-and-spoke model, with transit networks designed to flush people in and out of a central business district, was upended. Rush hour, as we know it, suddenly became less of a rush. The pandemic, Chu argues, poses a fundamental threat to transit agencies in the West. But she believes this massive system-wide disruption is also a rare opportunity to rethink public transportation for the better. Read the full story. —John Surico This story is from an upcoming edition of MIT Technology Review set to be launched on Wednesday, all about cities. If you want to read it in full, and get access to the entire magazine, subscribe! Subscriptions start at just $50 a year. We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)   + A couple in Taiwan got married and divorced several times to make the most of the country's paid marriage leave. (NYT $)    + The inside story of how a Caravaggio was unearthed in Spain.    + An amazing shot of SpaceX's Falcon 9 on its way to the International Space Station.   + The actor Mads Mikkelsen offers some great life advice in this interview.   + An essay on what a Greek restaurant in London can teach us about comfort food.   + Check out what everyone was wearing at the Oscars.   + You've heard of Jack Black, but did you know his mother Judith Love Cohen had an amazing career as an aerospace engineer, ballet dancer, and writer?! Sponsor Message Defend against cyber-threats with AI Darktrace AI identifies malicious activity hiding in your digital ecosystem and acts autonomously to neutralize the threat. Find out why McLaren relies on self-learning AI to detect and disrupt cyber-attacks at machine-speed. Learn more > The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 We need to get comfortable with germs again 🦠 Excessive hygiene practices may be doing more harm than good to our long-term health. (NYT $)  + How the pandemic turbo-charged a fetishization of cleanliness. (The Guardian)  2 A vaccine can be bad for a person—but great for all people For infectious diseases, harm reduction calculations don't work like they do for other illnesses. (Wired $)   + The EU is going to let fully vaccinated American tourists visit this summer. (NYT $)   + The US has resumed Johnson & Johnson covid-19 shots. (WP $)   + Could conservative outposts keep the pandemic rolling in America? (KHN)   + The CDC says pregnant women should get the vaccine. (Axios)  3 Twitter is deleting posts criticizing the Indian government's handling of covid  India recorded 352,991 new infections today, and this is what officials are focusing on. (BBC)   + The world is finally waking up to the crisis in India. (Quartz)   + India's new variant is deeply concerning other countries. (Bloomberg $)    + The death toll is probably being vastly undercounted. (NYT $)  4 Why Fortnite is taking on Apple This fight has huge ramifications for the entire technology sector. (WSJ $)   5 Attacks on gig economy workers are on the rise Sickening. (NBC)   + Restaurateurs are sick of Deliveroo. (The Guardian)  6 Ingenuity captured its first color image of Mars It's now got just one more flight to complete before its mission comes to an end. (CNN)   + NASA has just flown a helicopter on Mars for the first time. (TR)   7 Bad software sent postal workers to jail This may be the largest miscarriage of justice that the UK has ever seen. (The Verge)   8 TikTok creators live at the whim of the platform's algorithm This seems a potentially highly lucrative, yet simultaneously incredibly stressful, way to live. (The Markup)   9 Yahoo is destroying swathes of internet history The company has form when it comes to deleting vast archives with barely any notice. (The Atlantic $)   10 Beavers caused an internet outage in Canada 🦫 Very on brand. (Earther) What does it take to lead in a world driven by technology? Join us at EmTech Next to find out. We've joined forces with Harvard Business Review to bring you the latest technological advancements and trusted leadership strategies required to excel in the next 12 months. Register now. Quote of the Day “Online, you can get rid of all the baggage of real life. You have no idea about someone’s background, what school they go to, what their face looks like. All you need to know is that they play games, they’re nice and they’re accepting of you.” —Hannah, 20, tells The Guardian about the role games played in helping her to come to terms with her real-world gender identity. Top image credit: Chona Kasinger Please send germs to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading! —Charlotte Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up today Don't settle for half the story. Subscribe to MIT Technology Review for paywall-free access to our journalism. Subscribe now   Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

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