With most people social distancing and staying home, Metro-North officials say ridership is down nearly 95%.

Metro-North is cutting back on rides, but says it will make sure essential workers can still get to work.

"We're currently in the process of providing hourly service during the off-peak with some additional service during peak hours and we're continuing to monitor the ridership as well with the new schedule to see whether even that may be too much,” says Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi.

Rinaldi said over the phone that 492 Metro-North employees are out of work under quarantine, 25 self-reported they tested positive, three have a confirmed positive diagnosis and 63 people have returned to work after being under quarantine. 

"We tried to minimize the number of personal interactions between the train crews and the people who are riding so about two weeks ago we suspended cash on board,” says Rinaldi.

It has also amped up cleaning protocol - Rinaldi says stations are being cleaned and disinfected twice a day.

"We've also engaged in extraordinary cleaning and disinfecting of all our employee facilities to ensure that they stay as healthy as they can during this very difficult time,” says Rinaldi.

She says employees have also been given gloves and masks.