Can Metro-North Be Saved?

The fares in Connecticut on Metro-North are already the highest of any commuter railroad in America. They cant keep raising fares and lowering service... Or can they?
by Patrick Linsey - January 6, 2005

[abridged]
The 7:26 a.m. express to Grand Central is packed with commuters, wedged uncomfortably into the decaying vinyl seats. The undercirculated air is oxygen deprived and heavy with the odors of burnt brakes and the lavatory at the end of the car.

Said Jonathon Pear, a rail commuter from Fairfield, as he leaned against the vestibule wall, "It's just amazing that people put up with this... they drive their BMWs down to the [station] and then they get on a train that looks like it's straight out of Calcutta."

Few would mistake Fairfield County for the Third World. With its opulent homes, fashionable shops and towering income levels, Connecticut's Gold Coast is one of the wealthiest regions in the country. So why, then, is Fairfield County's commuter railroad in such miserable repair?

Simply put, for years Connecticut's state legislators and Department of Transportation have ignored the needs of Fairfield County's commuters. Railcars on New York State's Hudson and Harlem lines are being replaced with brand-new models, while Fairfield County's commuters are stuffed into obsolete, and perhaps unsafe, boxes of scrap metal. Residents of Fairfield County comprise only one-quarter of Connecticut's population, yet because of the region's prosperity, they supply a substantially larger portion of the state's tax revenues.

Many of the taxpayers bearing this disproportionate burden commute to New York City via the New Haven Line every day. Yet four years ago, when Metro-North requested that the Connecticut and New York (which manages 35 percent of the New Haven Line) state governments appropriate funds to purchase new railcars, Connecticut's state legislators and the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT) pleaded poverty.

Rail commuters living in New York State pay 15 percent less per mile than those choosing to live in Fairfield County, because New York's state government is willing to fund what is unquestionably a vital service. Connecticut is even more fiscally dependent on the New Haven Line's commuters to provide tax revenues that fund essential programs statewide.

The railroad also attracts businesses to Connecticut by delivering a ready supply of workers to places like Greenwich, Stamford and New Haven. In fact, the fastest growing segment of commuters are those traveling to locations within Connecticut. If the politicians and bureaucrats in Hartford continue to allow the New Haven Line to corrode and decay, while at the same time raising fares, they may come to know the true meaning of poverty.

Just this week, in fact, Metro-North and the CDOT imposed a 5.5 percent fare increase. Jim Cameron, vice chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, a group formed by the state legislature to represent Connecticut commuters, said, "The fares in Connecticut on Metro-North are already the highest of any commuter railroad in America... They can't keep raising fares and lowering service."

Some state lawmakers are aware of the New Haven Line's critical state of affairs. "The railroad cannot possibly be allowed to crumble," said state Sen. William Nickerson (R-Greenwich). "It's the economic spine of Fairfield County, which is the major generator of tax receipts for the state of Connecticut."

Over the past decade, Connecticut lawmakers chose to patch and plug the many defects and breakdowns in the New Haven Line, rather than making any lasting changes.

Its Going to Be a Cold Winter
According to the CRCC, in even perfect weather, 15 percent of the New Haven Line's railcars are down for repairs. ...Many of the problems can be traced to the equipment's age. According to Dan Brucker of Metro-North, the trains "by their very design are endemically prone to failure during cold and snowy weather conditions.

"The electric motors at each set of wheels ingest the snow, it short circuits the electrical components and causes major, expensive failures that take a long amount of time to repair." Additionally, the pantographic arms, which are hydraulically raised to take electricity from the overhead wires, often become stuck in cold weather.

Metro-North is working feverishly to prevent these problems from recurring this winter....but the fact remains that these railcars are antique, their design is antique and they have that proclivity to fail."

The CDOT can't keep patching and plugging forever. "These antique train cars cannot be reengineered, reinvented or reconfigured... ultimately the CDOT and Metro-North agree that they simply must be replaced with modern equipment which is far more impervious to such.

Metro-North estimates that acquiring the [new cars] would take at least four to five years. Some even take issue with this estimate. "[That's] assuming all goes well... which it never does," said Cameron.

Whos Footing the Bill?
While most lawmakers will concur that Metro-North's New Haven Line is in desperate need of modernization, what they do not agree on is how to pay for it. Despite the fact that fares paid by Connecticut commuters are already sky high, even factoring in this most recent fare hike Connecticut must find $1 billion to pay for the new trains.

A[nother] possible source for the funds would be an increased state tax on gasoline. In the late 1990s, Connecticut reduced its gas tax, costing the state's transportation fund hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues.

According to U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-4th District), the federal government actually spends more money on transportation in Connecticut than does the state itself. He advocates raising the gas tax to provide revenue for, among other things, new railcars. "When Connecticut reduced the gasoline tax, it withdrew from the responsibility to provide adequate transportation to the people of Fairfield County," said Shays.

Others have supported the reintroduction of tolls on I-95 in Connecticut. The construction of one or more EZ-Pass compatible toll plazas in Fairfield County would have the dual effect of providing increased transportation revenues as well as encouraging the use of public transportation and carpooling.

According to Cameron, "It's not an either/or situation; it's tolls on the highways, it's a gas tax increase, it's a parking tax... the pain of paying for these solutions has to be spread as far and wide as possible, so that nobody feels victimized by this."

The Rail Ahead
Right now the principal concern of most riders is that Metro-North, the CDOT and Connecticut's legislature work expeditiously to replace the New Haven Line's old, unreliable railcars. One commuter called seeing the other lines' new railcars "when we're still stuck on these... a slap in the face." If Connecticut had provided the funds for new railcars when Metro-North requested them, it is entirely possible that Fairfield County's commuters would today be enjoying such novel amenities as headrests and proper air circulation.

...The dilatory, bureaucratic culture of the past 30 years must be supplanted by one of innovation and resolve. ...the CDOT and the state legislature must learn to work constructively with Metro-North. Only then will they be able to conceive and implement the solutions necessary to satisfy the needs of Fairfield County's many rail commuters.

Legislators from across Connecticut must recognize that the vigor of Fairfield County's economy is essential for the state to remain prosperous. If New Haven Line commuters continue to lose faith in the state's ability to offer a modern, dependable and economical transportation solution, they will move elsewhere. Said Cameron, "They need to understand.... people aren't going to live in Fairfield [County, if they] can't [reliably] commute to New York."