‘A strange thing to see’
New Haven Line ridership down, service reduced, as Metro-North awaits federal aid
The whistles still sound through the Glenbrook and Springdale stations in Stamford as Metro-North commuter trains travel the New Canaan branch of the New Haven Line.
But few passengers get on or off at those stations.
Up in Milford, Richard Fiengo lives near the MetroNorth tracks where they split from the main line toward the Waterbury branch.
Fiengo can see the trains from his house. It’s remarkable how empty they have been since the coronavirus pandemic hit the area in March, he said, and people who commuted to jobs in New Haven, Stamford, Greenwich, New York and elsewhere began working from home.
“I see one or two, maybe three passengers on these trains,” said Fiengo, a retired vice president of sales for a packaging company who once rode the train from New Haven to New York City. “You can really see inside the trains at night, when the lights are on. Sometimes there are no passengers.”
Curious about ridership at the Bridgeport station on the main line, he took a ride there on a recent weekday.
“I didn’t see anyone on
the train at all,” Fiengo said.
He got to wondering about that after he read last month about the proposed 2021 budget released by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs Metro-North, the Long Island Rail Road, and New York’s subway and bus systems.
If it does not get $12 billion in federal aid, the MTA said it would cut train ser
vice in half. It is “the greatest financial calamity” the 100-year-old MTA has ever faced, Chairman and CEO Patrick Foye said during a press conference.
Hemorrhaging riders and revenue, the MTA would also eliminate 9,400 transitworker jobs, Foye told reporters.
It left Fiengo with a question.
“Why are they running
these trains with no one on them?” he said. “If they need to find some cost savings, this would be a place.”
Asked that, an MTA spokeswoman referred questions to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, which funds and controls train service on the New Haven Line once the tracks cross the border from New York.
Connecticut DOT spokes
man Kevin Nursick said the MTA operates the New Haven Line, through MetroNorth Railroad, under a contract with the DOT. The DOT pays for operational costs, he said, and train service between the states is highly integrated, so the two agencies coordinate all changes.
Of course, since the start of the pandemic, the agencies have drastically reduced service on the New Haven Line — by an average of 38 percent, according to DOT data. At a press conference this week, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said the fiscal problem cannot be solved by deeper cutting.
The drop in service varies on the line’s three branches — New Canaan, Danbury and Waterbury.
It’s down 10 percent on the New Canaan branch, which includes the stops at Glenbrook and Springdale, according to the DOT.
The reduction in service on the Danbury branch is larger at 50 percent.
And along the Waterbury branch, where Fiengo has been watching the trains, the cut has been 14 percent.
But since COVID-19 forced companies to implement work-from-home policies in March, the fall in ridership on Metro-North in Connecticut is staggering.
According to DOT figures, 3.6 million riders used the New Haven Line in October 2019. In October
2020, it was 803,444 riders, or just 22 percent of last year’s number.
Declines on two of the branches were even more dramatic.
October figures were not available, but in September
2019, nearly 124,446 riders used the New Canaan branch. It was 22,738 riders in September of this year, only 18 percent of last year.
Ridership on the Danbury branch this September was 15 percent of what it was last September.
The Waterbury branch lost fewer riders, running
this September with 40 percent of the number recorded last September.
On Monday, Blumenthal joined MTA Metro-North Railroad President Catherine Rinaldi and others at a press conference at the West Haven train station to demand that Congress act immediately to provide relief to the MTA.
“There will be a 50 percent service cut unless there is federal assistance. It is that simple,” he said. “This railroad is essential … the entire state of Connecticut depends on Metro-North” for employment and other economic activity.
Cutting service further without an injection of aid would not be enough to keep the railroad going into the new year, he said.
“The simple fact is that Metro-North faces an existential crisis. It’s been building. Ridership has been dropping – 80 percent less than last year at this time and money has been hemorrhaging,” Blumenthal said according to NBC Connecticut. “Even with the best management costcutting is insufficient to save service on this railroad.”
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a package of pandemic relief that includes aid for the MTA, but it is stalled in the U.S. Senate, Blumenthal said.
“The U.S. Congress needs to do its job,” he said. “I am going back to Washington today to tell my colleagues that rail service up and down the East Coast and in Connecticut will be crippled unless we move forward on this mass-transit package.”
In the meantime, Fiengo is watching the trains near the Bridgeport station.
“I rode the trains for years. They have always been full. Now it’s the opposite,” he said. “It’s a strange thing to see.”