Direct rail returns to New Canaan
NEW CANAAN — “I commuted for 29 years. They never had the 5:30 train,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said Tuesday.
Although Moynihan currently serves the town of New Canaan these days from its most central location at Town Hall, the current first selectman spent nearly three decades rising early and hopping on the train to Manhattan to work as a corporate lawyer.
So Moynihan knows a thing or two about how integral a commute is to a New Canaan resident who makes their bread from an office building in New York City.
That is why Moynihan did not mince words when Catherine Rinaldi, president of Metro North, recently came to the New Canaan Train Station to announce that one-seat direct train service to Manhattan’s Grand Central Station would return on the New Canaan train line.
The first selectman called it “momentous.”
Now that the summer has unofficially come to its end with the passing of Labor Day, Moynihan said that he anticipates a slow change in the number of residents who will begin to return to working in-person, therefore commuting via the train. He contended that many residents working in the financial field have been working at least partially in person. The technology industry, he said, might take a bit more time.
Moynihan took a ride around on Tuesday to the various commuter parking lots, for which the town sells permits, to observe the trends now that the direct service resumed in late August.
“There were more cars at the Lumberyard lot than I expected,” Moynihan said.
Talmadge Hill seemed to be another lot where many commuters were parked Tuesday. The Richmond Hill parking lot, not so much, Moynihan said.
“It will take a little while post-Labor Day to adjust,” Moynihan guessed. He said that while direct rail service was suspended, many residents drove to Darien to hail a train. There, he said, they would be able to board and find a seat that they could keep until Grand Central Terminal.
“My understanding was that it was a horrible experience switching in Stamford,” Moynihan said. He said commuters told him that, while connecting trains are scheduled to arrive at the same time in Stamford for a transfer to the New Haven Line into Manhattan, those schedules were prone to delays.
Commuters also complained of the inability to secure a seat upon transferring onto an already packed morning rush train at Stamford. “You’d have to stand,” Moynihan said. “That is not a good commuter experience.”
He hopes to see more and more residents become aware of the return to direct service in New Canaan and are able to use it instead of driving to neighboring towns. He will also be able to tell when an expected influx materializes after the Parking Bureau brings town commuter lot statistics to him every week.