Metro-North commuters are not coming back
I have one prediction for the new year and you’re not going to like it.
After we all get vaccinated and things “return to normal,” regular weekday commuters on MetroNorth will not be coming back as hoped.
Why should they? Who wants to spend over $400 a month and waste twoplus hours each day, five days a week riding a train into New York City if you don’t have to? This pandemic has shown us going to an office isn’t necessary to doing our jobs.
Sure, there are some people who have to show up in person to do their work (health care staffers, auto mechanics, etc.), but that’s never been the bulk of Metro-North’s ridership. Most of those commuters work with their brains and can do so just as easily from home (or a satellite office in the subburbs) as in an office cubicle in Midtown.
Their employers, having discovered this, are also finding they don’t need to waste millions on fancy real estate. They are downsizing too. So there may not be an office to go back to, even if you want to.
You may still need to show up “at work” one or two days a week for meetings in downsized, shared offices. And while you may be longing to get back on the train and return to your job, that’s probably as much your cabin fever from being quarantined for months as any real desire to get back to the old grind.
Even pre-pandemic the railroad found that monthly pass holders weren’t commuting five days a week, maybe more like four days. They had already found they could work without being at work.
One group that never stopped working was Metro-North employees. In the darkest days last spring, parent MTA saw more COVID-19 deaths among bus and train drivers than the city had among its cops and firefighters. They all deserve our thanks.
Yes, train ridership has slowly climbed back from a low of 5 percent to 20 percent on weekdays (closer to 50 percent on weekends), but even with federal aid, current service levels are not sustainable.
Pre-COVID when the trains were standingroom-only and with Metro-North riders paying the highest ticket prices in the U.S., the railroad was still losing money — about 20 percent of every ride was subsidized by taxpayers.
So if my predictions are correct and ridership doesn’t come soaring back, how is the railroad or the state going to handle deficits that quadruple or quintuple? Something’s gotta give.
Sadly, I think we will see further service reductions, especially in offpeak hours. That will mean layoffs of hundreds of dedicated (and yes, well-paid) railroad conductors, engineers and maintenance staffers. We may also see fare increases. It will all add up to less service for more cost.
It used to be that Connecticut’s tax base was tied to the availability of dependable train service. People lived here because they could commute. But if they don’t need to commute, how important is the train? And what will happen to transit-oriented development when getting there isn’t necessary to getting it done?
I don’t think the train is going away completely, nor is New York City. We will still want to go into town for entertainment and to see the few friends we still have who’ll be living there.
But when COVID is gone, things will never just get back to the way they were. Those days are gone.