Tag Archives: Metro North

Talking Transportation: Higher Fares, New Ticket Rules on Metro-North Offer Passengers No Improvements

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Jim Cameron

As predicted, fares are going up on Metro-North by 5% starting Sept. 1, with another 5% hike coming next July.  

The final approval came days ago from the MTA, parent of Metro-North, which rubber-stamped CDOT’s fare hike decision.  At least one MTA Board Member called the hikes “scary” and another exclaimed that he was “actually kind of offended”.  But, hey … there is nobody on the MTA Board representing Connecticut riders so they both voted to approve the hike as did the entire MTA Board.  After all, it’s not their money.

Mind you, the MTA is also shortly expected to approve a 4.4% fare hike for New York’s Metro-North riders as well as a 25 cent increase for NYC subways and buses, so put that in your pipe of moral indignation and smoke it.

As I explained a few weeks ago, the Connecticut fare increase can be blamed on the Governor and legislature, which knowingly under-cut the CDOT budget, pretty much telling the agency to raise fares to make up the difference.  After all, they seem to assume that everyone who rides Metro-North along Connecticut’s “gold coast” is a millionaire.  

But a 10% increase in one year?  On top of a 4.5% hike just two years ago?  That adds up to a compounded 15.2% increase since 2023 … way more than inflation.  Remember, Metro-North has a captive audience and can do anything it wants.

And adding insult to injury, there are new ticket rules coming!

With more and more commuters buying one-way e-tickets (57%) instead of monthly passes (36%), those tickets will automatically be activated on purchase, not when you get on the train and activate them yourself.  Why?  Because, the railroad says, 55% of ticket holders don’t activate their tickets until they see the conductor coming around.  

But isn’t it the conductor’s job to collect those fares and put seat checks on each row?

According to MTA Deputy Chief Jessica Lazarus, “Conductors are spending more than 20,000 hours each year reminding customers to activate one-way mobile tickets”.  Really?  How did they come up with that metric? 

Requiring activation of the ticket at time of purchase, she says, will, “recapture those hours that can be better put to use for fare collection and train safety operations.”  Like enforcing the “no radios rule” and “no feet on seats”?

If you’re doing a same-day roundtrip, you won’t buy two one-way tickets but, instead, a new Day Pass.  Good for unlimited travel until 4 am the next day, day-trippers using the pass will get a 10% fare discount compared to buying two one-way peak tickets.

For hybrid commuters, after buying 10 one-way tickets within two weeks the eleventh will be free.  For Seniors, the disabled and those on Medicare the new reduced fare ticket will be valid at all times, even in the morning peak.

Make no mistake: fare evasion is a serious problem for MTA, which estimates they lose $700 million each year, most of it on buses ($315 M) and subways ($285 M).  Metro-North losses are estimated at $44 M.  Given that train fares are much more expensive than bus and subway, that’s not a lot of commuter scofflaws; just 6% of riders compared to 15% of subways riders and 37% of bus passengers.

Of course, bus riders can easily board by the rear door and subway riders can jump over turnstiles.  On Metro-North we have conductors.  It’s an hour-long ride from Stamford to Grand Central Terminal, plenty of time to look at everyone’s ticket … which they will still have to do even under the new rules.

But what about the Dashing Dan running to make his train, grabbing a seat and then trying to buy an e-ticket in a cellphone dead spot, nervously watching the conductor moving down the aisle?  No ticket to show?  You’ll get whacked with a $2 surcharge.

Here are the optics: CT lawmakers short-change the CDOT budget, basically saying “let the commuters pick up the tab.”  Now MTA makes commuting less convenient with new ticket rules.

We all end up paying more and getting no improvement.  The trains are no faster or reliable … and maybe less attractive as a transportation choice.

Editor’s Notes: i) Jim Cameron is the founder of the Commuter Action Group and advocates for Connecticut rail riders. He writes a weekly column called ‘Talking Transportation,’ which is published by a number of publications in the state.
ii) ”Talking Transportation” recently won first place in the general column/commentary category in the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism Contest.

Talking Transportation: Improving Danbury Branch of Metro-North

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Jim Cameron

How would you feel if your usual means of commuting went on a summer vacation?  

Riding the ancient Danbury branch of Metro-North is hard enough, but now it’s going to be shut down for two weeks, the trains replaced by buses from Aug. 1 through 17.

The 24-mile-long, mostly single-track railroad from South Norwalk to The Hat City carries about 2000 daily riders at an average speed of 27 mph.  Now those riders will get to enjoy the “bustitutes,” which will make the journey faster than the train.

During the train outage, crews will improve the tracks and several grade-crossings. What won’t be addressed is long-discussed re-electrification of the line. Yes, the Danbury line used to be electrified, just like the main line along the Connecticut coast.

It was in 1959 that the last electric locomotive pulled a train on the Danbury branch, “under the wire.”  Why did that change? Here’s a synopsis of what I wrote a couple of years ago…

Most rail historians, like former New Haven and Metro-North veteran Jack Swanberg blame, one man for the de-electrification: Patrick B McGuiness, then-President of the New Haven. “He was not a good railroad man,” said Swanberg, a master of understatement. In his two years running the mighty, private and once profitable New Haven Railroad, McGuiness made terrible choices we’re still living with today.

At the NH Railroad, predecessor to Metro-North, McGuiness cut maintenance and laid off staff, trying to goose up the stock price.  But it was when General Motors came calling that he made his biggest error.

The New Haven’s real profits came from running passengers and freight on the main line from NYC to Boston.  Because steam and diesel locomotives were not allowed in Grand Central, the New Haven was one of the first railroads to electrify, starting in 1909, but only as far as New Haven.

For trains running north to Boston they needed to waste time and expense changing engines (from electric to steam and later diesel) in New Haven. McGuiness thought he could avoid that when GM introduced its hybrid FL-9 loco, railroad’s Prius of its day: running all electric in third rail territory, then running diesel.

In the 1950s, the New Haven ordered 60 FL-9s from General Motors, replacing their classic but boxy looking EP-2 electrics built by General Electric.  By 1959 that meant no more electric service on the Danbury branch. In 1965 they finally took down the copper-wire catenary, selling it for scrap like some sort of junkie.

But the FL-9s were not performing well.  

While the original EP electrics had 4000 hp, the hybrid FL-9s were less than half that.  And that meant poor acceleration and longer travel time, especially on commuter trains making a lot of stops.  Longer trains that used to have one electric loco now required two or three FL-9s.  And on the steep Danbury line where it’s a 360-ft. climb from the coast to The Hat City, keeping traction on slippery tracks is a problem even today in the fall and winter.

The FL-9s were also expensive to maintain and dirty, even before we cared about air pollution. In cold weather the diesels had to be kept running all night, just idling in the yard (creating noise and air pollution).  Their 25-year-life expectancy wasn’t impressive and overhauls were costly.

“It was a mistake to take down the wire [on the Danbury branch],” says Swanberg who has written extensively on the topic.   

Now CDOT seems to have given up on re-wiring the line as we await delivery of shiny new unpowered railcars from Alstom (costing $5.25 million apiece) to be pulled by new hybrid locomotives costing about $15 million each.

Meantime, it’s back on the bus this summer.

​Editor’s Notes: i) Jim Cameron is the founder of the Commuter Action Group and advocates for Connecticut rail riders. He writes a weekly column called ‘Talking Transportation,’ which is published by a number of publications in the state.
ii) ”Talking Transportation” recently won first place in the general column/commentary category in the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism Contest.