Commuter Rail Advocate Asks: “Where Are The New Cars?”

by matt.hintsa/flickr creative commons/A Metro North Commuter Railroad train arrives at Westport station

by John Dankosky - The Chairman of Connecticut’s Commuter Rail Council wants to know why new Metro-North train cars still aren’t in service.  He’s asked officials from the manufacturer and the company testing the cars to attend a meeting tonight in Stamford.

The new Kawasaki M8 cars were purchased six years ago at a cost of $866 million dollars.  They were meant to solve a big problem on the busiest commuter train service in America – the Metro-North New Haven line.

“The cars we have are a legacy of the neglect that the state has paid to transportation for decades.  They are 35 years old – they’re older than many of the passengers on the trains – they’re falling apart,” said Jim Cameron, the Chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council.  ”The real question is where are the new M8 cars?”

Well, the answer is, they’ve been delayed again and again – first by a shortage of steel to make the cars, then because of problems found during testing.  Cameron has asked – unsuccessfully – for officials from Kawasaki and LTK, the consultants running the testing to appear in front of his council.  They’re not expected to be at the Commuter Council’s gathering at Stamford’s Government Center at 7 p.m. tonight.

“I don’t understand why commuters can’t get a straight answer from consultants that are getting paid 27 million dollars, who are involved with this testing on a daily basis, why these trains aren’t in service,” Cameron told WNPR’s Where We Live.

And, Cameron says they’re desperately needed, with the current fleet of cars being decimated by winter weather.  Because so many of the older cars are out of service, Metro-North has cut back its schedule on the New Haven line by ten percent.  Cameron says the new cars would help during what he’s called a “winter crisis.”

“Interim commissioner Parker of the DOT testified two weeks ago that the trains will probably be in service mid to late February.  Hello…it’s mid February, and their trains are no closer to being in service,” Cameron said.

DOT Commissioner Jeffrey Parker told Where We Live that the trains are in the final stage of testing, and should meet that deadline.  ”As I’ve always said, the testing is dynamic, and problems could crop up that would delay us, but as I stand here today, that’s what we’re headed for,”  Parker said.

And, Parker says that commuters should separate the long-term need for new rail cars, and the problems caused by the worst winter weather in decades.  He said that even if the new M8s were in service, it wouldn’t have led to “salvation” for the New Haven Line riders, jammed onto overcrowded trains.

Parker said the crowding on trains isn’t “terrible” this winter, but says that, on average, 1,000 to 2,00o more people are standing during their commutes than usual with the reduced schedule.   That’s out of 140,00 people a day.  But, Parker admits, “I’ve been on those trains, and forced to stand, and it’s not a comfortable thing.”

As for Cameron’s repeated request for Kawasaki and LTK to attend tonight’s commuter forum to answer questions about the delay, Parker doesn’t see the need.  He’ll be there, he says, along with a project official from Metro-North.  ”We really don’t want to have a real in-depth complex conversation about the inner workings of the car,” Parker told me.  ”Bringing in an electrical engineer who knows how the car works internally is not the best use of time for us.”

Tonight’s meeting of the Connecticut Commuter Rail Council takes place at 7 p.m. at Stamford’s Government Center.

Marie Leaves DOT, Leaves Questions Behind

by John Dankosky – To a person, every single conversation I’ve had about outgoing Connecticut DOT Commissioner Joe Marie has been positive.  That’s mostly because as Ed Mahoney correctly puts it in today’s Courant, Marie was credited with “turning the focus of one of the largest and most expensive components of state government from road-building to mass transit.”

That’s a turn the troubled state department long needed – and Marie seemed to be making headway.  And that’s not just in Connecticut, either.  Marie seemed to understand – in a way that the Rell administration hasn’t always – that Connecticut’s geography makes it a major player among Northeast states…that we need to aggressively work together on big problems.

Marie was an advocate for the New Haven to Springfield rail line, that not only connected our major cities, but also connected us to Massachusetts and points North. Marie discussed the plans with us on Where We Live last March.

As Don DeFronzo of the state Transportation Committee told The Connecticut Mirror’s Keith Phaneuf, Marie was the point man for the project:

Not just for Connecticut but for New England,” in pursuing federal aid for a proposed $800 million commuter rail line initiative designed to serve communities between New Haven and Springfield, Mass. Connecticut already has secured about $40 million in federal aid and applications for a second round of funding are due in August, DeFronzo added.

But, as Keith also reports, Marie’s department may have had a vision bigger than it’s pocketbook would allow:

In a report issued earlier this year, the transportation department projected a $926.4 million gap between the cost of planned highway, bridge and transit projects for the next five years, and the level of anticipated funding available.

And state workers wonder about the timing of Marie’s departure, too.  They’ve been sparring with Marie over contracting issues, and union spokesman Matt O’Connor told The Mirror, “His departure in the midst of this series of contracting questions left unanswered is certainly cause for concern.”

Deputy Jeff Parker takes over immediately.  We’ll try to get him on the show soon.

Tunnel under the mountain?

Today’s rebroadcast of the program about the Avon Mountain crash sparked more conversation on our show page.  Like several callers to the show, Ned Smith wrote us to say that the “runaway truck” ramp at the bottom of the mountain seems insufficient:

Although we’ve been told by “experts” that an truck similar to the one that lost its brakes and fully loaded would be stopped by the one runaway truck ramp, I’m reluctant to make reservations at Avon Old Farms’ Forge Room just below the end of the ramp.

A driver would realize that the truck had no brakes just after the widened curve after Deercliff Road. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a runaway truck ramp at the end of the first long straight stretch just before the second curve. There are no houses at this point and a simple ramp with an inordinately thick layer of peastone(like runaway truck ramps in Colorado) would be sufficient.

This would be a good alternative before the truck gains even more speed after this point. If the traffic is backed up at the light by Avon Old Farms or if the high rate of speed makes entering the one ramp impossible, the same horror might happen again.

Short of a tunnel, an intermediate ramp would seem to be a very good idea to avoid another tragedy.

So, a tunnel?  Emailer Patti wonders…

I have traveled to the Italian Alps several times and the use of tunnels are extensive there. Was a tunnel discussed as an alternative for commuter traffic?

Well, DOT engineer Jim Norman says there has been – and continues to be – talk about designs that would mean the two intersecting roads would never meet.  But no talk of a tunnel.  I doubt we have that kind of “big dig” in us.  Then, there’s always Steven’s idea:

The infrastructure to support continued residential growth west of the mountain  isn’t there. Rt 4 and rt 44 cannot sustain the pace of growth put here.

Maybe if we just didn’t build so much West of the mountain, we wouldn’t have to move so many people down the road.