Update: (Not) Coincidentally, Fox Business News has a similar story today on NY Train Travel collapse, focusing on New Jersey Transit)
Driving home from Boston Market with dinner for my wife, who was headed home on the New Haven Line from work, I noticed MTA police cars as I drove by Cos Cob station, as well as a platformed southbound train with its doors open.
At first I was afraid someone had been hit, but a bystander mentioned downed catenary lines, aka ‘the same old shit’ – laughing and shaking his head in the way that people do when they literally cannot believe how consistently awful something is.
Almost simultaneously, my wife calls me to tell me her *northbound* car is stopped in the tracks north of Harrison, held for traffic with no ETA. Since her train isn’t platformed, I cant even come get her. To add insult to injury, her train was late leaving GCT to begin with.
It’s nothing new, but in the past few months, its gotten MUCH worse.
2009 Metro-North New Haven Line service has just been third-worldly. Breakdowns, delays, dirty, stinky cars, short trains with no available seats – day after day I hear about it, from friends – on Twitter (follow us @stationstops ) but with a frequency like never before.
Most notable lately has been a severe lack of seating due to short trains, and some riders have mentioned that not getting a seat is so common, Metro-North doesn’t even bother apologizing for it any more. It’s ‘business as usual’.
Look, I don’t want to hear that ‘hey we got new trains coming’ – because it will be another year before those have any effect whatsoever (IF they come online according to schedule – I’ll believe it when I see it).
Enough is enough – if you have a ticket, and you don’t get a seat on a Metro-North train, you get some compensation. If it were occasional and unexpected, whatever – but its not anymore – for some riders they are running into this issue on a daily basis. This isn’t a 15 min subway or bus ride in midtown, many New Haven Line commuters are traveling over an hour each way, every day, and for $20+ bucks, they should get seat.
Why? Because Conn DOT and MTA are using equipment that was supposed to be retired years ago, the current service situation was beyond predictable, and was completely avoidable. They haven’t done their jobs in maintaining the system in a timely fashion. They have failed.
Now we, the customers, have come to bear the burden of this crumbling infrastructure. It affects our lives every day. Hundreds of us stand for hours every day because cars are out of service, hundreds of us are late for work, or are late to come home to see our families, because of breakdowns like today.
Of course, in the summer, it will be much worse, as infamously anemic air conditioning will insure we all endure the same poor service, but in a stifling atmosphere.
This isn’t India or China, this is the United States, and the Metro-North New Haven Line serves some of the most tony suburbs in the world. Ridership is peaking, and everyone is paying their fare. We’re doing our part, we’re riding public transportation – all you have to do MTA is maintain a very basic level of comfort and service.
What I really want to see is MTA stop apologizing and making excuses for poor service and car conditions, and start *reimbursing* customers for it. We all have slack to give NYC transit for unexpected service disruption now and then, but Metro-North New Haven Line has well exhausted all of that patience. Its unacceptable now, and its just getting worse and worse.
If you are on a New Haven Line Train, and you are a ticketed passenger, and you don’t get a seat, the conductor gives you some sort of discount on future transportation, period. I don’t care what it is, it is some sort of coupon which acknowledges ‘we screwed up, and we don’t expect you to pay full fare for these conditions’. Maybe its a $2.50 MetroCard, maybe its a coupon for $5 off a future MNR ticket – I don’t care, but it’s time to do something for the customers, for the passengers – besides apologies and excuses.
14 responses so far ↓
1 emj // Mar 21, 2009 at 12:24 pm
excellent post. We are complacent bunch – what do you propose we do to bring about change?
2 Mr Stamford // Mar 22, 2009 at 2:26 pm
This is exactly the type of service I expect from any type of government run business. They have zero incentive to improve.
Now imagine the government running our health care system…
3 Chris (Admin) // Aug 9, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Mr Stamford –
MTA is not a government-run, and anyone in NY or NYC government will be the first to tell you that!
NYC is run like a swiss watch compared to MTA.
MTA is just a company with happens to have a monopoly on running NYC transit, they just arent properly incentivized to do it well, and it shows.
The best way to incentivize them would be to allow new bidders to compete to provide NYC transit services.
4 The Truth // Aug 19, 2009 at 11:28 pm
To the “Admin”: Sir, “incentivize” is not a word (proof – http://askville.amazon.com/incentivize-real-word-Websters-Dictionary-Google/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=5461001). Furthermore, “Admin”, THE MTA is a New York State Public Benefit Corporation. It’s existence is chartered byf New York State Law, NYS Public Authorities Law Article 5 , Title 11 (Proof – http://law.justia.com/newyork/codes/public-authorities/). In Connecticut, the metro-north railroad is contracted by the Connecticut DOT, and the MTA Police are funded by CDOT to enforce in connecticut. The CDOT is a government business, just as the MTA is. Get your facts straight before you talk about monopolies (The “CEO” of the MTA gets paid a straight salary, which does not fluctuate based on profit or loss). Email me if you got any questions, or complaints.
5 Chris (Admin) // Aug 20, 2009 at 9:41 am
“The Truth”
1. ‘Incentivize’ is a verb which appears in the Fourth Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary. It is an emerging English word not recognized by all dictionaries. In common use it becomes a word, as does any word.
2. “admin” is a label inserted by blog software to identify the owner of the blog vs people who might masquerade as him in the comments.
As it clearly appears before the word, my name is Chris.
Thank you for the clarification of the MTA structure. My confusion stems from my conversation with MTA legal.
When MTA legal is on the phone with me, they are insistent that they are NOT a public organization and MTA as a company owns the IP rights to half of NYC, not the public.
I guess they can argue it one way or the other depending on whether they need fare hikes, tax bailouts, or are crushing small business with false IP claims.
6 The Truth // Aug 26, 2009 at 6:31 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation
7 David // Oct 27, 2009 at 7:18 am
I am so sick of how uncomfortable the trains have become. I think it is safe to say that 3 of 5 days a commuting week, getting a seat is challenging. The truth is, there are seats, but squeezing between overweight people or next to animals is not my idea of a civilized commute. We are complacent and we get what we diserve. A lack of organization, planning, and/or interest has put us in this position. You’re right that the new cars won’t solve the problem. It would appear to me that having a first class car where a seat is guaranteed may be the only solution. It would motivate MTA to offer an alternative, provide those with means with an option, and pay for the additional service required. I’m pretty sure you’d find the car nearly fully utilized. Of course, the MTA is too bureaucratic to pursue such a plan, but it appears to me that money talks and complaining walks. Therefore, the best way to solve this problem is to put a law in place requiring enhanced service. It would be hard to argue with a service that adequately pays for itself. We live in a capitalist society – like it or not – so we can’t provide the same service to the entire public and think it can be afforded. I ride the train everyday, so I benefit from the higher percentage of taxes granted to subsidize the railway on the New Haven line. However, I can see how people who don’t ride the train would be very angry. I don’t have the extra money to spend, but I do want better service for my 10 hours a week. Therefore, I am willing to drop something else from my budget for a better commute. I really do think it is the only way we will ever see a measurable improvement in the line.
8 anonymous // Nov 18, 2009 at 3:30 pm
they are never getting new trains. they should stop talking that garbage. its been 4 years and its always “next year new cars”.
9 johnny // Jan 8, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Metro-North wanted new trains years ago, but its your Connecticut dept of trans, that kept throwing the ideas out the window finally until 2006 when the idea finally passed. why else do you think the other two lines through NY state have had them for a better part of ten years already. Catenaries come down all the time, catenaries are also a Connecticut thing, at one time(the more efficient-in-every-way third rail was actually illegal in Conn) your comfort issues are a monkey on the back of CDOT, not so much the MTA in this instance.. they pushed for these things long ago in which CDot has to agree to fund on the NH Line, and has stood in the way of for the longest.
10 johnny // Jan 8, 2010 at 6:56 pm
by the way, they do have incentive to improve… you just need a basis for comparison. If you compare Metro-North to the PRIVATELY ran New York Central and New Haven Railroads they were back in the day (for YEARS), there is no comparison to quality and improvements- Metro-North is much better..
11 Chris (Admin) // Jan 9, 2010 at 11:06 am
johnny thanks for this post – I like to see the historical perspectives of MTA and ConnDOT on these issues.
Its too bad ConnDOT doesnt get more of the blame by riders since most of the riders don’t live near Hartford and only see the MTA/Metro-North service marks.
12 Chris (Admin) // Jan 9, 2010 at 11:25 am
johnny, there is only one meaningful yardstick for transit service to consumers, and that is relative to other modern transit services.
In this case, MTA is an ineffectively motivated organization in terms of service, maintenance, financial responsibility, corruption, communication, and most notably, leadership in modern transit.
I know this from speaking with people who work in that organization directly, and the way they speak about the rest of the organization.
Most of them are very competent individuals, but they recognize that the organization is flawed beyond repair and just kind of accept it.
13 johnny // Jan 12, 2010 at 1:37 pm
The railroads (Long Island and Metro-North) are ran separately than the MTA inner-city transit service. I feel the railroads are just mismanaged due to a lack of railroad people at the helm, e.i. they don’t have a broad scope of the actual operation. Their perception and decisions many times are blatantly flawed mainly for this reason. I really feel if they had a wider perspective it wouldn’t be this way… though there will always be complainers and the NY Post to rip into it.
14 anonymous // Jan 13, 2010 at 1:52 pm
i love their friendly(obese, miserable) ticket punchers. 60k a year with overtime and all i ever hear them do is complain about how theyre being screwed. LOOK AT THE RIDERS!!!
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