Uniting Suburbs, One Rail Project at a Time

After many stops and starts, the area’s major commuter railroads are finally trying to make it

easier for people to get from Connecticut to New Jersey.

That is if you are a Giants or a Jets fan.

By the fall of 2009, rail officials hope to run Metro-North trains from New Haven to

Pennsylvania Station and then on to Secaucus Junction, where Giants and Jets fans can

switch trains and ride one stop to a new station being built in the Meadowlands on a 1.9-

mile-long rail spur now under construction. The project is estimated to cost $190 million.

The game-day trains, which have been in the works for several months, have received

crucial backing from the governors of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, who, like rail

officials and train advocates, see them as the first of many efforts to breach Manhattan’s

geographical divide, uniting suburbs around the area.

“Our hope is that you would eventually have a more regional rail network,” said William M.

Wheeler, the director of special project development and planning at the Metropolitan

Transportation Authority, which oversees the Metro-North and the Long Island railroads.

“You’re seeing systems getting to the point where larger opportunities can now be

explored.”

The efforts were jump-started earlier this year by Elliot G. Sander, chief executive of the

authority, and his counterparts at New Jersey Transit. They have also received the blessing

of New Jersey’s governor, Jon S. Corzine, a big proponent of plans to build a second train

tunnel under the Hudson River.

Not to be outdone, Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut in June called for direct rail service to

Penn Station for Metro-North trains on the New Haven Line, and instructed the state’sDepartment of Transportation to look at “every available option” to provide service to the

West Side of Manhattan.

Later this year, Metro-North is expected to file a draft environmental impact statement with

the Federal Transit Administration, outlining its plans for commuter service from

Connecticut to Penn Station. The plan, however, does not include a proposal, which has

been discussed for years, that would link Grand Central Terminal to Penn Station. That

project, which would have given commuters easier access to both stations, has been

shelved for now.

Planners also hope to run trains from Trenton to New Haven and from Poughkeepsie to

Penn Station and then on to Long Island. New service to Yankee Stadium and expanded

service to Shea Stadium are other possibilities, as well as the development of stations in the

South Bronx and Co-op City in the Bronx. Many of these ideas will have to wait until

capacity in and out of Penn Station is expanded in the next decade.

Coordinating trains from Connecticut to the Meadowlands, which are expected to run only

on weekends during the football season, may not sound like sending men to the moon. But

given the deep institutional fissures that have long separated Amtrak, the L.I.R.R., MetroNorth and New Jersey Transit, it might as well be hailed as such.

The routes are not much of a problem. Amtrak already runs trains from Boston to New

Haven, through Penn Station and Secaucus on their way to Philadelphia. But the railroads

will need to use New Jersey Transit electric locomotives with coaches that could come from

Metro-North.

Metro-North, New Jersey Transit and Amtrak must work out how to deploy their crews,

particularly if they operate outside their normal territory. The railroads must figure out who

will be liable if trains or other property are damaged.

Tickets are expected to cost the equivalent of the fare of riding from Connecticut to Grand

Central Terminal plus the price of a New Jersey Transit ticket from Penn Station to the

Meadowlands. But fare collection and revenue sharing need to be determined. Like nearly

all public transportation, some portion of the service will be subsidized.

Scheduling is an issue, too. The New Jersey Transit trains that run to Connecticut on

Sundays will need to return to the yard, to be serviced and in place for the Monday morning

rush. That means service is possible only for day games. Amtrak must also grant

permission to use its platforms and tracks leading in and out of Penn Station, which is

already very crowded.

The agencies are confident they can work out the logistics and finances. Since all the

planners and engineers are in-house, the costs of setting up the service are minimal.But the project has taken up many man-hours, which has some riders and rail advocates

wondering why so much effort is being spent on shuttling football fans to games when

passengers are forced to stand during the busiest times of the work day and have trouble

finding parking at stations.

They also say that the railroads are not thinking broadly enough about regional train

transport. In several years, L.I.R.R. riders will have one-train access to the East Side of

Manhattan, while New Jersey Transit is building a second commuter rail tunnel under the

Hudson River that will increase capacity to the West Side.

But both of those efforts will include the construction of new stations that will require long

walks to Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station to make connections. And the new

stations will not connect the East and West Sides of Manhattan, as was originally

envisioned.

The second tunnel “has devolved into a project with lofty goals into a six-track addition to

Penn Station,” said Albert L. Papp Jr., of the New Jersey Association of Railroad

Passengers. “It’s nothing more than the trans- Hudson tunnel for riders from New Jersey,

but nothing else.”

Railroad officials say these huge projects will add extra capacity that will ultimately increase

access for riders. And the railroads are trying to keep up to meet emerging demand by

reverse commuters and others. By running trains in new directions during slower travel

periods, the railroads will also make better use of their resources.

“We are very much engaged in addressing the journey to work for most people, but there

are other needs,” said Richard T. Roberts, chief planner for New Jersey Transit. “There are a

lot of other things that people travel for, and if you have these huge assets, you can use it at

different times of the day.”

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