METRO NORTH NEW HAVEN RAIL COMMUTER COUNCIL

(Established in 1985 under Connecticut Public Act 85-239, now Sections 13b-212b and

13b -212c of the Connecticut General Statutes)

 

MINUTES OF JANUARY 21, 2009

SWRPA

Stamford, CT

 

Present were:  Jim Cameron, Chairman; Terri Cronin, Rodney Chabot, Bob Jelley, Jeff Steele, Jeff Maron, Drew Todd, Joe McGee and Roger Cirella, members of the Council; Gene Colonese, Jeff Parker and Jim Redecker, CDOT; John Longobardi and Jeff Watson, MNR; Jim McKenna, MTA Police; Richard Moccia, Mayor of Norwalk; John Austin, Sr., Kristan Tulp, Justin Watras, and Rick Riden, members of the public.

 

The meeting began at 7:00 pm.  The December minutes were approved.  Jim Cameron reported that Chris DeSanctis has resigned from the Council, because his employment activities do not permit him to attend meetings on a regular basis. 

 

NORWALK STATIONS AND PARKING

 

Mr. Cameron introduced Richard Moccia, Mayor of Norwalk.  Mayor Moccia said that he was at the meeting to discuss issues that had been raised about the East Norwalk and South Norwalk stations.  Terri Cronin said that there needed to be more parking at the East Norwalk station.  She said that people were “hoarding” parking passes, that is, buying passes but not using them on a regular basis.  The Mayor said that the City did not know who used their parking passes and who did not.  He also said that Norwalk sells only the number of passes as there are parking spaces.  He went on to say that the City did not have money to buy land for more parking, although he was in favor of acquiring additional land for parking at East Norwalk.  Jim Redecker said that when he was in New Jersey at NJ Transit, the practice was to oversell parking spaces. 

 

The Mayor raised the question of crime at the South Norwalk station.  He said that Norwalk is a city and that all cities have violent crime.  He said that most complaints were about fighting among cab drivers for fares.  He said that he thought the City was doing a good job on crime at the station.  He went on to say that he had been the one who decided to move the cabs from the eastbound side of the station to the westbound, and he thought that putting them on the westbound side had improved the situation. 

 

The Mayor said that the City was looking at making South Norwalk station intermodal, with busses meeting the trains.  He said that City had done a lot and spent a lot of money to improve the eastbound side of the station.  He also said that the City was studying a plan to alert commuters by text messaging on the availability of parking.  There was a question raised of closing the South Norwalk station garage at about 10:00 a.m., when it was full.   While the issue was discussed, it was not resolved.

 

Joe McGee asked what Norwalk was doing to get more parking at the South Norwalk station.  The Mayor said that there was a federal study and shuttle buses were running peak hours to the Maritime garage.  Gene Colonese pointed out that both the South Norwalk station and the station parking garage were owned by the City of Norwalk, not the DOT. 

 

NEW HAVEN RAIL YARD

 

Mr. Cameron commented on the Hill report commissioned by Governor Rell, which studied the proposed improvements to the New Haven rail yard to accommodate the new M-8 cars.  Jeff Parker said that the DOT was working on a financing scheme to finance Tier I of the improvements.  He said that the M-8 acceptance facility is already being built. 

 

STATION PARKING

 

Mr. Parker noted that the Governor’s press release issued this day announced the establishment of a task force, lead by Mr. Redecker on parking.  He said that the task force will reach out to the Council for help.  He said the parking problem will be focused on the southwest part of the state.  He said that there was a lot of parking being built in West Haven along with a new station and mentioned construction of a second parking garage at Union Station.  Mr. Redecker said that there was a partnership issue, and it would take time to work out parking relationships with the various towns. 

 

Jeff Steele raised the question of the new Metro project station in Fairfield and said that the parking was planned only as a surface lot.  He wondered if it shouldn’t be a two or three story garage.  He said that the town is building the parking lot but that the DOT was building the station.  Gene Colonese said that the DOT was considering transit-oriented development in connection with the new station.  Mr. Parker said that the Task Force needs to look at that project.  Mr. Redecker noted that the Village of Maplewood, NJ had rejected additional parking at its railroad station in favor of shuttle busses. 

 

Mr. Parker pointed out that the bonding commission had approved money for design of the new parking garage in New Haven and also had approved money for station repairs that had been noted in the visual report on all stations several years ago.  Mr. Cameron thanked the Governor for the things that she was doing to improve both stations and parking. 

 

SHOVEL-READY PROJECTS

 

Mr. McGee asked whether the CDOT had put together a list of shovel-ready projects that could be funded by federal stimulus money.  Mr. Parker said that his understanding of shovel-ready was that it meant projects that were ready to go out for bid, and he said that there were such projects.  A member of the public from Enfield suggested that a good project was to build a second track on those portions of the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line that are only single track at this time.  He also spoke of trucks hitting low railroad bridges in Norwalk.  He also raised the question of police communications equipment so that MTA Police can talk to police departments. 

 

MAIN LINE ISSUES

 

There was discussion of the test prototype bike hooks for the new M-8 cars that were displayed on a couple of M-7 cars at Grand Central Terminal.  Ms. Cronin said that with the hooks, it was also necessary to use a bungee chord to hold a bike in place.  She said that the hanging arrangement made the bicycles seem wobbly, and said that she was concerned about grease and dirt from bicycles getting on passengers clothes.  She pointed out that the handicapped space allocated for two bicycles would otherwise provide seating for four passengers and raised the question of priority as between passengers, bicycles and passengers in wheelchairs.  Mr. Colonese said that the DOT was looking at a better way to secure bicycles.  Mr. Steele said that he was also concerned about the stability of hung bicycles and suggested that bicycles should be hung flat against the outside wall of the car rather than perpendicular to the wall and projecting into the aisle. 

 

Mr. Cronin said that there are a lot of bar cars missing recently and Mr. Colonese said that they have had some problems but the availability of bar cars will improve. 

 

MONTHLY OPERATIONS REPORT

 

Mr. Colonese said that there had been a decrease in ridership in December.  Bob Jelley raised the question of whether ridership was affected by Christmas being on a Thursday.  Mr. Colonese said that Metro North adjusts ridership figures for things like that. 

 

John Longobardi said that consist compliance was down because of very bad weather in December.  He said cars without heat were taken out of service.  There was some discussion of whether cars without heat should be run anyway, and Mr. Longobardi said that they were too uncomfortable. 

 

Mr. Longobardi discussed the problem on New Year’s Eve with two trains, one of which got caught in a catenary wire and its rescue train which also got caught in the wire.  That incident shut down all tracks.  Eventually a diesel was brought in to rescue the passengers.  He said that it had taken three days to discover the actual cause of the problem. 

 

BRANCH LINE ISSUES

 

Rodney Chabot raised the question of a problem with flat wheels on a Waterbury line train and wondered why there were not cars to replace the train.  Mr. Longobardi said it was the locomotive that was the problem and there was not a spare engine.

 

Mr. Jelley raised the problem of a shortage of operating locomotives on Shore Line East, resulting in train cancellations.  Mr. Colonese said that the DOT was planning to electrify the Guilford station siding and track one siding so that M-8s can run on Shore Line East. 

 

 

 

 

STAMFORD GARAGE

 

Mr. Parker said that the CDOT was working with developers on a garage as part of the larger project at the Stamford station.  He said that the DOT was also designing a new garage, in the event that a partnership with a developer did not work.  He said that his decision will be made by the end of 2009.  Mr. Jelley pointed out the high rise apartment building and garage being built in New Haven on the Shartenburg site, directly across from State Street station, as a good example of parking being provided along with residential use. 

 

MISCELLANEOUS

 

Mr. Jelley pointed out that a handout at GCT speaking of service cuts and fare increases, said that Metro North was discussing service cuts and fare increases in two stages with CDOT.  He asked what that meant.  Mr. Parker said he did not know. 

 

Ms. Cronin reported that she continues to see a lot of failure to collect tickets. 

 

Mr. Cameron said that PIRG had asked the Rail Council to become a partner with it in seeking railroad improvements.  Mr. Jelley suggested that it was inappropriate for the Rail Council, which is a State agency, to partner with a non-governmental organization.  Ms. Cronin and Jeff Maron agreed, and it was decided not to partner with PIRG. 

 

Mr. Cameron said that, due to poor attendance, he had decided that the February and March meetings should be in Stamford, rather than in New Haven and GCT as originally scheduled.  Council members agreed.

 

The next meeting will take place at SWRPA in Stamford at 7:00 pm. on Wednesday, February 25, 2009.

 

Bob Jelley

Secretary

Phone:  (203) 498-4306

e-mail :  rjelley@wiggin.com